Chapter 40 #2
I land hard in the center of the camp, boots striking earth beside the last burning pyre.
Smoke coils up around me, wrapping my armor in shifting shadow.
I wait, eyes sweeping over the maze of tents, expecting the Legion to flood from them in waves of steel and fury. But nothing moves. Nothing breathes.
My jaw tightens.
Across the clearing, I catch Orios’s gaze, the same unease written on his face. We Mordorin are no strangers to victory, but this kind of surrender is not in our enemy’s nature.
I storm toward the nearest tent and rip the canvas flap aside. Empty. No soldiers. No sound. Only a single candle burning low, its flame barely clinging to life. I move to the next tent, and the next. All the same.
“Rook!” Orios calls out as I step from another tent. “There is no one here.”
My fists clench. I tear off my helm and suck in a ragged breath, smoke burning my throat.
“Zyphoro!” My voice cracks the night, raw and sharp, carrying all the guilt, all the grief I have buried for centuries, the thousand apologies I owe her for the life she lost. “Where are you?”
The wind steals the echo, and silence answers me again.
The Blades scour the camp, tearing through every corner, but the only sign of the Legion are our prisoners. The rest are gone. Vanished.
Orios finds me again, eyes cutting across the emptiness. “Why does she not answer? Why doesn’t she void walk? What could these humans possibly do to contain her?”
He’s right. Nothing in this realm could silence Zyphoro. Nothing mortal.
“I’ll ask them myself,” I snarl.
In a single bound I clear half the encampment, landing hard on the wall platform, wood splintering beneath me. I seize a Legion lookout by the collar and haul him into the air, his body limp, his head lolling.
“Wake up,” I boom. When he doesn’t stir, I shake him until his teeth rattle. “I said wake up!”
His eyes snap open and the moment he sees me, terror floods his face. His hands claw at my wrist as he realizes I’m holding him over the edge.
“Where is Zyphoro Phaedren?” I snarl, my voice cracking like thunder. My eyes blaze white, the shadows bending away from me. “Where is my sister?”
“I will tell you nothing,” he hisses through gritted teeth, though fear threads every syllable. “I would rather die.”
“Oh, you will die,” I growl, my fist closing in the collar of his shirt until the weave groans.
“But not soon. Not quick. It will be long and slow. I will cut through each layer of your soft flesh, pull out what should stay inside and lay it beside you so you can see the horror with your own eyes. Then I will sew you back and start again. Is that what you mean when you say you would rather die?”
His eyes brim, his lip trembles. Heat crawls up my throat as I watch piss soak dark through his trousers and drip onto the camp below.
“Where is Zyphoro?” I ask again.
Those horrified, watery eyes flick to the monstrous banner at the camp’s center. I follow his gaze to the Legion of Saints flag, red cloth, golden crossed swords framed by praying hands and feel the bile rise.
I shake him. “You lie!” I snarl.
“No!” he keens. “Please. She’s there, I swear it! Under the banner.”
His words bring no comfort, only a fresh, blade-sharp ache. If she lies beneath that flag, why is she silent? Why is she still?
I fling him aside, not over the platform but hard enough that he slams into the wooden wall and collapses into a damp, pathetic ball of sobs.
My wings snap free, and I charge the banner, landing at its base. I crane my neck and stare up into the shadowed folds, every muscle coiled. Still, I cannot see her. The human’s confession tastes like ash in my mouth. I will find his tongue, rip out his lies, and make him swallow them whole.
Then I see a thick mast of wood, rough and splintered, with a crossbeam nailed through its middle. The banner hangs from it, heavy and crimson. My heart goes still.
I reach out, grab a fistful of the fabric, twist it tight around my hand. For a breath, I can’t move. Then I pull. The banner tears free with a rip, the red sheet catching the wind as it falls away.
Revealing Zyphoro.
Her arms are chained to the cross, her legs lashed to the post, and around her throat gleams a silver collar.
“No…” The word is a breath, a plea, a curse. “No.”
My wings flare wide, and I rise to meet her. Her curls hang limp and matted, clotted with dirt and blood. The stench of filth and piss burns my throat. I bite my lip hard as I brush the hair from her face.
“Zyphoro,” I whisper, the name splintering in my mouth. “Sister… do you hear me?”
She doesn’t stir. Doesn’t breathe. Her skin is ash-grey beneath the grime, her lips cracked and colorless. What hangs before me now is only the husk of her, the shadow left behind after light burns out.
“Zyphoro…” I try again, the sound barely more than breath. “Please.”
The silence that answers is unbearable. It presses into my chest, fills the space where hope should live. My heart stutters, and I can feel that familiar, suffocating weight settling over me.
Too late. I was too late again.
I rest my forehead against hers, closing my eyes against the sting. “I’m here,” I whisper. “I’m here now.”
And then a sound. Faint. Trembling.
A murmur so small it could have been the sigh of the wind, but I know it. I feel it.
Her lips part, and a thin, broken whisper escapes.
“Daedalus…”
Then, slowly, her head shifts, just enough for her to lift it a fraction, her breath shaking.
“Daedalus,” she says again, her voice the rasp of torn glass. “It hurts.”
She tilts her head, what little strength she has spent on the motion. The collar gleams, cruel and bright.
Fury scorches through me.
Fucking Anethesis. Fucking Ithranor.
I know this device. These collars were forged to choke Fae magic. They are outlawed. Ordered to be destroyed… or so I believed.
Another gift from Ithranor to their precious Legion. A chain made for the Mordorin.
I have no key for this collar, only fury, and no time.
I slip my fingers beneath the cold silver, jaw locking as I call the smoke. It coils around my wrist, then threads itself over the collar, loop after loop, hissing as it tightens. Power snarls through me, the runes along my arms ignite. One final pull…crack.
The collar shatters, falling in a rain of silver grains that glitter before vanishing into the dirt.
Zyphoro gasps, the sound sharp and broken, as if she’s bursting through the surface of a black sea. Her eyes open, raw and red, and her breath trembles out of her. When she finally finds her voice, it’s not gratitude that spills from her cracked lips.
“Where the fuck were you?”
Her words are a blade I deserve, but I’m too relieved to complain.
I send smoke to the chains that bind her. They twist, constrict, and splinter apart until she collapses forward, weightless in my arms. Her hands clutch at my neck, her head pressing weakly against my chest.
“Thank you, brother,” she whispers, voice small and hoarse.
I hold her tighter, lowering us gently to the ground. When my boots touch the earth, Orios and the Blades are already there.
“The camp is abandoned, Rook,” Orios says, anger trembling beneath his calm. “Where are they?”
I prop Zyphoro up, her body still slumped against me. “Sister,” I murmur, “what happened here? Where is the Legion?”
She draws a breath, her chin lifting with visible effort. “It was a trap, brother. They knew you would come. They needed you away from the Grove.”
“Why?” Orios demands. “Why not face us here?”
But I already know. The truth curdles cold in my gut.
“It’s not us they want,” I say softly. “It never was.”
“They want the Grove,” Zyphoro breathes. “They want Amara.”
My voice lowers, heavy. “And the Golden Son. Did he do this to you?”
She shakes her head, weak but certain. “They threw us in shackles the moment we arrived. He was a prisoner, like me. I don’t know where he is now.”
I glimpse Orios.
He shakes his head. “He is not here, Rook.”
I look down at Zyphoro, brushing a thumb against the bruises at her throat. “We’re returning to the Grove. Can you fly?”
She nods faintly, rubbing at her neck. “I’m already stronger. Free of that collar, I can feel my magic stirring again.”
“I haven’t seen one of those in centuries,” I mutter. “I can’t believe the Legion dared use them.” Then the memory strikes, sharp and sudden. “But only a Fae can enchant such a collar.”
Zyphoro bites her bottom lip, a snarl bleeding through. “Yes, brother. That is true.”
“Then who?”
“The Legion has a new leader. It was under his command that we were imprisoned. He is the one who fastened the collar around my throat.” Her gaze spears mine.
I shake my head, refusing the truth even as it settles like ice in my veins. “No. It cannot be.”
But she nods, a harsh certainty in her eyes.
“Yes,” she breathes. “Anethesis is here.”