Chapter 12
“Wake up.”
I peel open my eyelids and blink against the dark room, pressing myself to a seat. Shadows cling to the edges of the room, pitch black greeting me out the window. “What’s going on? It’s the middle of the night.”
“We have two hours til dawn.” Kressa leans over my bed, her silhouette outlined with moonlight. “If you want me to consider sneaking you out of the castle and bringing you with me, get up. You have thirty seconds to meet me in the living room.”
She turns on her heel and strides out of the room. I throw my legs over the side of the bed, orienting myself as my vision comes into focus.
“Where are we going?” I say to the empty doorway.
“Twenty seconds,” she calls back.
Blowing out a huff, I stand from the bed and cross to the wall, slipping my boots onto my feet. I catch my reflection in the mirror and wince, my chains rattling as I comb my fingers through my hair. It’s too short to pull back into a braid, so it’ll have to be enough hanging above my shoulders.
Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I cross into the living room and rattle my cuffs. “Do I have to keep these on? We already know I can’t use my power, and I’m not running away as long as my crew is here.”
“You’re keeping them on until you’re not at danger of burning the castle down. Or a ship.”
I dig my heel into the low pile rug. “Maybe if you could control the power you send over the bond, it wouldn’t be an issue.”
“I’m not the one with a control issue, Briar.”
I inch closer, until all that lingers between us is a thin shadow. “Are you sure? Because it seems like every time we’re too close, you can’t handle it.”
She looks at me down the slope of her nose.
“I can’t handle it because you dragged a blade across my throat.
Your actions crumpled my court and cast my people into hiding, poverty, or death.
” She grits her teeth. “I can’t stand to be too close to you because while I know you’re everything I should hate, I’m constantly reminded of how good your lips tasted against mine. ”
I suck in a sharp inhale. “And yet, you’re willing to let me die?”
Ripping herself away from me, she strides to the door and eases it open. On a whisper, she says, “It’s the only way.”
Firelight from the hall pools on her face, lighting her eyes. It’s the most emotion she’s shown me since I woke up on her ship, but I curl my hands into fists. “There’s always another way.”
“Not this time.” She shakes her head. “Now come on, before the guards make their rounds.”
I scan the room, searching for a glint of metal on a table—a weapon, or even a key. But I know Kressa well enough to think she’d leave a set of keys lying around. Or anything I could use to my advantage.
“Quickly,” she says.
I roll back my shoulders and follow her into the castle hall.
Silence blankets us—the soft taps of our boots the only sound bouncing off the stone walls. We don’t say a word as we weave through the castle and come to a nondescript servant’s door.
Kressa throws an arm out, stopping me. “Stay close. My father has extra guards patrolling at night, so if you wander off, you’ll be caught.”
“Where are we going?” I whisper, eyeing the doorway.
“To meet up with some friends.”
My brow furrows, and she pushes the door open. It groans on its hinges, and brisk, early dawn air washes over us, sinking under my collar. Not a servant’s door after all, but an exit.
I shiver, and she cups my elbow with her hand—the gentlest touch—and guides me across the cobblestone courtyard.
She halts at a sweeping stone wall and peers around the corner, the castle looming over our backs. My heart races as a pair of booted steps come closer.
Kressa squeezes my arm, almost by instinct—as if I can keep her pulse controlled, her mind calm. The guard passes by, nothing but a shadow in the distance, and she whips me around the corner.
We run through Ignata, my footsteps clumsy with my wrists bound. But with each step, Kressa adjusts her hold on me, keeping me balanced.
Charred ruins come into view—the wooden homes that went up in flames from the wyvern attack. I slow as dried, braided ropes of red poppies litter the ground in front of the rubble. My boot lands on one, and I shift sideways, avoiding the others.
“That’s how we honor our dead,” Kressa says.
She pauses at the edge of the building and lifts a rouge poppy from the path.
Twisting it in her fingers, she kneels, weaves it into the others, and rubs a petal between her fingers.
“After everything they’ve been through, they didn’t deserve this. We told them they’d be safe here.”
“It’s not your fault,” I whisper.
“If only you knew how wrong you are.”
She takes a step, but I reach out and grab her by the cuff. “Then tell me. Give me something I can understand.”
The sky lightens to a promising grey, and she looks off into the horizon, ignoring my request. “We have to hurry.”
Holding my upper arm, she pulls me deeper into the valley. The stone homes of Ignata give way to dense fir trees as the first fingers of the sun reach into the sky. She banks left and holds back a tree branch, revealing a beaten, foot-worn path.
“We’re going into the forest?” I swallow. The branches and the light that barely filters onto the forest floor—it’s so similar to the second trial in The Gales.
“It’s not the Elkbane Forest,” she breathes, her voice a soothing velvet. “We’re the most dangerous things in here, I promise.”
I nod, and she eases me into the tree line. It swallows us, and I follow in her wake, tracing her footsteps with my own. Birds sing in the branches, twigs crunching beneath our feet, and a soft breeze caresses my cheek.
Twenty minutes of silence pass, and we come to a clearing. Long, soft grasses tease at the bare skin of my ankles.
I lift my gaze and stumble over my feet.
Elias and Julian stand in the shade of a tree, the latter with his arms crossed over his chest.
“Are you sure about this?” Elias says, lifting a brow at his sister.
“Absolutely not.” She pulls me to a stop beside her. “But what other choice do I have?”
Julian blows out a long breath and strides closer, swinging his arms. “This is going to be interesting.”
“Is she almost here?” Kressa studies the opposite side of the clearing, her tone sharp.
Julian nods. “And I suggest you make yourself sparse before then.”
“Who?” I shift my gaze between them.
An uneasiness fills the air, and Kressa gnaws on her lip. “I’ll have to face her eventually. We can’t go on avoiding each other forever.”
“Now isn’t the time,” Julian says.
I step in front of Kressa, cutting off her view of the forest. “Who are you talking about? And why’d you bring me here?”
She presses her tongue into her cheek. “You’ll find out soon enough.
” Pulling a key from her pocket, she fits it into my handcuffs.
They fall from my wrists, and she hands them to Julian, along with the key.
“Julian will return you after dinner while I distract my father. If you want to come with me to find Inez, you need to learn control.”
I roll out my wrists, wincing at the ring of gnarled, raw skin circling them. My power unspools from deep within my core, and even though I can’t wield it from this far inland, saltwater floods my veins, filtering through the hairline cracks in my marrow.
And beneath it all, flames—licking up my chest.
Kressa knocks on my mental door, and I crack it open.
A truth? she says.
I study her, my gaze flicking between her eyes as I nod. Her voice is like the smoothest silk, and the connection we had when my curse broke snaps into place, centering me. As if my axis is one degree off without her.
She swallows. There are a handful of reasons why I keep you in the cuffs. But one of them is that I can’t have you reading my thoughts.
What thoughts?
Sparing a final glance across the clearing, she backtracks away from me. Before she disappears the way we came, she says, I’m not the only one with fire power.
My eyes widen, but she closes out the connection before I have a chance to say anything else. Her footsteps fade into the distance—the only remnant of her the snap of twigs beneath her boots.
“Ah, here she is,” Julian says.
A wall of fire shoots at me. It hurtles, like a shot from a cannon, eating up the tall grasses in its wake. My heart catches in my throat, and I lift a hand, aiming a blast of water. But I curse under my breath as nothing manifests. Too far from the ocean.
Julian lifts a palm, and the flames die out before they singe my eyelashes.
The fire fades, and a woman stands on the opposite side of the clearing—her hair the same crimson as the fire that shot from her.
Flames engulf her hands. “So you’re the one who bonded with my girlfriend.”