Chapter 58
Chapter
Fifty-Eight
S orae’s feathers ruffled in the wind as I carved a line through the spun-silk clouds, soaring above endless lilac slopes that stretched to the horizon in a rugged sea of snow and stone.
Despite its beauty, the Montios terrain seemed desolate, too harsh for life to survive. After nearly an hour of flying, I hadn’t laid eyes on a single soul.
But much like the black canyons of Umbros, the true story of this realm lay under the surface. Somewhere beneath, a Descended court thrived.
And though I couldn’t seem to find them, I was all but certain they were watching me.
Last night, Luther had not just taken first watch—he’d kept his vigil all night, claiming I needed the sleep to refill my magic and my mother needed to rebuild her strength from her mistreatment in prison. I’d put on a good show of rolling my eyes and scolding him, but my heart couldn’t stop twirling at the gesture.
If he’d been trying to win my mother over, his efforts went sorely unnoticed. She’d offered a stiff smile and a muttered thanks, then they both fell right back into their silent standoff.
The rift between them tore through the center of my heart. My mother had treated Henri like a son, caring for him as genuinely as I had, and I hadn’t realized until now how much that had meant. It wounded me to watch her scowl at the man I loved and watch Luther retreat behind his walls as a result. A confrontation was inevitable, but after waking in the night more than once to find my mother softly weeping over my father’s death, I begrudgingly held my tongue.
Besides, my mother and I had our own battles to fight. My questions for her loomed large, casting us in their shadow. I’d planned to wait until our reunion with Teller, knowing he deserved the same answers, but I wasn’t sure how much longer I could last.
She was a fuse, and I was a bomb. It was no longer a question of whether I would explode, but where and when—and who would get hurt in the blast.
At dawn, we’d moved to a cave where Luther could sleep while my mother and I kept watch. When I felt the brush of his aura as his magic temporarily slipped through the Forging spell’s grip, I gave my mother a vague excuse about scouting for food and water and jumped on Sorae’s back, hurriedly flying away.
It hadn’t entirely been a lie, but within minutes, I spotted a nearby stream with an abundance of animals we could hunt. When I bit down and urged Sorae to keep flying, I had to admit to myself I had a bigger reason to get away.
I needed air. Air, space, and solitude. Time to think, time to come to terms with what happened in Fortos and the new Crown that sat on my head. Time to wrestle the conflicting emotions that were fueling me on while simultaneously burning all the oxygen from my lungs.
Time to plan a war.
And, if I happened to find some Montios Descended to provoke into a fight so I could absorb their magic and go home—well, I wouldn’t complain.
Barren as it was, there was a gentle beauty to the Montios terrain. The immovability of the mountains was strangely soothing, a reminder of their calm permanence through millennia of conflict. These slopes had been here long before the Kindred, and they would still be here long after the Descended died out. They’d outlasted the rise and fall of countless rulers, and they would survive the horrors of any war. Whatever became of me and my fate, these mountains would endure. Somehow, that gave me peace.
Sorae whirred excitedly, which I’d learned the hard way was a warning to tighten my grip. My stomach went weightless as she plunged into a spiraling freefall, then snapped her wings out at the last second to send us skirting along an incline of jagged rock. She banked to the left and swept past a waterfall, her wingbeats stirring the mist into tiny droplets that clung to my unbound hair.
Stuck at the Crown’s side century after century, Sorae so rarely had the chance to fly for her own pleasure. When I’d commanded her to let loose and explore, the bliss that coated the bond was as heady as a drug. I whooped and hollered, egging her on with my laughter, embracing every surge of adrenaline her aerobatics sent blazing through my veins. It was a relief to feel my heart pounding from welcome excitement for a change and exactly what I’d needed to return a smile to my face.
“Come on,” I mumbled as I scoured the ground. “Show yourselves. Come outside and play.”
Sorae snorted in agreement, clouds of smoke puffing from her nostrils.
I grinned. “Aren’t you supposed to keep me out of trouble?”
A proud kind of confidence flickered back. She’d seen enough of my battles to know I wouldn’t be in any real danger from a minor skirmish, and after being wounded yesterday, she was champing at the bit for a brawl, too.
It struck me suddenly that Sorae must have done this same thing with the goddess Lumnos all those millennia ago, traversing the skies over the forests she would eventually claim as her own.
“Did you love Lumnos?” I asked Sorae, stroking my hand along her dark, iridescent scales. “Do you miss her?”
Jumbled emotions came answering back. An enduring love for her Kindred master, whom Sorae had followed to this world out of loyalty, not obligation. Sadness, even now, at her loss. Resentment, for the chains the Kindred had imposed on her kind, prioritizing the safety of their Descended offspring over the gryverns’ freedom. Betrayal, for the separation from her beloved Tybold.
My temper rankled, wondering how the Kindred could have done such a thing to the creatures who had stood by them so faithfully. Then again, what moral superiority could I claim, when my own choices had entrapped my brother’s freedom though his loyalty to me rivaled even Luther’s?
“So you cared for Lumnos,” I mused aloud. “What of the other Kindred, were you fond of them?”
A strange, strangled feeling came washing back. Like there was something she wished to share but could not.
My eyebrows rose slowly. “Were there some you disliked?”
When her gaze shifted back to me, her golden slitted pupils seemed to deepen to an ominous bronze. A dark rumble rolled in her throat.
I sat up straighter. “Which one? Fortos? It was Fortos, wasn’t it? I knew he must have been a prick.”
A ripple of amusement shot back, but beyond that, she didn’t answer.
“Was it Montios? Sophos?”
Again, no answer. I listed off each of the remaining Kindred, and though flickers of mild feeling accompanied some, none inspired the harsh darkness I’d felt in her a moment ago.
I frowned. “Who was it, then?”
My throat went tight in phantom pains as Sorae strained against the bounds of whatever held her back.
Her head slowly turned to the east, snarling and fangs bared. My heart skipped a beat. I searched for some sign of danger, but nothing was there.
I looked again at Sorae—her gaze wasn’t on the sky, but on the ground.
In the distance, the mountains gave way to a dark forest set on a series of steep, undulating hills. Its trees were blackened and gnarled, like each one had been burned—or poisoned. At its center, set into a low valley whose base I couldn’t see, several columns of smoke rose into the air.
My godhood stirred. It was still deeply weakened and lethargic, but wide awake, and sharply aware in a way I’d never felt it before. It pressed to the edges of my skin, tugging me toward the shadowy trees.
Claim me, Daughter of the Forgotten .
I jolted upright in surprise. My godhood had only spoken that phrase to me twice before—each time I’d surrendered to a Crown.
Something else tickled at my mind. A memory, perhaps, or a dream. An image of screaming and bloodshed, of explosions and a blinding light. Of my mother’s arms around me and a crushing pain.
Sorae let out a low whine. I shook my head to clear the vision.
“That must be the Guardians’ camp my mother mentioned,” I said, squinting at the distant smoke. Sorae’s muscles tensed beneath my legs. I suspected she wasn’t keen for another showdown with the mortals like the one we’d had in Arboros. Neither was I.
Still... something was calling me toward that forest. A pull from deep within. A sense that the course of my fate ran through those hills.
Trust your instincts , Luther had told me.
And my instincts were telling me there was something I needed to see.
A glance at the sun warned I’d been gone longer than I’d planned. I blew out a frustrated sigh. I couldn’t risk being away when Luther’s magic went dark again, and I’d promised him no more running into danger alone.
Begrudgingly, I pushed my instincts aside and set Sorae into a swift pace for our return. My heart broke a little at her disappointment, and I silently renewed my vow to find some way to set her free.
“Were you friends with Rymari, the Montios gryvern?” I asked.
A heavy sadness bled across the bond, a sorrow tinted with shame that left me wondering if she’d been involved in the battle that had weakened Rymari enough for the Guardians to strike her down.
I stroked my hand gently along the fur of her leonine haunches. “Whatever happened, it wasn’t your fault. That blame lies on her killer.”
She sent back a pulse of gratitude, but her guilt didn’t ebb, and I understood—no amount of hating my father’s murderer would ease the blame I felt over his death, either.
“I think Rymari saved our lives back in Umbros,” I said, thinking back on the jar of lavender flame that had put an end to the Umbros Queen’s attack. “I wish I had some way to thank her.”
Sorae took a sudden sharp turn off our path.
I opened my mouth to order her back on course, but Sorae snapped her jaws before I could get the words out, her clicking fangs seeming to beg me to stop before she was bound to obey.
As we drew closer to the ground, I noticed something odd. This part of the mountains had no snow, but at the center of a grassy plateau lay an impossibly perfect circle of unblemished white.
Sorae landed just beside it. The draft of her wings sent a whirl of snowflakes flying out of the circle and into the air. She bent to the ground to let me dismount, then crept forward to the circle’s edge. She hung her head low, her eyes closing, her wings folding back. There was something almost reverent to her stance.
I walked to the circle and stared up, slack-jawed. Snow fell in a steady flurry— only above the circle. I reached out a hand into its perimeter and marveled at how countless glittering flakes settled softly onto my fingers, but not a single speck of white made it further than my wrist.
“This is where Rymari died, isn’t it?” I whispered, remembering the lore I’d heard about this place from the man in the Umbros market.
Sorae let out a mournful whine. I dropped to my knees at her side and laid a hand on her muzzle. We sat together for a long while, saying nothing, my gryvern grieving her lost friend while I lamented the death of a creature I’d never known.
I held out a palm. My brows pulled together in sharp concentration as I wrangled the small bit of magic that had restored overnight, and a shape began to take form.
At first, the best I could manage was a sharp, ragged spear of crystal-clear ice. I’d never used my magic in such an intricate way, and I was surprised at how much energy and focus it required.
I’d learned from my training with Alixe that the more familiar we were with an object, the easier it was to replicate with magic. That’s why crafting weapons had come naturally to me. Sharp points and blunt objects, I could handle with ease, but this... this required so much more than might alone.
Sorae watched curiously as the glassy shard thinned to a delicate strand, then sprouted with a pair of curling ovals that stretched to a point. A rough globe spun at the top, then shaved into a hundred paper-thin slices, ruffling and spreading like petals opening to the sun.
My hand sank to my side. At the circle’s center, sunlight gleamed off a single rose of pure ice.
I bowed my head and murmured the sacred Rite of Endings. When I finished, Sorae’s snout nuzzled against my side, and I wrapped my arms around her, holding her close.
Perhaps I should have conserved my magic in case we ran into trouble, but after Rymari saved my life from beyond the grave, I felt I owed her something . The last of my magic seemed a worthy trade for the last of her fire.
A cloud passed over the sun, casting us in a gloomy patch of shadow. A sudden weight pressed on my head, and light flickered across the snow.
I frowned in realization. My Crown had appeared, emerging entirely on its own. I quickly tucked it out of sight and shared a bemused glance with Sorae. “That was odd,” I mumbled. “I wonder wh—”
A skittering sounded behind us. Sorae was on her feet in an instant, teeth bared and growling. Blue dragonfyre glowed from the depths of her throat.
“Easy, girl,” I whispered, rising. “Let them attack. I need their magic.”
I crept forward, eyes narrowing. The barren rock was static and inhospitable—no sign of life, let alone movement.
“Hello?” I called out. “Is someone there?”
A slow creaking broke the silence, like old bones moving after a long rest—this time from our flank. We whipped back around. Sorae’s wing curled protectively around me, but again, we saw only infinite stone.
Sorae trilled and turned her head to the distance, where a column of dark shadow curled its way to the sky.
Luther’s magic.
I swore and swung myself onto her back, and she instantly launched into flight. My heart hammered—had they been found? Had they been attacked? Had my reckless choice put them in danger yet again?
But as the cave came nearer, my pulse raced for a different reason. Luther stood at its mouth, arms crossed over his chest, looking absolutely murderous . My mother stood beside him, hands balled at her sides, her eyes dark.
They weren’t in danger.
But I was.
Sorae grumbled a warning at them both when we landed, her protective instincts prickling as she sensed their malice. Though neither of them would ever do me any real harm, ever since my father’s murder, my sweet gryvern had guarded my happiness as fiercely as my safety.
“You’re awake,” I said to Luther with false brightness. “I’d hoped to be back before you woke.” I lowered my lashes, offering my flirtiest smile. “Any good dreams?”
His glare was the stuff of nightmares. His normally pale eyes were now a swirling midnight, the shadow magic within him stirring thick in his gaze.
Something must have been deeply, deeply wrong with me, because as he stared at me looking like he wanted to uncage the fearsome monster that lived beneath his skin, warmth tingled between my legs.
I wet my lips, my eyes dropping to his mouth. His knuckles turned white where he gripped his arms.
“Where have you been?” my mother seethed.
I forced myself to tear my heady focus off Luther. “I found a stream with trees we can hide under and plenty of animals to hunt. It’s only a short walk. We should be safe there until we can leave.”
“You said you’d only be gone a few minutes. It’s been half the afternoon.”
I shrugged. “I lost track of time at the stream.”
“You’re lying,” Luther ground out.
My mother nodded sharply. “Indeed, she is.”
I had to admit, I was enjoying the sight of them working together, even if it was to lecture me. “I took a short flight to get a look at our surroundings. I didn’t think you’d even notice I was gone.”
“You think I wouldn’t notice your aura disappearing, like you’d died at my side?” Luther snarled, his voice rising. “You think that wouldn’t pull me out of the deepest sleep and reach for you in a panic to make sure you’re alright?”
My pathetic heart swooned a little.
I walked forward and laid a hand on his arm. His muscles were fully taut, solid as steel beneath his skin. “I’m sorry I worried you,” I said gently. “I felt your magic come back, and I knew it wouldn’t stay long, so I had to act quickly.”
He eased slightly at my touch, though his scowl was still fierce. “You should have told me first.”
My mother looked between us, anger slowly turning into suspicion. “Why are you apologizing to him? You took off and ran, Diem. I was terrified.”
“I wonder where she picked up her habit of disappearing on the people who love her with no explanation,” Luther said flatly.
My mother whirled on him. My mouth popped open as she jabbed her finger into his chest. “You stay out of this. You have no authority over what she does. She is a Queen. ”
He squared his shoulders to her, towering over her tiny form. “A Queen whose Crown you do not even recognize.”
So much for them working together.
“She is my daughter,” my mother hissed.
“ And she is my —” He stopped himself abruptly, his roar echoing off the stone. His jaw clenched and unclenched. “At least I have sworn her my oath. You and your rebels would die before you did the same.”
I cocked my head and shot her a look. He had a point.
She bristled. “What I think of her Crown is irrelevant. She and I are family. You are just her subject.”
“He is not just my subject,” I said, a bit too quickly. A bit too intensely. “He is my...” I shifted my weight, swallowing thickly. “...my closest advisor. It is his duty to speak his mind to me freely.”
I stole a glance at Luther. His expression slammed down behind the icy, unbothered veneer of the Prince, but not before I caught a flicker of disappointment in his eyes.
My stomach twisted with regret. I wasn’t ashamed of him, or of us, and I hated that he might think I was. Avoiding a fight with my mother wasn’t worth it if it came at his expense.
Luther had told me that I was enough . He deserved to know that he was, too.
I drew in a long breath. “Mother, there’s something I—”
Sorae’s low rumble cut me off. The hair along her spine prickled. She turned to face a line of wild vegetation nearby, her wings puffing out to shield us behind them.
Luther nudged my mother into the back of the cave. He tried to do the same to me, but I resisted, craning my neck to see what had caught her notice.
Snow cascaded off the leafless branches of the shrubs as they jostled with movement. Sorae’s growl deepened, vibrating through the stone at my feet. Luther and I shared a somber glance.
“Who’s there?” I called out uneasily.
A group draped in dark cloaks, their hoods pulled low to conceal their faces, stepped forward into the open. Luther and I dipped beneath Sorae’s wing to stand at her shoulder.
“Show yourself,” I demanded.
The man at the center raised his chin. Red eyes gleamed from beneath his hood as he raised a crossbow loaded with a godstone-tipped arrow. “Hello again, Your Majesty.”
The Fortos commander. The same one we’d fought at the Lumnos palace—the same man who had launched a bolt at us with the aim to kill.
The others threw back their cloaks. More soldiers. More weapons, many tipped with glittering black.
“The Regent of Lumnos ordered you to stay in Lumnos and turn over that gryvern,” he called out.
I rolled my eyes dramatically to hide my relief that they hadn’t heard the news of what I’d done in Fortos. “If Remis wants my gryvern, he can get her himself. I’m not stopping her.” I glanced at Sorae. “Do you want to go serve Remis?”
She snarled loudly, and I looked back to the man with a smirk and a shrug.
“It doesn’t matter what either of you want,” he said coolly. “You defied the Lumnos Crown’s orders. That makes you subject to arrest.”
“ She is the Lumnos Crown,” Luther shot back. “My father is a usurper. And this is Montios, not Lumnos. The army can’t enforce his orders here.”
The man chuckled with disquieting triumph. “Well then, if she is the Crown, then she’s subject to arrest for visiting a foreign realm uninvited. Either way, she’s coming with me.”
I stared at the wave of sharp godstone pointed at me—and more importantly, at Luther. “If my gryvern and I go with you, will you let my Prince remain here?”
Luther’s head snapped to me. “Diem, no.”
I didn’t look at him, only the Fortos commander, whose hateful grin continued to grow. “Only if you come peacefully. If you resist, he pays the price.”
I nodded slowly and walked toward him. Luther moved to block me, and the commander’s finger tightened on the trigger of his crossbow.
“Stop,” I begged. My eyes stayed on the commander, but my plea was all for my Prince.
Stay with my mother , I said into his thoughts with the last tiny shreds of my magic. Get her to Teller.
“Don’t do this,” he begged.
I cleared my throat. “Sorae, return to the Lumnos palace. Once you’re there, obey Remis’s commands as if they were my own.”
Her steps were heavy and sluggish, as if she was fighting against the magic that bound her to my orders, even knowing her protests were in vain. With a hung head and a heartbroken whirr, she leapt into the sky, disappearing into the clouds a few moments later.
I couldn’t bear to look at Luther as I strode forward and offered up my wrists. The commander grabbed them and jerked me forward, nearly sending me tumbling down a rocky slope.
“You hurt a hair on her head,” Luther growled, “and I will hunt you down and remove yours from your neck.”
The commander chuckled, unmoved by his threats. One of his men clamped shackles to my arms and ankles.
“Oh, and one more little thing,” he said to me casually. Too casually. “We’ll be executing your mother before we go.”
“No,” I breathed.
He raised his crossbow to my chest, the godstone tip so close it snagged the fabric. “Go into the cave and get the prisoner,” he barked at his men. “Tell her if she fights back, her daughter dies. If the Prince fights back, they all die.”
The soldiers stormed by Luther, taunting him with jeers and vulgar promises of what they might do to my mother before she died, trying to goad him into a reaction so they’d have an excuse to fulfill their leader’s threat. But Luther, my valiant Prince, held silent and strong, his smoldering focus on the godstone bolt at my chest.
As the men reached the cave, a slow rumble filled the air. The ground began to tremble, and I staggered to stay upright as the quakes turned violent.
“What the hell are you doing?” the commander shouted.
The ground jerked beneath him, sending him crashing into my side and jolting the crossbow’s trigger. I sucked in a breath as the bowstring twanged—then gasped in relief as the arrow hit the stone ground and snapped in half.
I tumbled forward, wincing at the crack of my knees against jagged rock. The strange creaking sound I’d heard at Rymari’s gravesite cut through the chaos.
Then, the rumbling stopped. The earth stilled.
“Fortos’s cock,” a soldier swore. “How’d she do that? ”
My eyes shot up. At the cave where my mother had been hiding, a smooth slab of lavender stone had appeared out of nowhere, sealing off the entrance completely.
“You broke the deal,” the commander barked.
I shook my head frantically. “No—no, that wasn’t me, I swear. I don’t—”
“It wasn’t her.”
As one, our heads turned to the quiet, youthful voice.
“It was us.”
A young girl of about seven stood at the edge of the clearing outside the cave. Her face was grave, her copper hair wild and windswept. A semicircle of twenty adults spread out at her back, all in matching grey robes wrapped with hides of white fur—and all with lavender eyes.
Montios Descended.
“I’m afraid you won’t be taking anyone with you, Commander,” the child said. “The Lumnos Queen is in our realm uninvited. That makes her and her guests our prisoners.” Her stare shifted to me. “It’s our Crown who will decide your fate.”