Chapter 13 #2
“I mean I was born in a female fae form.” His voice was steady, clinical almost, as though he was reciting facts about someone else.
“And I found it profoundly unfitting of who I was. By the time I was seven, I knew I was different, though I didn’t yet have the words for it.
When I was thirteen, I knew. I made the mistake of confiding in someone I thought I could trust.”
He paused, jaw working.
“They informed my father, who only saw me for my value as a bride. He attempted to marry me off, to correct the defect he saw in me. I was...” Another pause, longer this time. “Averse to the marriage. And made an attempt to bring the situation to a very permanent end.”
My breath caught. “Cindrissian—”
“My would-be husband found out and called off the wedding. My father was furious. He sent me away as punishment.” An almost amused huff escaped him. “Turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me, though I suspect that wasn’t his intention.”
The admission punched all the air from my lungs. “That’s—gods, that’s—”
“Ancient history,” he finished, but there was nothing casual in his expression. “Once I was in that place, I realised it wasn’t what my father had assumed. I was able to embrace who I was. But I learned my lesson about trust. Haven’t made that mistake again.”
I tried to process, failed. Tried again. The image wouldn’t reconcile, this smirking man in front of me, trapped and desperate enough to—
I cut myself off before the thought could finish.
“I’m glad you made it out,” I said, and meant it. “That you found—” I gestured vaguely at him, at the deliberate swagger and the easy confidence that I now understood was armour forged in survival. “Yourself. Casual stalking tendencies aside.”
His smirk returned, but there was a softness underneath it now. “Noted. I’ll try to be more obvious about my lurking in the future.”
“Appreciated.”
We stood there for a moment, the tavern noise bleeding out into the night around us.
I shouldn’t have felt comfortable with him, with anyone who admitted to being a mercenary with conditional loyalty.
But there was something about the rawness of what he’d just shared, the deliberate vulnerability of it, that shifted something in my chest.
Trust was stupid. Trust got you killed.
But maybe there were degrees of stupid.
“Can I ask—” I hesitated, trying to figure out how to phrase it without sounding like an idiot. “Is that a fae thing? Being able to change your form like that?”
He laughed, but there was no humour in it.
“No. I had to see someone with a specific magical skill set. They changed my form for me when I was thirty.” He sighed, and gods it sounded tired.
“But it was seventeen years of knowing exactly who I was and being trapped in a body that disagreed. Seventeen years of being called the wrong name, stuffed into the wrong clothes, told I would make someone a lovely wife someday.”
Seventeen years. He’d been thirty when his body was made right. Which meant he’d spent more than half his life before that living as someone he wasn’t.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry your father was a coward who couldn’t love you for who you were.”
Cindrissian went very still. Then his eyes narrowed. “Just like that? No questions about how it works, or if I’m truly male, or—”
“You just told me you are,” I shrugged. “Why would I question that?”
The silence stretched between us, taut and strange. He was staring at me like I’d grown a second head, like I’d spoken in a language he didn’t recognise.
“That’s really it?” he finally asked. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. “No interrogation about the magic, no uncomfortable curiosity about my body, no—”
“No.” I cut him off. “You told me who you are. I’m taking you at your word.”
“Most people have questions,” Cindrissian said, his hands clenched tight now.
“Doubts. They want to know details that aren’t their business, or they look at me like I’m a broken thing that needs fixing.
Or worse, they smile and nod and then refer to me as ‘she’ the moment they think I’m not listening. ”
The bitterness in his voice was sharp enough to cut.
“Is it not common, then? In fae society?” I asked. “Changing form, I mean.”
“You’d think.” His laugh was harsh. “But no. It’s not common.
The magic required is rare, for one thing.
Expensive. Difficult. Most people who might want it can’t access it.
And culturally?” He shook his head. “Fae society is just as rigid as any other when it comes to certain things. Someone like me, who refuses the role they were born into, disrupts all of that.”
I thought about that. About being valued only for what you could provide, not who you were. About being trapped in expectations that felt like shackles.
“Who knows?” I asked. “In Varyth’s court, I mean.”
“Fenric. Eilrys. Brynelle.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “That’s it.”
I nodded slowly. “I won’t tell anyone.”
“I know.” He said it with the kind of certainty that made my chest ache. Not hope. He was too smart for hope. But close to it. Recognition, maybe. As though he’d looked at me and seen someone who understood what it meant to carry secrets that could destroy you if they fell into the wrong hands.
Because I understood secrecy the way I understood breathing, it was knowledge that lived in your bones. Some things you held tight because letting them loose meant giving people weapons to use against you.
And Cindrissian had already been hurt enough by people he’d tried to trust.
“At least you picked a name that suits you,” I said, surprising myself with something almost like teasing. “Very intimidating. Very ‘lurk in dark and make cryptic pronouncements.’”
His laugh startled me, genuine this time, without the usual edge of performance.
“I actually didn’t choose it. I had friends, where I lived after my father sent me away.
When I told them about who I was, they immediately set about finding a name for me that suited my, as they described it, ‘shadowy personality.’”
The fondness in his words was unmistakable.
“They came across Cindrissian in some old text, something about darkness and secrets and transformation. The moment they said it, I knew.” He shook his head, smiling at the memory. “It felt right in a way nothing else ever had. I knew I was hearing my own name for the first time.”
I tried to imagine him, young, newly arrived at a strange court, finally being seen. Having friends who cared enough to search through texts looking for the perfect name.
“They sound like good friends.”
“They were.” Past tense. The smile faded.
“Where are they now?”
“Gone.”
The weight in that single syllable told me everything I needed to know about loss and time and the price of immortality.
“You were at Nyxaria,” I said, pivoting, because the grief in his eyes was too raw, too familiar. “Before here. Is that the place? Where your friends were?”
He nodded. “Yes. That was before Ashterion rose to power, though. It was different then.” His expression turned distant, like he was seeing something I couldn’t. “Especially before he married.”
“He’s married?”
“Four centuries now.” Cindrissian’s mouth twisted with disgust. “She’s a vile creature.”
Four hundred years. Four centuries of whatever the fuck they were doing in Nyxaria.
“Do you know why?” The question lashed from me. “Why Ashterion would be sending people after me specifically?”
Cindrissian studied me for a long moment, weighing something.
“The magic that echoed when you crossed the Veil,” he said carefully.
“That kind of resonance doesn’t just alert people nearby.
With power like that—shadow fire—it would have rung like a bell across realms. And for someone like Ashterion?
” His expression hardened. “That signal would have resonated more powerfully with him than anyone else. Because shadow fire was his court’s magic, once upon a time. ”
Everything in me went very, very quiet.
“What is shadow fire?” My voice barely rose above a whisper. “Everyone keeps saying it like I should know what it means, but no one’s actually told me.”
Cindrissian’s eyes locked onto mine, and I saw something like pity there. Or maybe fear.
“Shadow fire was the weapon of Nyxaria’s fiercest warriors,” he said slowly.
“Ancient magic. Brutal. Devastating. They used it to conquer territories, to break armies, to remake the world according to their vision.” He paused, jaw working.
“But they grew too powerful. Too difficult to control. They started turning on each other, on their own court, on anyone who tried to rein them in.”
“What happened to them?”
“They were hunted.” His voice was flat. “Systematically. Ashterion’s predecessors couldn’t control the warriors, couldn’t break them, so they did the only thing they could do.
They exterminated them. Every last one. Spent two centuries tracking down anyone with even a trace of shadow fire in their bloodline and putting them in the ground. ”
The world tilted sideways.
Extinct. They’d hunted the shadow fire wielders to extinction.
“So the reappearance of that power now,” Cindrissian continued, watching me too closely. “Especially in the hands of someone who just crossed? Someone they don’t control?” His smile was utterly without humour. “That’s not just concerning, Isara. That’s fucking catastrophic. For you, anyway.”
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think past the roaring in my ears.
“You’re saying I’m—what? The last one? The only one?”
“I’m saying you’re carrying magic that was supposed to be dead.
And Ashterion felt something when you lit up crossing the Veil.
He doesn’t know exactly what it is. If he did, he’d be breaking down Varyth’s doors right now.
But he knows it’s tied to him. To his court.
” Cindrissian leaned closer, voice dropping.
“And that’s enough to make you a priority target.
Because Ashterion doesn’t like surprises.
And he really doesn’t like ghosts coming back to haunt him. ”
“Why didn’t Varyth tell me this?” The anger felt good, felt right. Something solid to grab while everything else dissolved into horror. “Why the fuck didn’t anyone tell me?”
“Because Varyth’s trying to figure out what you are before deciding what to do about you,” Cindrissian said bluntly.
“Fuck,” I breathed.
“Succinct,” Cindrissian agreed. “And accurate.”
I stared at him, trying to recalibrate. Trying to process the fact that I was apparently carrying extinct magic that made me a walking target for an immortal tyrant who’d spent centuries wiping out anyone like me.
And Cindrissian was still here. Still watching me with that infuriating mix of amusement and something darker.
“So what now?” I asked, hating how rough my voice sounded. “You’ve delivered your terrifying news. Are you going to disappear back into the shadows and leave me to have my existential crisis in peace?”
“I could.” He tilted his head, considering. “But that seems unkind. Besides, you came all the way out here to explore the city, and you’ve not seen anything beyond the inside of one mediocre tavern.” He straightened, brushing invisible dust from his sleeve. “Let me give you a tour.”
I blinked at him. “A tour.”
“A tour,” he confirmed, like it was the most natural thing in the world. “Show you the sights. Introduce you to the more interesting establishments. Help you get your bearings in case you ever need to, say, disappear into the city on short notice.”
“You’re offering to help me plan my potential escape routes.”
“I’m offering to show you around.” His smirk widened. “What you choose to do with that information is entirely your business.”
I should have said no. Should have told him to fuck off back to the castle and leave me alone. But the alternative was wandering aimlessly through unfamiliar streets, and at least with Cindrissian I’d have someone who knew where the bodies were buried.
Literally, probably.
“Fine,” I said. “But if this is some elaborate scheme to get me arrested or murdered, I’m haunting you for eternity.”
“Noted.” He gestured down the street with a theatrical flourish. “Shall we?”