THIRTY-FOUR
T hough I tried, I didn’t sleep.
I’d hoped I would so that I might catch a glimpse of what Atakan was doing in my dreams. Little effort was involved in keeping my thoughts revolving solely around him.
They’d always revolved around him.
So when his voice finally entered my mind, I was taken aback by how unprepared I was. Where are you?
There was so much I wanted to know. So much I wanted to say.
In the end, all I managed was a half-formed thought. South. Underneath a ruined village that’s now an outpost in Venellah.
I heard nothing but my quietened breathing and straightened against the wall, adding, They’re counting on you coming for me.
Good.
Atakan, they have something called iron bolts.
No response. Nothing but the incessant whirl of my own worries.
Atakan?
He was gone.
Finally, I slept.
I had no idea how long it lasted before the door opened and Vane entered. “He made contact.”
Not a question.
I didn’t respond. It took me a moment to remember where I was and what had transpired. I lifted my head off the wall, brushing dirt from it as I pushed away from the corner of the cell.
After a minute, he asked, “Do you need anything?”
I glared at him to find the severe features I’d almost fallen in love with now void of his earlier fury. Such sincerity had me withholding an incredulous bout of laughter, and I simply shook my head.
Though as he left, I could have wept for something to drink.
When Vane returned perhaps an hour later, he brought a bruised peach and a furry water flask. I wasn’t certain they were safe to consume, so I croaked, “I don’t want them.”
He took a fleshy bite from the peach. Leather and armor creaked as he crouched in front of me and offered it. I stared at the missing chunk, then at him. When he swallowed, I snatched the fruit and immediately bit into it.
He chuckled, eyes narrowing on the juice that left my lower lip.
I swiped it away before he could dare, then almost choked as I swallowed, and a distant roar breached the underground tunnels.
Vane stilled.
Then he slowly rose. “Looks like your monstrous husband has arrived.”
The fear cascading through me was illogical. Atakan was not merely a pytherion but a trained warrior. He’d likely vanished to somewhere nearby to assess the area before shifting into a form that was nearly impossible to kill.
Yet remembering the iron bolts Vane had mentioned made those things all too easy to forget.
A boom shook the ground above right as I climbed to my feet.
I stepped back against the trembling wall. Dirt rained, and the torchlight beyond the cell guttered. Shouts traveled from the other end of the tunnel, and another roar—this one closer—made my fingers dig into the peach I’d forgotten.
I dropped it, wiping my sticky fingers on my pants.
More dirt crumbled with another shudder. Closer this time. Almost directly over us, as if Atakan could sense where I was being held captive. Perhaps he very well could.
Vane stood frozen at the door I hadn’t noticed he’d opened. “If he keeps stomping, we’ll all be buried down here.”
“So send me up.” A useless suggestion. He wouldn’t.
He smirked. Then he looked at the low-lying ceiling. “Soon,” he stunned me by saying.
I frowned, stepping closer but keeping my hand on the wall when Atakan stomped again, and the soil beneath our booted feet bounced. A rock fell to my shoulder, pounding into the dirt.
I winced and shook soil from my hair. “Whatever you’re planning won’t work, Vane.”
He arched a brow at me over his shoulder.
I said as gently as I could manage while the beast I’d married grumbled thunder above us. “You need to retreat.”
“You need to do as I tell you, and I’ll make sure you return to what remains of Cloud Castle.”
My heart snarled in my chest.
“It still stands.” I refused to believe otherwise. Not after all I’d done, after all I’d endured, and all it had come to mean to me because of it.
Vane’s hard look softened as he beheld my features. “Mostly.” He peered into the tunnel and cursed. “We need to move near an exit before we’re trapped.”
I wasn’t given a choice, which was fine. Relief swam among dread in tightening circles around my bones as he seized my hand, and we headed to the fork in the tunnel.
We didn’t need torchlight to see the mass of dirt that had caved in before the stairs, blocking the way we’d entered.
“He’s given us only one way out,” someone shouted from the gloom ahead.
Vane didn’t respond.
I discovered they hadn’t even been talking to him as we hurried down the tunnel.
Warriors huddled in more cells, the open doors revealing piles of weaponry and food supplies aside bedrolls. Another stomp made some of them flinch. One male leaned his forehead upon his sword pommel, eagle-like wings twitching as he muttered prayers to Asherlin.
A flame still flickered from a torch in the distance.
As we moved toward it, warriors converged into formation behind us. Muttered concerns buzzed like swarming insects. The scent of their fear was overwhelming.
Many of them, if not all of them, would die.
“Stop,” I said to Vane. “Please, just…” I freed my hand from his and turned to his warriors.
The one nearest me glared.
I didn’t care. “You can’t do this. You’ll—”
“It’s much too late to attempt scaring them,” Vane said behind me. “The plan is already unfolding.”
Atakan released another mighty roar.
“What plan?” I almost shouted. “A plan to get every last one of you killed?”
“Victory will be had,” the Unseelie king vowed.
“At what cost?” I asked them all.
No matter how much Vane believed it, I couldn’t see how he’d succeed. As I looked upon the warriors filling the tunnel, all I could see was blood and death and heartbreak.
A cycle these courts had repeated for decades.
“At what fucking cost?” I asked again, shouting now. Then I turned back to Vane and shoved him.
He didn’t move an inch, but shock widened his eyes.
“Even if you manage to kill Atakan, this won’t end here.” I stabbed a finger at his armored chest. “Whoever survives will only dance in more violent circles until nothing is left of either kingdom.”
He just stood there and glared.
But he knew I was right. “You once said you never agreed with your father’s methods, yet here you stand, willing to do whatever it takes to appease your ego in the name of retribution.”
Someone snarled behind me.
Vane’s gaze flicked above my head. “Mildred,” he warned.
My resolve flattened when someone called out, “Sire, you cannot allow her to speak to—”
Vane’s raised hand shut their mouth.
As he lowered it, he looked down at me, his stare granite. But I saw it in those blue eyes—the male he was beneath the weight of his dead father and his kingdom’s expectations.
I saw how I might fix the unfixable.
And I stepped into him to whisper, “You told me I could have anything I wanted in exchange for breaking the wards.” I peered down at his curling hands. “You made an oath.”
His eyes closed when I met them. Through gritted teeth, he said, “Don’t you fucking dare, Mildred.”
Then he marched to the dirt-made steps, leaving me no choice but to follow or be pushed forward by the surge of warriors at my back.
But halfway up the stairs, Vane stopped.
Everyone stopped as something rolled down them, bouncing past his boots to land in the dirt before me.
Garran’s head.
The rumbling and stomping above ground had ceased. All noise, save for muttered questions about the head and the holdup, had ceased.
Vane looked at the head for so long, I began to think he might not know what Garran had looked like. Then I realized he’d been absorbing the significance of what it meant.
Disbelief slackened his features. “You’ve been made queen,” he said so softly, it was almost whispered.
I stepped close to the decapitated head. It appeared to have been severed long after Garran’s death, the skin clean of blood when I crouched to unpin the note from the point of the late king’s ear.
The rolled parchment contained one sentence.
Claim your victory and retreat.
Vane climbed down the steps to stand near me. Understanding what was happening without reading what Atakan had written, he barked to the warriors behind us, “Move away until we know what we’re dealing with.”
He knew what we were dealing with.
He also knew it was wise if no one else did. Though, I suspected some would still hear, as it was impossible to achieve privacy with so many cramped in the tunnel.
So I stepped over Garran’s head and as close to the king as I was comfortable. “Retreat, Vane, and remind your people of all you have accomplished. The wards are—”
“Still not gone.”
“But they are open. It will do.” When he just sneered at the parchment, I flung it at his chest. “He’s letting you claim victory. Take it and end this.”
“Letting me,” Vane seethed quietly, dragging a hand through his hair.
Then he kicked the head toward the awaiting warriors in the tunnel, and roared.
A roar from outside answered, the ground shaking from another stomp. More dirt crumbled atop us.
As Vane paced, I mulled over the repercussions of using the deal we’d made and allowing these stubborn warriors to take me outside toward certain death.
I didn’t think Atakan would kill me.
I didn’t think he’d hesitate to kill every last soul in this tunnel.
And I wasn’t entirely certain that enforcing the bargain would even work with a will as strong as Vane’s. Maybe he could withstand the pain that came with breaking a magic-made promise.
I was knocked from my thoughts when he clasped my upper arms. “What would you have picked?” Vane mistook my stupefied expression for confusion and said, “If you never knew what I did to your family, what would you have asked of me in return for breaking the curse?”
Why he wanted to know, especially right now, made me wonder if he was indeed preparing to die. The thought had me all the more reluctant to say it, and I wouldn’t.
But it didn’t need to be said. It lingered there between us, a warm energy that once burned.
“It no longer matters.”
“It does,” he said. His hands slid down my arms. His fingers touched mine.
I recoiled. “You know what I want now.” I glanced up the stairs, then at the warriors. “This madness needs to cease once and for all.”
He cupped my cheek, his sad smile failing to reach his eyes. “We don’t always get what we want.” He added, a barely-there whisper, “ Queen. ”
Then, with an order for his warriors to prepare, he walked up the stairs and took me with him.
The steel door above them hung open, painted an olive green to blend into the field it opened to. Cool air kissed my cheeks, but traveling on the breeze that welcomed us was the heavy scent of blood.
And smoke.
Fire encircled the entire field. Beyond the giant ring of flames, warriors shouted from the woodland in the distance. Arrow after arrow flew toward the monster perched patiently in the center of the field.
My husband.
Many arrows missed, while others hit his scales before snapping or simply falling to the grass. Bodies lay strewn around him.
What remained of them.
Warriors waited beneath the stairs in the tunnel. Bile climbed my throat when Vane pulled me aside the entrance, right next to a severed leg.
“It’s a shame that we must meet this way.” Vane’s raised voice carried. “As it seems you’re family.”
On their fearful journey to the pytherion I’d married, my eyes caught on a pile of innards. Beyond horrified yet also concerned, I looked up at Atakan.
But his vibrant bronze eyes were focused on the king beside me.
On the hand holding mine.
He inhaled through slit nostrils, rumbling as he did, then exhaled through a monstrous maw.
Fire exploded across the field toward us.
Toward Vane.
It forced us to separate, carving straight through where we’d stood, and snapped me free from my shocked state.
“Atakan,” I breathed, and dared to take a step forward.
But perhaps this creature was no longer him. Perhaps, as teeth longer than my arms glinted in the glow of firelight, he was nothing but a monster after all.
Unlike other pytherions I’d seen, no feathers adorned his head, nor the edges of his wings. His muscular legs were thicker than tree trunks. His scales weren’t black, but familiar shades of bronze and darkened emerald that gleamed beneath the spray of the moon.
His serpentine body spread beyond my line of vision. Curved spikes similar to his teeth jutted unevenly from his back, growing larger and deadlier along his tail. His wings were tucked. Scales protected the leathery membrane and webbing of bones, arrows clanging against the spiked arches rising high above his back.
If he truly was a monster, then I shouldn’t have thought him magnificent. I shouldn’t have stepped closer. So close, Vane uttered a warning behind me. But he knew better than to provoke Atakan by reaching for me.
The beast rumbled his disapproval at the male, bright eyes unmoving from the Unseelie king.
I stopped far later than I should have, and stared up at his ginormous head. Spikes encircled it like thorns—like a mane—backed by thick scales that flared and morphed from deep to lighter green over his long snout.
He shifted, claws digging deep gouges into the earth, and finally tore his attention from Vane.
His long neck curled and lowered, and his exhale warmed the air around me. I froze. Fear tapped at my chest when those bronze eyes met mine.
Then I smiled, possessed by something that ridded me of rational thought as I reached out my hand.
The pytherion grumbled, turning his head as he exhaled another smoky plume. But he hadn’t rejected my touch.
He’d avoided burning me.
That he was still sound of mind enough to know exactly who I was—even if it was the bond—emboldened me to say, “You need to leave.”
He growled between gnashed rows of terrifying teeth.
I stumbled back, nearly stepping into a hole from his claws as he leaped forward.
An iron bolt, propelled by a bow that required two flying warriors, arced across the ring of flames. It landed behind me. Dirt sprayed and iron singed my eyes.
As the dust settled and I gaped at the burning bolt as big as me, the Unseelie warriors converged.
Their battle cries were lost beneath the violent rage of the pytherion, who welcomed their advance with fire and snapping teeth.
Carefully, I retreated. Not only to escape the carnage, but to give Atakan room to move without squashing me.
It seemed he’d waited for me to do just that, as he swung his tail toward five warriors advancing behind him. Four of them were instantly taken down. The fifth jumped onto Atakan’s back, her sword raised.
I screamed, but Atakan rolled. The ground quaked. More dirt flew. Sickness roiled as Atakan climbed back to his feet and I beheld the warrior’s remains.
Vane hollered, drawing my gaze from the meaty mess of steel and limbs. He ran toward me, slipping between Atakan’s legs with skill that enraged him.
But Atakan couldn’t remove his focus from the warriors still advancing from the underground tunnels. They were met with more fire and teeth and fatal sweeps of his head and tail.
But he quickly ceased caring about their attempts to kill him, even as another iron bolt soared across the field. Grass and dirt and rock rained as the bolt landed where he’d been just seconds ago.
Where he’d still be if he wasn’t more interested in his half brother, who was closing in on me.
I stopped retreating.
Vane had no weapon. His crimson hair danced behind him. Determination tightened his features as he ran. “Mildred—” His eyes widened.
Due to the commotion, I didn’t hear its approach. Pain burned through my side, and I folded over.
“Fuck,” he hissed, reaching me as I stumbled forward and catching me as I fell.
Atakan roared viciously.
Bloodcurdling screams followed.
Vane knelt to the ground, lowering me to it with a hand behind my head. Gently, he pried my hand from my side, but there was no arrow. It lay upon the grass beside us, the sharp head coated in my blood.
Atakan unleashed a fire-filled roar. One that made it clear he’d been holding back. He’d given them all a chance. Even Vane.
And they’d squandered it.
Everywhere his head slowly turned, fire exploded—blaring brighter and growing taller than the ring shrouding the field—until another ring kept every warrior from reaching me.
And from reaching their king.
“You need to go,” I rasped to Vane.
Each lumbering step Atakan took toward us was accompanied by smoky plumes from his nostrils. Unmistakable rage thinned his bronze eyes. His snarled warning trembled the grass and the beat of my heart.
“Vane,” I whispered.
But he still held my head. Still leaned over me, inspecting the wound above my hip. “You need a healer.”
I dared to take my eyes off Atakan.
I looked up at Vane. “In exchange for freeing your kingdom from the wards…” His eyes lifted, anger replacing concern as they locked on mine, and I said, “I want you to take your forces back to The Bonelands right now.”
He bared his teeth.
His hand clenched my side, and I winced. But he hadn’t done it to hurt me. He was trying to fight it. Although it was over, and there was little chance he and his remaining people would survive if they stayed, he still tried to fight the magic binding him to his promise.
Atakan’s shuddering steps stopped, his giant form looming above us. But he couldn’t harm the Unseelie king without harming me, and he conveyed his frustration with a shiver-inducing growl.
“I’ve asked you to go, Vane.”
“And then what, Mildred?” Perspiration dotted his brow. His chest heaved.
“You live,” I whispered. “Be free of this war that was never yours.”
He swallowed. Muscle corded at his throat.
Shakily, I smiled. “Instead, fight against your fear of heights and use those lovely wings.”
Vane huffed, sniffing as he held back a chuckle.
But then his eyes gleamed, his hands moved beneath my legs and back, and I knew what he would do. I’d known it was a possibility since he’d taken me to the tunnels, but I didn’t protest.
He lifted me, and I waited.
Atakan sensed it and roared. Fire sliced past us, narrowly avoiding Vane’s wings. I waited until true darkness wreathed, ready to vanish us to The Bonelands.
Then I pushed free of Vane’s arms and rolled toward my beastly king.