Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
Iwaited in the shadow of a mighty larch perched upon the riverbank.
The great ships of Cascada were anchored ahead of me and the White Mare stood out starkly under the silver moon.
Not long ago, Wandershire had stood off in the trees to my right, but it had crawled away around an hour ago, the chugging and whirring of its magically-driven engines disappearing into the night.
My gaze had not waivered once from the White Mare.
Upon that vessel was the woman I’d come hunting for.
Guided by Calcifiend who had showed me her location.
I couldn’t name the emotions that seared my heart now I was finally this close to her.
I could only liken this feeling to that of violence.
The heightened roar of sensations when I fought a bloody fight.
She was invoking this wretched ache in me and I was sure only she could quiet it too.
At a tug in my mind, Calcifiend came to me, flying from the cabin I knew she was housed in.
But she wasn’t alone. She had entered there with Ransom Rake hours ago – her tormentor.
A man she had feared not so long ago. But I’d felt nothing of that fear when I’d followed them along the riverbank.
I’d heard their chatter through the mind of Calcifiend and how they shared in their discontent over their father’s doings.
I’d watched that vile man kill the surrendered warriors of Avanis through the eyes of my Sayer Dragon and it had brought on a wave of rage that I still felt thrumming through me now.
Every time I recalled my family, all I could see were their vicious deaths at the hands of that Fae.
All I could feel was a burn that blistered the inside of my chest and made me want to kill so viscerally that I became nothing but a beast.
North had taught me to contain it as best he could, but it was difficult to focus on my task and not hunt down Abraham Rake and cut his worthless head from his shoulders in a bloody display of retribution.
No.
I took a breath as North had taught me.
I had to wait.
Calcifiend flew to me, his blue scales catching the moonlight so he glinted like a firefly. He swept into the shadows and landed on my hand, offering a wet lick in greeting.
“Hello, fiend,” I growled, brushing my thumb over his head and he clicked his tongue.
Warmth coiled through me at being reunited with my creature.
“How do you think she will react to seeing my face risen from the dead this night?” I murmured and Calcifiend let out a small trill. “Hm,” I grunted. “I do not think she’ll take kindly to me.”
I drew the dagger from a sheath at my hip, the one she had driven into my chest in a promise of murder.
“Silka la vin,” I muttered, my tongue wrapping around the words as if I owned them. I had once. She had been mine. My fearsire. Bound to do as I bid. But there would be no coercing her now.
This plot would be no easy feat to complete.
Mirelle was the only one I’d told, not even North knew the madness of my plan.
That was why I’d come alone. North wouldn’t be pleased when he found out I’d left him behind.
We’d faced dangers together before but perhaps none so risky as this.
Even Mirelle had refused it at first, but I’d assured her that with or without her permission I would be doing this.
So here I was, lurking in the shadows, awaiting my moment.
My little killer was right there, closer than she had been since she’d driven a blade into my chest. How her eyes had blazed, how her hatred had echoed through her beautiful features, but there had been something else there.
Something I couldn’t name. And still I wasn’t able to identify it.
Something close to pain but not so sharp.
North would know, if only I’d told him. But that would have meant unveiling this dark secret I was holding, the far more selfish reason I was here upon this hillside, hiding within the trees.
I would have come whether Everest was the Void or not.
I would have found her one way or another.
If I’d had to stalk the world barefoot, starved and unarmed, I would have done so to find her.
Because something had twisted between us when she’d broken the magical link of Nightfire.
She was no longer mine, but I was hers. Me; this shell of a man who couldn’t name desire from envy or hate from love.
No matter how many times North explained them to me, whenever I thought of Everest, I felt it all.
A tumult of emotion that swung from a heated assault of fury to a need that was laced in all things sweet and all things savage.
The only thing I knew was that I wanted her in some form.
And my intention was wrought with darkness.
This was not desire – certainly not in the way North described it.
It was something wilder that seemed tethered to the stars themselves, my fate soaked in this want. It was inescapable.
So tonight would lay me bare and the cards would fall as fate decided.
I wasn’t sure I cared about her reaction, only that we were reunited at last. Then Aries and Pisces alike would spin us a new destiny, because we were surely bound by something deeper than I could understand.
For a Fae of another land to drive me to the brink of mania, there had to be magic at hand. Perhaps I would be granted answers once her eyes fell upon me again. Even if those answers were draped in bad omens.
If I knew anything about the workings of the stars, it was that they were not logical rulers of the sky.
They had greater plans and I was just a pawn among them.
It felt as though they had guided me here, and following their call might just give me the answers I needed to unlock the confusion of my mind.
So here I’d wait until Everest was alone and then I’d find out if the stars would grant her my death a second time.