Chapter 28
HEMMING
T he door to Ariel’s room clicked shut early in the morning. I moved to go check on her but soon found Shayfer blocking my path with a warning look on his face; one that reminded me that caution was still needed. Finding myself in a situation I couldn’t fight my way out of left me with a gnawing sensation in my gut that grew with every passing moment.
“Perhaps now would be a good time to discuss the matter you alluded to last night when you snuck back in from Ariel’s room,” Shayfer whispered, quietly prompting an explanation I wasn’t ready to give. I still had not wrapped my head around the fact that there was no escaping Vesstan’s island—and that Ariel was descended from the gods. I highly doubted that Shayfer would fare any better.
I cast a glance over to where Eldrien lay on the floor beneath the windows and wondered if he was sleeping or covertly eavesdropping. “Kier came, as he said he would,” I said as quietly as I could, “and he told us things…”
When I didn’t immediately continue, Shayfer scowled.
“Should I be a part of this discussion?” Eldrien asked, his sleep-filled voice drifting toward us as he rose from his spot and stretched his arms overhead. Without his shirt on, it was easier to see just how much the devastation on Anemosia had affected him. I looked at Shayfer to find him staring at the Minyade leader as he maneuvered into his clothing.
“No.” My sobering response had its desired effect. Eldrien’s cheeks reddened with anger.
“Then perhaps you’d like to explain why you left once you thought we were sleeping, presumably to go to Ariel’s room?”
“I went to check on her. I left once her father arrived?—”
“But not until he ‘told you things’?” He quirked a brow at me. “You’re not nearly as stealthy as you think you are, Hemming. I see the way you look at her—the longing in your eyes—but you know that can never be. Even if she weren’t betrothed to me, you could not stay in Anemosia indefinitely.”
“What you think you understand about Ariel and me and our future is the least of my worries at the moment,” I countered, “and it should be yours as well.”
“Why is that?” Shayfer asked, stepping in front of me to put himself between the approaching male and me. “What did Kier say?”
I looked at Eldrien and back at Shayfer, weighing my options. Ruse or not, the reality of the situation was that none of it mattered if we couldn’t escape Vesstan’s grasp, and keeping Eldrien in the dark wouldn’t benefit us if we needed his assistance.
With that in mind, I told them both what I’d learned. “He came to Ariel last night to warn her about our current situation.”
“Warn us about what?” the Minyade asked, blue eyes narrowing with ferocity.
I took a breath and tried to find an easy way to say what needed to be said. “That even if we find the Oracle and get the answers we need about the curse, we can’t leave this island,” I said bluntly. “No one can. Vesstan has made sure of it.”
Eldrien’s eyes went wide. “You’re saying we’re prisoners?”
“I have no intention of being anyone’s prisoner,” Shayfer said with surprising hostility. “I don’t see how he can keep me from using my ability to leave.”
“Maybe he can’t,” I responded, “but there is no way Ariel will leave her father here, and that collar around his neck keeps him tethered to this island. So you could leave, in theory, but you’d be leaving her behind.”
“Which you know I would never do.”
“So we’re stuck here,” Eldrien said, summing up the scenario. “Then I’ve failed. The curse on Anemosia will stand, and my people will perish.” The anguish in his eyes was unmistakable.
“We are not wholly without options,” I said, hedging slightly. “There is a way to break the magic that binds Kier to this land.”
Hope blazed in his eyes. “ What ? What is it?”
I turned my attention to Shayfer. “Kill Vesstan.”
“Well, Hemming, that would be a fantastic plan had we a god in our little collective capable of that monumental task, but as you well know, we don’t.”
In the silence that followed his outburst, I expected Eldrien to jump in and echo his sentiments, but he didn’t; and when I turned to the Minyade leader, I found confusion buried deep in the furrow of his brow. While I stared him down, realization niggling, Shayfer’s gaze darted back and forth between us in my periphery.
“What's going on?” he asked. “Why are you two staring at each other like you’re seeing one another for the first time?”
“I think the better question is, why isn’t Eldrien reacting as you are?” As though that thought had just occurred to him, he, too, focused his attention on the blue-winged Minyade.
“And I want to know why Shayfer is reacting at all.”
“One of you had better start explaining right now, because it is a rare occurrence that I am not in the know, and I must say I don’t much enjoy it—especially when my freedom hangs in the balance.”
“Ariel’s grandfather is a war god,” I blurted out with all the tact of my beast.
Shayfer gasped. Eldrien, however, didn’t even flinch. “Of course he is. How did you think the lineage of the Aima Kori came to be?”
“And you never thought this information worth sharing?”
Genuine surprise flashed in his eyes. “I thought you knew! Why wouldn’t you? I figured Ariel would have told you if you hadn’t already put it together yourselves.”
“Except she had no idea.”
“How is that possible?” Eldrien wondered aloud. “How could her mother not have told her of her birthright?”
“Because her mother died when Ariel was four years old,” I snapped at him. “She has little to no recollection of her beyond the day she died. Ariel only learned she was the Aima Kori a few days ago.”
Shayfer, having absorbed this information with the grace befitting his station, turned his all-knowing gaze to me, and I saw the shrewdness that made him a cunning operator in those focused eyes. “So what is the plan to have Ariel slay the maniacal god holding us hostage? And how can she do that without seeing the Oracle first? Killing Vesstan will do nothing to break the curse on Anemosia.”
“Yes, it will.” I looked at Shayfer, silently begging him to see what I was uncertain I should say aloud. The moment realization dawned, his face went slack and pale.
And the words I didn’t speak slipped from his mouth. “Vesstan killed Ariel’s mother.” Shayfer cursed inelegantly under his breath while Eldrien just stared in disbelief, trying to make sense of what had been said. That one statement impaled him like a blade and ripped apart the truth his people had built their hatred and blame upon. Another falsehood unraveled.
“But…but that can’t be true,” he stammered, his tone lacking the conviction his words attempted to hold. “Lord Kaplyn is the one that abducted her and eventually killed her.”
“Or not,” I countered, “but it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that Ariel is going to try to kill Vesstan.”
“Did you know this whole time?” he asked, unwilling or unable to let go of his fractured belief and focus on the more pertinent issue.
“I knew nothing about her death,” I replied honestly.
Eldrien turned his attention to Shayfer, awaiting an answer.
“I did not know for certain who killed her, but I never suspected Lord Kaplyn, given the nature of her death.”
The Minyade’s eyes were wide and wild as he continued to assess Shayfer and me, follow-up questions undoubtedly racing through his mind. Thankfully, Shayfer dove right back into the matter at hand. “How exactly does Ariel plan to attempt this feat?” Shayfer began to pace the room in silence, fingers tented against his lips. With every step he took, I grew more and more uncertain. “Ariel is reckless, but not stupid,” he finally said, looking out the window. “She won’t challenge him outright. She’s going to draw him in and strike when he least expects it— when he’s most vulnerable.” His ruthless gaze cut to me, and the beast began to prowl within. “She will exploit the only advantage she’s exhibited over him so far…”
A low growl echoed through the room. “No, she won’t.”
Shayfer’s eyes narrowed to blade-like slits. “Yes, she will, because she knows what’s at stake. Because she’s learned the ways of the fae and knows exactly how to use them. Her time with our kind has prepared her well, like it or not.”
“You’re saying that she will whore herself to secure her advantage?” Eldrien’s voice was thick with disgust. “Is that the way of the fae?”
Shayfer splayed his hands wide in unapologetic fashion as he walked toward us. “Not all adversaries are as scrupulous as you, Master Eldrien. So you fight them however and wherever necessary to secure victory—even in the bedroom.”
Blood pounded in my ears as visions of Ariel straddling Vesstan’s naked body assaulted my mind, his hands roaming her flesh unhindered. My eyes slammed closed as though that could stop the unwanted scenario from playing out, but that served only to enhance the scene, casting it in seductive shadows.
“I understand this situation is less than palatable, but it is her greatest opportunity to neutralize the threat?—”
“And what about her ?” My booming voice cut through the room, shaking the crystal chandelier high above our heads. “What about the threat he poses to her ? If this is the plan, then it leaves her alone with a god , Shayfer—one who, by all appearances, is far more powerful than she.” I thought about what Kier had told us about the magical collar around his neck; that Vesstan used them to enslave anyone who challenged him in any way. If Ariel failed, I couldn’t imagine what he would do to her—what punishment he would rain down upon her.
My hands balled into fists at the possibilities, and I struggled to calm my ragged breathing, my racing thoughts. My uncontained rage would not help her, and I knew it, though it begged to be unleashed.
“If she fails, he will enslave her, as he has her father,” I said, voice low and hoarse and filled with the emotions rising within me. “Kier told us that he tried to escape once, and that’s how he ended up as Vesstan’s pet tracker. If Ariel fails, she will end up his pet in another capacity.” I stared the two of them down, allowing their own minds to torture them with the images mine already had. “We might not be gods, but we can help her succeed in this endeavor, and I plan to do just that. But I can’t if the plan is predicated on her being alone with him.”
Silence fell heavy upon the room—as heavy as the weight of our predicament.
“If we knew when and where it would take place,” Shayfer mused, “we could be there.”
“But there is no way to orchestrate such an opportunity,” Eldrien argued.
Before either of us could respond, a rapping at the door drew our attention. Our trio turned to face it just as it pushed open, revealing Vesstan’s attendant, Thallen. “Your presence is required in the ballroom,” he said in a flat tone. “If you’d follow me.”
He turned to leave without further explanation, but I didn’t move. Something about him set me on edge, though he’d done nothing to earn such a response. Maybe it was his general manner—how stiff and buttoned-up he was—or how lifeless his eyes were. Either would be reason enough in a strange land ruled by a ruthless god.
“Why?” I asked. “What’s going on in the ballroom?”
“Preparations for a celebration this evening are in the works, and your assistance in the matter is required.”
“Celebration?” Shayfer asked with far more tact and diplomacy than I could muster. “A celebration of what?”
Thallen looked over his shoulder at us, the corners of his eyes pinched with something that looked like concern. “The newest lady of the house.” The icy chill of Daglaar’s winds raked down my spine at his words. “Now, if you’d follow me. We don’t have much time to prepare, and we wouldn’t want to disappoint Lord Vesstan with a subpar presentation.”
“No,” Shayfer said as he moved to follow, “I don’t believe we would.”
His eyes met mine as he passed, filled with a look that said we might have just been handed the very opportunity we needed. As we assisted with the setup, we’d get a sense of the castle’s layout. Where the guards were posted. Where the sequestered nooks and corners were hidden. By the time the merriment began, we would have a plan in place that would ensure we were nearby when the assassination attempt occurred.
Unless, of course, Ariel had a different plan.
One that didn’t involve seducing the ancient god.