Chapter 16
sixteen
The Vale had nine wolf packs in total, Maera said.
Thornevale was hers. It was a medium-sized pack with close to fifteen thousand werewolves in it.
It was most definitely not what I expected.
I thought their numbers would be much smaller, but apparently what we saw from the top of her balcony earlier was just Thornevale, the town.
Apparently, there were nine other centers across The Vale, some built more like cities, others like villages, some made of stone blocks, others of wood.
This Council that the stars chose out of the blue whenever they felt like it had a member from each of these packs.
They gathered all across The Vale, Maera told me, wherever they were needed, and tonight, they’d come to the temple built in their honor here in Thornevale, which was the reason why she was so sure that they’d been gathered because of me.
Unfortunately, the more I understood how this worked, the more I agreed.
“I just need you to do one thing for me, Maera,” I said as we moved through an open field and toward the next, where a single building stood against the dark, with two large torches burning on either side of the doors.
They called it the Chamber. The orange golden flames looked like they were waving at me, but the closer we got, the colder they became.
“Whatever happens to me next, I need you to reach out to Rune. A letter, a messenger, anything at all—reach out and tell him what happened.”
Maera turned to look behind at the men and wolves who were following us.
At least two dozen of them had joined us as we went from her house at the top of the highest hill, through the Thornevale town and toward the edges of it.
I wasn’t sure how they knew who was to join and who to stand back as I hadn’t seen Maera give any kind of signal, but they knew somehow.
They kept their distance, but they were there.
“I will go to him myself,” Maera said, then looked at me. “With you.”
When she stopped, all who were following us did, too.
“But I need one thing from you as well. Claim your title. Claim your throne. A queen cannot be punished by our Council the same way an ordinary fae would.”
It was like she put a knife into my gut and twisted it.
“Maera,” I said, her name a warning falling from my lips.
How was I going to explain to her that I hadn’t allowed myself to even dwell on the fact that a fae throne had revealed itself to me?
How was I going to explain to her that I hadn’t even told my family, my own father, that I’d left them with nothing but a kiss and a note on the kitchen table, because the very idea of it terrified me?
Because if I really claimed whatever the Ice Queen had done to me, it felt like I was giving up on me. On Nilah.
The Nilah I had been my whole life.
“There is a good chance that they already know your story, Nilah. It is not a request,” she said, and touched my chin with the tips of her fingers, raised my head up. “You will claim to be who you are, and we’ll see where it takes us.”
There was power in her words, raw power that I felt.
Part of me wanted to submit, to agree, to go above and beyond to make sure she was happy, but…
only for a second. Because the other part of me was already thinking ahead, imagining the worst scenario, and that part did not submit to anyone.
That part was so very me it surprised me—I’d thought it would be the soul of the queen, but no.
It was the stubborn me, the side of me that refused to back up or give in.
“Just talk to him in whichever way you can, no matter what happens,” I told Maera. “That’s all I ask.”
A small smile curled the corners of her lips. “I will. We both will.” And I wanted to believe in that with all my heart.
But I was also reminding myself that I could be locked away when we got to the Chamber.
I was reminding myself that a building had held me hostage once, and werewolves were just as equipped to do the same, if they saw fit.
I’d broken their rules, had used their ley lines.
But as long as I was here in Verenthia, I could make it. I would make it one way or the other.
We continued ahead toward the building.
“Will we have to wait?” I asked Maera, because I saw nobody coming except the people and the wolves following us again.
“We’ll know when we get there,” Maera said.
Form that moment on, every step and every second seemed to pass by faster.
I felt the magic radiating from the Chamber when we were still ten feet away.
It had a round roof, four pillars made of thick stone blocks that rose into towers on all corners.
Each one was engraved with a sign that looked like the open mouth of a wolf.
The wooden doors looked old and worn, but they still held.
No windows, no way to see inside from here.
Maera looked back once, raised a hand.
The wolves and the men and women who’d followed us spread out instantly all around the building. The moon was half hiding in the sky tonight, right over me now.
And I was calm.
“Ready?” Maera said.
I meant it when I said, “I am.”
“I will try the doors. If they let us through, we go in. If they don’t, we go back.”
I’d be a liar if I said at least a part of me didn’t hope that the doors remained closed, so I could be away from here and on my way to Rune right now.
With my breath held, I watched Maera walk over to the doors and push with all her strength. They gave easily.
Shivers erupted all over my body. These people, whoever they were, had definitely gathered here for me.
A hand in mine. Maera pulled me toward the doors gently.
Not sure what I expected to find beyond them, or if I was even expecting anything at that point, but the corridor was narrow, and there were torches lining the walls in here, too.
Smaller, and the light they cast was dimmer, so I still couldn’t see the other end.
Once inside, the doors closed themselves behind us with a loud, screeching sound.
My eyes closed and my every muscle tightened, but I didn’t even turn to look—what was the point?
I was here now, and there was no going back.
I was here now—but I should have run, I should have run, I should have run, said the voices in my head.
Never mind that I couldn’t have outrun werewolves, couldn’t have snuck away from them.
Never mind that I’d have to betray Maera if I did so. I should have run.
Doors at the end of the corridor, one slightly open.
I thought there would be more light coming from the other side. I thought I’d find a room in there, one where we would sit and talk to these nine werewolves that we were supposed to find, but no.
The room was anything but ordinary. It went down five wide stairs, and the ceiling was taller than it had looked from out there, and the round table behind which sat the nine people went all the way up to the middle of the large walls.
Surreal. No way was this not a scene from a movie.
Fucking hell, I couldn’t breathe, yet somehow when Maera continued forward, down those stairs and toward the middle where the light was, I followed.
The Chamber swallowed me whole. The walls were all bare and colorless, no windows on any side that I could see.
On the stone floor was a single ring right in the middle, full of iridescent light shining around itself, a fraction of the light of the ley line that had been on Earth underneath that railway.
When we stopped to look around, I had to remind myself to breathe yet again.
I was so low down here, and the round table loomed above me on all sides like a black altar.
The figures that sat behind it all wore black, too, hoods up, their hair concealed, but the light did reach their faces.
They all had yellow eyes, but that’s where the similarities ended.
They were men and women, young and old, and they were all watching me like I was the most curious thing they’d ever seen.
Silence in the Chamber. All I heard was the beating of my own heart.
My head tipped back to meet their gaze, hoping they could see that I was not a threat.
Hoping they could see that I meant no harm, because something about this entire setting said that they were expecting whoever stood in the middle of them to do their worst. They were expecting me to go all out.
Or maybe it was just my fear talking. And the fact that I was severely outnumbered here.
But… the ley line was right there, and I felt it. Smaller, but just as powerful as the one Earth. I’ll use it, I told myself. If it came to it, I would use this as a power source.
“Queen Veyra.” A voice, soft but so loud, echoed in the tall ceiling, and to eternity in my skull. “The Council of The Vale salutes you. Welcome.”
Welcome, said all the others in one voice, and every inch of my skin felt like it caught fire.
“I…” The words stuck in my throat when I met the eyes of the woman who’d spoken, the one in the very middle of the table.
She stood up. “The stars have shown us your fate this day. Tell me, how much of your old life do you remember?”
I swallowed hard, shook my head, tried—tried hard not to seem as clueless and as helpless as I suddenly felt in front of them.
“I am Nilah Dune, not the Ice Queen. I carry a part of her soul with me, her magic, and her face.” I raised my chin even higher. “But I am not her, and I do not remember anything about her life. All I’m trying to do here is…keep mine.”
A moment of silence, then the woman sat. The whispers began.
A hand over mine, and Maera squeezed me lightly. I looked at her and she smiled. She looked…relieved.
“We’ve seen you in the stars,” said one of the men, and they were so high up that it sounded like the voice was coming from everywhere at once. It took me a moment to pinpoint the location of the guy, and he sat two seats down from the first woman.