Chapter 31
Chapter 31
ASHA SILVERSPUN
I wake to the scent of ash and flames, a shout on my lips.
Gentle hands press on my shoulders before I can lurch upright.
My eyes fly open to find my sister leaning over me, an exhalation of relief on her lips. “Oh, thank the saints, you’re awake.”
I quickly assess my surroundings, checking for threats, surprised by what I see.
I’m lying on a thick rug at the side of a small but comfortable-looking room. A gentle fire glows at my back. My hammer rests on the rug beside me, within easy reach.
The nearest furniture is a simple wooden table, small and low, with two wooden chairs next to it. A flask of water rests on top of it, along with my toolbox. The satchel the box was in has been neatly folded and lies beside the box.
To the left of the room is a cooking area, but on the right, the entire wall is lined from floor to ceiling with shelves filled with metallic objects, each one more intricate than the last. My focus lands on a small, metal figurine. It’s cloaked but faceless, smooth metal where its facial features might be.
“Where am I?”
Tamra’s hands haven’t left my shoulders. She’s kneeling on the rug beside me. “This is Thaden’s home, but we thought it would be best if he wasn’t here when you woke up.”
“How long have I been out?”
“An hour,” she says. “It shouldn’t have affected you that way, but we think it might have been because you’d lost a lot of blood. Your body went into shock.”
My focus is on the first part of her speech. “We?”
“Thaden and me,” she says, the tension growing around her eyes and lips. “Asha, I’m so sorry for what I said to you.”
I’m not sure that my hurt feelings are the most important thing we need to talk about right now, but my sister always had her priorities straight. If this is where she wants to start, then it must be important to her.
“You’re nothing like Malak,” she says. “But I knew the accusation would hurt you enough that you’d walk away from us. I was trying to protect you because I’d figured out who Thaden Kane was.”
“A Blacksmith,” I say, slowly pushing myself upright. “Malak’s son.”
Her hands fall away from me, and she sits back on her heels. “I expected him to hurt you. I wasn’t going to let that happen. I was determined to get him as far away from you as possible.”
She gives me a steely look that defies her compassion.
Her power may lie in healing, but my sister is made of metal.
“But now, you’re here,” I say, my voice wary, my mind filled with questions.
“I got it wrong,” she says.
Her cry back in the wasteland echoes back to me: “I’m not giving up.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” she says with a shrug. “Thaden lied through his teeth, but he didn’t do it for the reasons I thought.”
I study her carefully. “Why am I here, Tamra?”
“Because this is where the answers are.” She rises to her feet but doesn’t reach for me. “There’s water on the table. A bathroom over there—clean clothes are inside. Come out when you’re ready.”
“Wait, Tamra.” I push to my feet. “What about Gallium? You said he’s in trouble.”
She takes a deep breath, and I don’t miss how suddenly shaky she is. “The Fae Queen has him. She will use him as a bargaining piece. She sent a message to me—but only because she believed I would pass it on to you—to tell you that you will do what she asks when she asks it.”
I’m reaching for my hammer within seconds. “She means to keep me on a string?”
By the time I straighten, Tamra must have swallowed her fears, because now she appears impossibly quiet. “The messenger didn’t say what Karasi will ask you to do, Asha, or when. Only that you will have to make a choice.”
I fight my frustration. “It’s all a game to her.”
Tamra inclines her head. “The longer she keeps you waiting, the more your fear will grow and the more power she has over you.”
I consider the truth of that. “Which fae brought the message?”
Tamra clasps her hands together, and I don’t miss the way her knuckles turn white. “It was Dusana. She followed us all the way here. There were others with her, but they turned back once they had Gallium.”
Dusana is the fae warrior who was publicly beaten and cast out for attacking me.
“Karasi sent a message within a message,” I murmur. “Dusana is the lowest of the low in fae society. Karasi means to tell me she will bring me low, too.”
My grip on my hammer only tightens, but when I look at Tamra, she’s studying me with a grave expression.
“The choices you make will determine all of our fates, Asha,” she says. “You, alone, have the power to end all of this. Whether or not that end involves our deaths will be entirely up to you.”
My eyes widen. She speaks with such gravity that my heartbeats become heavy, and my hammer feels like a weight in my hands.
“No matter what Karasi wants you to do, no matter what decisions await you, for you to choose your path wisely, you need answers. When you’re ready to step outside, the answers are waiting. Then the choices you make will be up to you.”
My blood is thumping in my ears by the time she slips through the door and out into the sunlight. It’s such a sudden influx of light through the door, especially after the night on the mountain and then the morning under the crimson sky, that my eyes have trouble adjusting.
A glowing line remains in my vision even as the door closes behind her. The golden light only serves to remind me of Graviter Rex’s scales. His fire raging toward us. The sight of Erik leaping onto his back, forcing Graviter off course.
I press the heel of my palm to my chest.
I’m afraid for Erik. As strong and determined as he is, he attacked the dragon king in full view of other dragons and their riders. Graviter Rex had clearly lost his mind to rage, and the other dragons will see Erik as an enemy.
Fuck answers. I need to get back to him!
It takes a mental clamp around my heart to stop myself from rushing to the door and trying to leave this place immediately. It’s only because of the way my sister spoke that I pause.
The fact that she talked of our deaths and laid them squarely at my feet…
I struggle to breathe out my fears, telling myself that Erik is the Vandawolf. He survived Malak. He will survive the dragons.
Reaching the table, I first check the contents of my toolbox, refraining from touching anything but verifying that nothing has been removed. Malak’s tools are still in there.
Next, I reach for the water flask on the table and drink my fill, and then I head cautiously to the bathroom, finding it as simply laid out as the main room.
When I emerge, I’m dressed in a clean tunic and pants, much better-fitting than I expected.
I pause at the wall of metal objects. If I had to guess, I’d say they were set out according to when they’d been made. The ones on the bottom shelf are rudimentary, simple cones and cubes, but still beautifully made.
The ones on the higher shelves are fantastically intricate. One of them looks to be some kind of timekeeper with moving parts that make a soft, clicking noise. Then there’s a figurine of a stag, every piece of its body made of tiny cogs that I suspect might move if I were to bump them.
And finally, there’s the cloaked figurine without a face.
“That’s you.” The soft rumble sounds from the doorway a second before light spills into the room.
Thaden’s form is so tall and his chest so broad that he must have blocked out most of the sunlight, and the glow from my hammer will have done the rest to conceal his presence before now.
He continues. “I didn’t know what you look like, so I left the face blank.”
My hand was raised toward the figurine, and now I lower it, turning to him. “Why me?”
“Because you’re the linchpin of my life, Asha Silverspun. Without you, it all falls apart.”
I’m not sure what to make of his statement or the seriousness of his tone, the same solemnity with which Tamra spoke.
All I can do is consider him with increasing wariness.
He’s dressed in a short-sleeved tunic but pants of a heavier material, along with leather boots. There’s a smudge of ash across his left cheek and several smears on his left forearm. He smells like a forge, but a regular one, the kind the human metalworkers used. There is no honeyed scent clinging to the air around him.
Importantly, he isn’t holding any weapons. No hammer. No medallions.
He’s dangerous enough without them.
He leans forward to push the door wide open, letting sunlight stream inside. I squint, unable to focus beyond the opening to see what lies beyond it.
“Tamra told me to wait,” he says. “But time isn’t on my side.”
I approach him cautiously, pausing a few paces before I reach the door. I can now make out sounds from outside. Murmuring voices. Running water. But also clinking and tapping that I can’t quite identify…
“Step back,” I say to Thaden.
He complies, letting the door slowly shut again.
I grab it at the last moment, pull it open, and step through it, remaining aware of his location as he continues to move back, giving me space.
Suddenly, he isn’t the center of my attention.
My jaw drops. “What is this place?”