Chapter 32
thirty-two
It was unlike anything I could have imagined.
When Rune said it was built in a gorge, I didn’t think it would be a hundred feet below the ground.
“Holy fuck, that’s far,” I breathed when we came out of the tree line and went near the cliff, on our horses still.
“That’s Ashfall,” Rune said in wonder.
“It looked much smaller in drawings,” said Maera from my other side, and for a good moment after, we were all silent as we took in the view in front of us.
We had steered clear of the main pathway that carriages from all fae kingdoms and all Verenthian territories took to bring prisoners into this place.
Instead, we got closer through a forest, far away from the bridge, and we would not be able to get down there—without wings, at least. Because just like that reading said, this place really, truly had just one bridge into it off the main pathway, and it was huge.
It started far into the distance to our left and snaked its way down to the edge of the gorge, standing on pillars as thick as a dozen tree trunks put together.
The gorge was vast and the walls around the entire place were made of jagged rocks coated with something black that was shiny, and possibly very slippery.
There were buildings, all a single story high, built on all three sides of the gorge that was locked in so perfectly nobody could ever dream of climbing out.
There were bars between pillars just off the bridge, and then in the very middle were what I assumed the jail cells—and the silver lights burning over more than ninety percent of them.
The lights were as big as a basketball, if I had to guess, and they really did look like miniature moons—if moons were transparent, and sent charges of electricity every few minutes down to these cages below them.
That’s what they were—cages, like the golden ones in that incubus’s basement at the Enclave, only these were much smaller, and crammed together, one after the other.
The narrow roads built between rows upon rows of those cages were covered in what looked like grey snow.
Ashes.
God, just the thought that there were actual dragons nearby made my skin crawl.
Carriages rushed up the bridge, three of them as we watched. Soldiers were moving from both sides, too, screaming something we couldn’t quite hear. It was easy enough to see that they were soldiers—they all wore armor. Something was definitely up there.
Maera moved first, jumped off the horse, and she was taking her clothes off like she was in a hurry, throwing them over the saddle. “I’m going to get closer, see if I can pick up the king’s scent. They’re on high alert.”
“I want to come with.” I made an attempt to get off the horse, but Rune stopped me before I did.
“No, Wildcat. Maera’s right. Something’s happened here. Her wolf has a much better chance of getting close without being seen,” he said.
And Maera nodded, standing completely naked in front of us now. “I will call for you once I have something.”
“Wait, how—” But the shifting had already begun.
I really was never going to get used to the sight of her body changing the way it did right before our eyes. To witness a woman turning into an animal within seconds like that was traumatic, even if it was considered normal here. Even if I’d seen it happening before.
Then Maera’s wolf ran along the edge of the cliff, so fucking close my heart jumped—before she did.
She jumped right off the cliff and into the gorge, and it was a damn miracle I didn’t scream.
The fear was to blame for the fact that I’d frozen in place and I couldn’t move, couldn’t get off the horse and follow her, but Rune’s shadows were gliding in the air like black ribbons of satin, following behind her until I couldn’t see them anymore, either.
“She will be all right,” Rune told me. “She’ll be back soon.” He said it like he said almost everything else—with complete conviction, not a hint of doubt in his voice or eyes.
Words of my own were at the tip of my tongue—you didn’t tell me. You said nothing.
I bit them back with all my strength because now was not the time. It was easier to bury the thought as deep into the darkness of my mind as I could and focus on the now.
Fortunately for me, I didn’t have to try for long.
The ashes came as if by magic, from the other side of the gorge right across from us, possibly over two miles in the distance. But the moment I saw the white veil that seemed to fall on the branches, then spread out over the cliff, I knew what it was.
Within seconds, ash drifted down over the other side of the gorge like a storm. It wasn’t snow—snow could never fall so heavily. Rune and I watched the flakes spinning lazily in the air with the coming wind that brought more than just ash—but a sharp, metallic scent, too. The smell of fire.
A dragon had made it. Whatever these ashes had been before, a dragon had done this, and I waited and waited for the entire gorge to disappear under a grey blanket, but it didn’t.
There wasn’t too much of it—and it settled over the rooftops of the buildings surrounding the cages, between the thick bars, and on the narrow roads between them.
Next came the sound—a roar, seconds before we saw the dark shape in the distance, rising in the air.
I didn’t breathe, didn’t blink, wasn’t entirely sure I was alive as I watched an actual dragon rise from the tips of the trees in the forest on the other side of the gorge, massive wings beating that air as it moved higher and higher, then disappeared behind thick clouds too fast for me to make out properly.
A dragon.
That was a dragon.
“Rune,” I breathed because I didn’t have better words to describe the mix of emotions that were going through me, the fear and the panic and the sheer fascination and helplessness that seemed to fall over me all at once.
“It’s okay. The dragons don’t come close to the gorge,” he told me, but that wasn’t what concerned me, though. It was the fact that dragons existed just a couple of days away by horse from the very place he called home.
But again, I didn’t have the time to dwell on anything, to come to my senses, to focus on the people going about down at the gorge and over the bridge because we heard the sharp howling loud and clear.
It was Maera—and she was most definitely calling for me.
I couldn’t tell you how I knew, but I could have sworn I heard her voice in my head, and she was calling for me to follow.
“We need to go,” I said and slammed both heels onto the sides of my horse.
Rune didn’t argue. The next second, his horse was galloping next to mine, and we were moving to the other side, following the echo of the howl.
My heart beat just as fast as the horse hooves hit the ground because that call could only mean one thing.
Either Maera had found the heir somehow, or she’d found Lyall—and I had no idea how in the hell we were going to handle either scenario.
Even so, we ran.
We went all the way around the gorge’s rim, so close to the cliff yet our horses didn’t once slow down.
As we neared the main pathway, though, Rune pulled his toward the trees as his shadows spread out of his fingers to come wrap around us in whatever illusion he was creating.
I barely breathed as I followed, but I was perfectly focused, eyes zeroed in on the darkness beyond the dense trees, waiting to finally make out the main road that would lead us to that bridge.
I was sure that that’s where we were going, that we’d need to make our way down to those cages, but…
“Stop!” I said half-heartedly and pulled the reins of my horse with all my strength.
The horse stopped, and by some miracle, I managed to lock my body down tightly enough that I didn’t fall forward.
Rune stopped, too, though I wasn’t sure if he’d heard the howl that stopped me.
It was Maera, and she sounded different than a moment ago, and for the life of me I couldn’t explain it if I tried.
Then there was the light.
We were close to that main road that the people here used to get in and out of the Keep—though that was a very misleading name for a fucking graveyard full of cages—and a few of them were moving on horseback right now.
Small golden and silvery-white lights hovered in the air over the men and women who were rushing away from the Keep, and they all wore armor.
My instinct was to back away, to jump off the horse, hide behind a tree, but then Rune raised his finger to get my attention.
When I looked at him, he brought it in front of his lips to tell me to keep quiet.
The guards did not see us. They didn’t even look our way, and only then did I feel the thick layer of magic that surrounded us—Rune’s magic. The shadows that had already disappeared into thin air, but their power still remained.
The howling came again. The lights burning over the seven soldiers were barely a dot in the distance, and so Rune and I ran forward, followed Maera’s howl all the way to the other side of the road.
No more horses or soldiers that we could see, only the giant gates at the very end that would lead to the bridge, I assumed—and they were closed.
Maera was howling as she continued to run to the other side, deeper into the woods.
“What is she doing?!” Rune called as we followed, the horses barely touching the ground as they took us forward. I had no clue what to tell him, just that that howl was clearly a call, and I trusted Maera. I trusted she knew what she was doing, so I didn’t stop. Neither did he.
I wasn’t sure how long we rode, but I didn’t bother to even look behind to see if we were being followed. That’s how I saw Maera, in her human form, standing there stark naked between the trees only a few feet away.
Could have been a dream.