Chapter 20
twenty
Nilah Dune
It had been a while since the last time I was in Cloakwood, the fomorian territory of Verenthia.
Nothing about it had changed in any way.
Still the same buildings made of stone or wood or concrete, and the same creatures as well.
All kinds of them I hadn’t seen once in the fae courts or Mysthaven—Twinborn, people with two heads on their shoulders, and noxins who could taste truth on their tongues, and imps, whom I knew firsthand to never piss off anymore, and lizard-tongues, who had some kind of a lizard wrapped around their bodies at all times like a goddamn accessory.
Yes, nothing about anything had changed, yet to me it all felt like a different world.
Because I had changed. I was far from the girl I had been the first time I came through Cloakwood with Rune, and the difference was so painfully obvious now that it scared me to realize it. It terrified me.
I no longer felt like an outsider.
Panic rose inside me so quickly black dots exploded in my vision as I walked alongside Maera down a crowded street. It was morning still, and the people were going about their business, and it was easy to see each and every person passing us by—and yet I felt like I belonged.
Not a stranger here in this land, like I did that first time. Like I should have now.
Not a stranger in a fae realm full of magic—and definitely not home, either—but somewhere in between. Close to home, if you will. Not in a different world, but somewhere where I could…belong.
The only thing that kept me from losing my shit was the fact that Maera was with me, and I didn’t want to freak her out—because then she’d have questions, and how in the fuck could I possibly answer anything right now?
I didn’t feel like a stranger in fucking Cloakwood, and everything I looked at had become normal.
Nothing surprised me and I didn’t feel threatened in any way like I had before.
Nothing scared me and I was perfectly confident that I could handle anything these people might throw at me if they did.
Like I was one of them. Like I really, really belonged.
No, I could never say this out loud. Not to Maera, and not to myself.
The other stranger thing was that the people around us didn’t look at me any differently, either.
Before, I could have sworn that they all knew who I was and where I came from as I walked beside Rune.
Possibly just my imagination because nobody even looked at me twice now as we went.
I still had my sneakers and my jeans on from home, and Maera had given me a white shirt of hers to wear because the sleeve of mine had torn completely.
She’d also given me a cloak to put over my shoulders, and it had one of those large hoodies in typical Verenthian fashion, but I never put mine on.
It had been too hot in The Vale, and it was too hot here in Cloakwood, too.
But it did have a pocket I could put the queen’s small mirror in.
I had it with me still, though I doubted it was going to help me again going forward.
Still broken and it still showed me my reflection—but that’s it.
It was just…a token. Something that made me feel a bit more grounded. Familiar.
My hair didn’t seem to interest too many people. I kept it down, covering my ears, and nobody looked at me for longer than a second. I was willing to bet anything that they thought I was an Ice fae.
The fact didn’t bother me.
They all knew what Maera was, too. And the two men and two women who walked behind us.
Werewolves she’d insisted we take with, even though Thornevale needed all the werewolves it could spare at the moment.
After what I witnessed with my own eyes happening with that gate, I was restless just to think that the ley lines anywhere in The Vale could attack the way the one in Thornevale had.
Fucking hell, the power. The speed. It terrified me, and I saw that spiral lightning strike-type of energy coming for me every time I closed my eyes still.
Maera had sent word so that all werewolf packs across The Vale knew to keep guards near their gates at all times now, but I was still terrified of what might happen if energy like that slipped into the world, and there were no werewolves to stop it. Contain it.
I hadn’t seen how they’d done it, just that they had. They’d calmed down that gate, had gotten rid of whatever kind of energy had shot out of it within minutes. The ground had stopped shaking and the howling had faded, too.
When I asked Maera about it, she had the same answer for me the fifth time as well: “We are the guardians. We can handle the gates.”
Except I knew her just well enough to realize she didn’t say those words wholeheartedly. But for now, I was choosing to think it was just my imagination, that I was seeing things, just like I had thought that everyone was out to get me the first time I came through Cloakwood.
Besides, if the very guardians of the gates couldn’t handle them, who could?
Each of us carried leather bags around our shoulder with bread, meat, fruit and water for the road. We only stopped to eat in forests, though, never when there were others around us, and never before the werewolves that had come with us spread out on all sides and made sure any given area was safe.
We were. We were perfectly safe in Cloakwood.
Then came Mysthaven.
I always had a bad feeling when crossing into it, no matter where I came from, and no matter who I was with. Being surrounded by sorcerers had been a literal nightmare for me, knowing what I knew about them. How they used live beings as sources of magic.
That’s how I’d found Maera in the first place, caged in, without food or water, so weak she could barely keep her head up.
Now she did, though. I looked at her through the corner of my eye when we were just in front of the wide pathway that marked the Cloakwood border, before the trees began on the other side, half hiding a wooden sign that could have been centuries old judging by the condition of its edges and its surface, yet the engraving in the middle still remained: Mysthaven.
The letters were most likely cut out with a knife, and whoever had done it had probably been in a hurry, but it was enough to tell people where they were going, even if they didn’t know it.
It was enough to warn people that the moment they crossed the pathway and went into that forest, they would be in Mysthaven.
Maera’s step didn’t falter. My attention was on her, so I saw.
She wasn’t afraid in the least. Whether she was faking it or if she really felt it, I had no clue, but it was damn impressive.
My hands were shaking the moment we stepped through those trees, and all my instincts were screaming at me to get back to Cloakwood as fast as I could—and I hadn’t even been caged for God knew how long by one of the sorcerers.
It made it easier to control my fear, though.
Watching her taking step after step—and the four werewolves behind us follow without a hint of fear anywhere in their bodies—made it easier to get through to myself, to remind myself that I’d been in Mysthaven plenty of times before.
I’d always survived it, and this time would be no different.
“I’ve been thinking,” Maera said a little while later, and she sounded as relaxed as she looked, too. “The most obvious place to look for the Unseelie heir would be the Unseelie Court.”
I flinched. “I’ve thought about it, too.
I don’t know—something tells me it’s wrong, though.
” It was just a gut feeling, of course. “Could be because of those morvekai creatures that guard the ruined wall. They were…something else.” Beings made of fucking plastic.
Too big, too vile, too…dead to be among the living.
“They are dangerous, indeed. They feel no pain and they do not get tired,” Maera said.
Shivers ran down my arms. “Rune will know. Vair will know,” I whispered, and I believed that with all my heart. If Rune couldn’t get us into the Unseelie Court, Vair could.
I missed the asshole so much it hurt, and my heart skipped beats at the thought of seeing him again. Whatever it was about the way I’d connected with that creature, it had taken root deep inside me all at once. And because of it I was certain that Vair would know how to find the Unseelie heir.
“The Midnight King should be able to request an audience with the current Unseelies holding the power. Plan a visit at the very least,” Maera said, lost in thought.
“I think it could work. If we’re invited inside, we can search.
” She waved a hand behind us to indicate the other werewolves.
“We can find the heir if he’s being held in their palace. ”
“You think he’s being held in the palace?” Because I hadn’t even considered it, but now that she said it…
Maera shrugged. “It would make sense. Those who are in power would keep an heir prisoner, I would assume. The ones who originally betrayed the court and killed the royal family were rumored to have killed all of them. They left nobody alive, but the Council was sure that an heir is still alive, and the only thing that makes sense is that he’s being held in a prison, possibly close to the ones who sit on the throne now. ”
“It does make sense, actually,” I whispered. If they had left someone alive from the royal family, they’d make sure to have them under their control at all times.
“We’ll see,” Maera whispered, eyes on the ground, deep in thought still.
I had no idea where we were yet, but I was sure that we’d get through Mysthaven unbothered, despite my fear. Just like when I’d been with Maera and those three men before, and just like when I’d passed by here with Vair to and from the Quiet—it was going to be an uneventful journey.
And the moment the thought occurred to me, I saw the first sorcerer.