Chapter 35
Daed
Before her. I cut through the night sky, wings beating in slow, lazy arcs. The wind sings against my feathers, cool and damp, and now and then my eyes slip shut. My wings fold back. My body tips forward. I plummet toward the black roll of the ocean below.
Only the sting of rain wakes me, cold needles against my skin. I pull up at the last breath, boot heels scraping the water, laughter spilling out of me, wild and unrestrained, as the spires of Baev’kalath pierce the horizon.
I narrow my eyes, trying to anyway, intent on making a graceful landing on the balcony. Instead, my boot catches the railing. My momentum flips me head over heels, and I slam onto the stone. The roll doesn’t stop until I crash against the fortress wall with a solid, skull-rattling thud.
I stay there for a moment, curled and groaning, pain blooming down my spine. Then, inevitably, I start laughing again.
Dragging myself upright, I clumsily limp down the halls, staggering toward the throne room, and when I finally arrive, I shove the great doors open with a dramatic flourish. The booming crack of them hitting their hinges echoes through the dark.
“My king and queen,” I proclaim, arms spread wide. “I am home!”
Father sits slouched on his throne, fingers drumming against the armrest, his scowl cutting even through the dim candlelight.
“Where have you been, Daedalus?” he demands. “It’s been weeks.”
I shrug, dragging my sorry carcass closer. Even the flicker of the candles feels like blinding sunlight in my bleary eyes. “Enjoying the fine hospitality of Eyr’Drogul. Lord Reon had some… pressing thrall-house matters to discuss.”
“All you’ve done is drink yourself into a stupor,” Lanneth snaps from her seat beside him. “You shame yourself, Daedalus. You shame us.”
I tilt my head toward her, grinning without warmth. “My queen. That is simply not true. You hardly need me to embarrass you. You do well enough on your own. Do you know what they whisper about you?” I do not give her time to answer. “No? Then please allow me…”
“Silence, Daedalus!” Father roars, surging to his feet.
I halt mid-step, swaying, biting my lip as I glare at him. The pathetic excuse for a king. For a father.
“You will clean up and sober yourself immediately. We have important news.”
I exhale, his severity dulling the pleasant burn in my veins. “What now?”
Lanneth’s smile coils through me like poison.
“She is on her way, Daedalus.”
I roll my eyes, weary of their riddles. “Who is on their way?”
“Your wife,” Father says flatly.
For a beat, I just stare at him. “I’m aware I’m drunk, but I could have sworn you just said wife.”
“I did. We told you we would not wait much longer. If you wouldn’t choose, we would.” His gaze drops to Lanneth, who lays her long fingers over his arm like she’s claiming a prize. “And we have struck a bargain that will see our house flourish.”
The wine in my blood feels as if it evaporates all at once. My shoulders square. My hand rakes through my damp hair, jaw tightening.
“Who is she, then? What Fae house have we bound ourselves to?”
Father shakes his head. “Not Fae. Human.”
No. I must have misheard him.“
A joke, then? Why would you marry me to a human? What possible advantage could that give us?”
“All you need do is your duty, Daedalus,” he says, voice flat and cold and devoid of feeling. “Wed her. Bed her. Put an heir in her belly. Then do whatever you like with her. I couldn’t care less. But until your task is complete, you will behave. Do you understand?”
“And if I don’t want to marry this human?” My voice drops to a growl. “If I don’t behave? If I cut off her head the moment I lay eyes on her just to spite you?”
Lanneth rises, skeletal fingers unfurling toward me. Her face twists, her voice turns shrill. “You will do as he commands you!”
And I feel it. The pull. The darkness. Creeping in, coiling around my mind like smoke.
She doesn’t mean my father when she says he.
She means Gygarth. The Father Below. His presence channels through her, dripping into me, inevitable as the tide.
My mind screams no, but my body knows the truth: Gygarth is eternal.
He dwells in me as I dwell in him. We are one.
I clench my fists until nails pierce skin. Bite my lip until I taste copper. Fight the void’s pull with everything I have.
“At least tell me who she is,” I snarl through my teeth.
My father and Lanneth lower themselves back into their thrones, all regal precision, clasping hands between them like they’ve already won.
“You know her,” Father says. “The girl Eryndor feared was Awakened. The human in his forest. Amara, I think. I’ve already forgotten.”
But I haven’t. Not for a single day.
Amara Tyne, the woman whose golden threads twine perfectly with mine.
No, she cannot come here. If she comes, they will discover what she is. Discover I lied. And then… she will die.
“What if I take another wife instead?” I blurt, desperate. “A Fae one. It would be disgusting to pollute our bloodline.”
Father laughs, low and cold. “You had your chance. Instead you’ve spent your nights drunk, rotting on the islands of the Untold Sea. Besides…” He leans back, sighing as though this conversation bores him. “She is already on her way.”
The words land like a blade between my ribs. “She is?”
He nods. “Any day now. So clean yourself up and prepare to greet your wife.”
I stare at him, waiting for him to come to his senses. But he’s already turned to Lanneth, falling under her touch as she strokes his cheek like she’s petting a prized hound.
I spin on my heel, bile burning my throat. “Keep your expectations low,” I throw over my shoulder. “You may force me to marry her, but you cannot make me love her.”
“Who said anything about love?” Kaelus calls after me. “I just want a wedding and an heir, Daedalus. You’re too ruined for anything else.”
My step falters. I half-turn, meet his eyes once more, but the words that crowd my mouth taste like ash. I swallow them whole, turn back toward the door, and leave.
***
After her. The void has never been so black, so devouring.
Endless. Infinite. I walk its depths for hours, days, perhaps, treading on nothing but smoke and shadow, screaming until my throat is raw, my voice a withered husk on the windless air.
No one answers. Not even the demons that haunt the farthest, foulest corners.
The void is empty.
They’re hiding in An’kel. A place I cannot reach. He knows that.
For all the curses the Father Below shackled to my soul, opening a portal to his kingdom was not among them. But today… today I try again.
With Emranth’s power now bound to mine, there must be hope. He could travel between realms. So perhaps… perhaps I can too.
What do I have to lose? Everything worth losing is already gone.
My father, for all his cruelty, was still my sire, my king.
My mother, stolen before she could give me a name.
My daughter, wrenched from my arms by the very thing I feared most. And my wife…
my Amara. My heart. She dances between the worlds of life and death, and I do not know if we will reach the Grove before the music stops forever.
I stand in the dark, the silence a living, hollow thing, its thrum echoing in my skull. Emranth’s power coils within me, threaded through my own magic, his wails a constant, desperate plea in the back of my mind. I shove them aside. Voices in my head are nothing new.
I reach deep. Past the smoke, past the shadow, hunting for that elusive thread of power, the one that will rip the wall between the void and An’kel to shreds. The one that will take me to my daughter. To Gygarth.
I will kill him when I find him. Kill him and be free at last.
How? I haven’t dared think that far. I can barely think at all these days. But with a blade in my hand and hatred boiling in my blood, I will carve a way to make the god of death bleed for every piece of me he has stolen.
My body screams as I try to wrench the magic from Emranth’s grasp. Veins throb, muscles burn, teeth grind. But no power answers my call.
I fall to my knees. Fists clenched so hard the skin over my knuckles feels paper-thin, ready to tear. I lift my gaze, lungs dragging for breath, heart desperate for even the smallest sliver of light in the dark.
There is none.
No whisper of An’kel beyond the layers of realms. Only the void and it is endless.
A breath rattles out of me, long, shuddering.
There’s sorrow in it, sharp as broken glass.
A sound no one else will ever hear, because it comes from somewhere too deep, too fragile.
I do not breathe it into the shadows, for fear they might swallow it whole, for fear they might know the truth it carries:
That I am weak. That I am hopeless.
That after everything, I could not keep them safe.
That I have failed.
That I was never meant to hold anything good in my hands for long.
That death and pain are the only companions I will ever know.
When the last shred of breath leaves me, the void unravels like smoke in the wind.
The deck solidifies beneath my knees. Salt-laced air whips against my skin, carrying the roar of the distant waves. Above, the hunter’s moon blazes, full and beaming in a stretch of midnight sky.
“No luck again?”
Zyphoro leans against the railing, the wind tugging her dark curls into a wild halo as moonlight gilds her cheekbones.
I drag my gaze to her, chest still heaving from the effort. Then I shake my head, chin bowing until I can’t bear to meet her eyes.
“I cannot open the portal.”
Silence falls so thick it smothers. For a heartbeat, I think she’s gone. But when I look up again, she’s still there. Her eyes pinned to mine, her jaw tight enough to crack.
“If you have something to say, say it,” I bite out, sharper than I intend.
“You won’t like it.” Her voice is quiet, edged with a sigh.
“When has that ever stopped you?”
She straightens, shoulders rolling back. Nervous. That is never a good sign.