Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
Three torturous days had passed and my muscles felt so cramped it seemed like I was going to turn to stone at any moment. Kaiser watched the Cascadian warriors through Calcifiend’s eyes for hours a day, waiting for a moment where we might make a run for it, but it never came.
The cavalry had set up camp in this very village and they’d been meticulously hunting the houses one after the other.
When they’d come to this shack on the first night, we’d all held our breaths and prepared to be found but, by the luck of Delphinus, they hadn’t noticed the hatch in the ceiling that we’d concealed with magic.
We’d tried using Calcifiend to start a fire later that night to distract the warriors long enough for us to run, but they’d dealt with it too swiftly and we’d been nervous to attempt it again in case it confirmed our presence here.
Since then, we’d barely spoken despite our silencing shield. We barely breathed half the time. We just waited. Perhaps to die. I didn’t know anymore.
At least Ransom and I could cast water for us to drink, but our stomachs grumbled for food and the ache was growing intolerable.
Ransom was wedged hard in on my right and Kaiser was jammed in on my left, the heat of my enemy beside me always impossible to ignore, especially with the scent of oak and cinders taunting my senses.
Ransom threw snarled remarks at him occasionally, threatening to throw him out there as bait to give us a chance to run.
When I reminded him that his connection to Calcifiend might be our only hope of escape, he bit his tongue.
He had a point I couldn’t ignore though. I wasn’t throwing in with Kaiser by any means. But I did want to stay alive and right now his eyes in the sky and his promise of an archway to whisk us away from the army were our only hope.
A group of Cascadian warriors had made camp right outside the shack’s door and there were three more camping close at its back too. Kaiser said little at all between his updates from Calcifiend and when he spoke again, all I felt was more resounding disappointment.
“No movement.”
“There must be some change?” Ransom hissed. “Why aren’t they patrolling? Or hunting us down in the woods for fuck’s sake?”
“They’re starving us out,” Kaiser said darkly.
“How could they possibly know we’re still here?” I whispered in frustration.
“They don’t,” Kaiser answered. “But enough of them have been stationed here to test that theory while the rest of them hunt the area. I’ve kept Calcifiend close to their new commander. Someone named Lisbeth Regal.”
“I know her,” I said grimly. “She’s ruthless and damn persistent too. Kaské, how are we ever going to get away?”
Kaiser had no answer to that, but Ransom groaned.
“We’re going to die in this fucking loft,” my brother snarled, clearly running on fumes at this point. “I need a piss.”
“Again?” I cursed. “You only went an hour ago.”
“Alright I don’t need a piss. I need a shit. And I’ve been holding it for three days so I’m pretty sure I’m gonna rupture my fucking spleen or something if I don’t go.”
Kaiser released a low growl in his throat, his anger evident and shifting the atmosphere around us.
“You got something to say, Flamebringer?” Ransom snapped, and I had to be glad of our silencing shield as his voice rose.
“Only that I am not going to die because some Cascadian bastard left a festering trail of turds right to our hiding place,” Kaiser snarled.
“Well, we can’t all start a fire in our ass and burn up our shits like you, asshole,” Ransom hurled back.
“Can you really do that?” I whispered in surprise.
“Of course not,” Kaiser growled back.
Ransom stopped the conversation dead by swinging the hatch open and drawing in concealment spells around him.
It was a relief to get some fresh air and a bit of sunlight from the doorway but my heart rioted as Ransom cast an ice ladder to the floor and descended. He kept to the shadows at the far side of the room and we lost sight of him.
While we waited, I melted the ice ladder and pulled the hatch shut, ensuring we were hidden if someone came into the shack.
“I thought you despised your brother,” Kaiser said coldly, as if angry at me for changing my mind on that.
I mean, I hadn’t exactly gotten over all the shit Ransom had put me through in the past but I had found something of a kinship with him in recent weeks.
I certainly wouldn’t call him a friend. But the fact that he’d come with me, turned his back on Cascada alongside me, that had to change something between us, didn’t it?
“I have many reasons to hate Ransom but he isn’t the clone of my father that I thought he was. He cares – more than he’d like to admit. He was as sickened by my father’s unnecessary violence as I was. Besides, what’s it matter to you how I feel about him?”
“It causes me rage but I don’t know why.
” Kaiser shifted beside me, all too close, his muscular body jammed tight against mine.
There was no avoiding touching him in this space, the more I wriggled, the more I seemed to entwine myself with him so I’d given up trying to escape his all-consuming presence.
“Why did you come for me, hollow man?” I whispered, airing the confusion of my mind, all the questions I’d tried to avoid thinking about in this dank place finally bursting free.
“Mirelle suspected the Reapers of great atrocities some time ago. Now she knows her suspicions are correct and that they’re bringing a monster to this world to destroy us all, she will stop at nothing to expose the Reapers for what they truly are and to annihilate that monster before it gets its teeth into The Waning Lands.
But she could use the assistance of the Void. ”
“So she wanted you to kidnap me. Again,” I said coldly, though I couldn’t deny how The Matriarch’s wants aligned with my own.
“No, this was my idea not hers. I told her I would come to you and ask for your help. Nothing more.”
“And you thought I’d just run off into the sunset with you?” I scoffed.
“I seem to have gotten you running with me one way or the other,” he said, a dry taunt to his voice. “Tell me, silka la vin, why have you come this far with me?”
“You know where an archway is,” I said quickly. “You’re my key to escape, that’s all. That doesn’t mean I’ll go anywhere with you once we get out of this mess.”
“So where will you go? You’re the Void and now you’re a traitor to your land. Every other nation will know of it soon enough and they will come hunting for you with even more vigour than before. You have no protection now.”
“Yeah, I realise that, pishalé,” I snapped, his declaration of my dire fucking circumstances not exactly helpful to hear.
“Don’t you wish for the monster to be destroyed? Don’t you want the Reapers to be served justice?”
“Is that what you want?” I deflected. “Or are you still Mirelle’s puppet despite the fact that you’re not under a spell anymore?”
“Since my emotions have been returned to me, I have wanted nothing more than I wanted to find you, silka la vin,” he said, his voice full of grit.
A dark kind of desire rose in me. I recalled laying on top of him on the deck of the White Mare, how close our mouths had been, how fiercely my heart had beat at finding him alive.
He continued while I remained silent. “So perhaps I don’t care much for monsters and Reapers while you are still at the crux of my mind.”
“You said back on the ship that you didn’t know whether you wanted to kill me or kiss me.” I felt foolish for repeating it, but how could I not think of those maddened words he’d spoken to me?
“Your mouth is a want I’d commit treason for,” he growled. “Your death is what I hungered for in penance for your father’s crimes. That’s the logic of it. That’s all I understand.”
“But now he’s dead,” I pointed out, my skin prickling as a storm brewed between us. He was volatile and I had no idea how his emotions might swing next.
“Mm,” he grunted but I didn’t know what that meant.
I shifted away from him even though there was nowhere to go, a sense of danger shivering through my skin. Kaiser Brimtheon had no clue who he was anymore and he was torn between desiring me and hurting me. I hated to confess to myself that the feeling was mutual.
“Where does the archway go, Kaiser?” I asked in a low tone. I hadn’t asked, sure I knew the answer anyway but I didn’t want to hear the truth.
“It will take us to Mirelle and where all of Pyros is hidden.”
I nodded thoughtfully, having expected that answer. “You’d trust me to wander into your stronghold alongside my brother? No chains? No cages?”
“Yes.”
I believed him. I shouldn’t have, but this plan of his to lead me to them would only be worth trying if he was telling the truth. Otherwise, he would have just captured me and taken me to them straight away.
“How is there an archway to your hidden place? Don’t the Reapers know of it?” I questioned suspiciously.
“Mirelle has wedded Lazarus Astrophel and allied with the Vampires. They know how to build the archways.”
“Hia Kaské,” I cursed in shock. “I thought she refused his offer?”
“It’s a strategic move. The Vampires are a fierce force. They will strengthen Pyros greatly.”
“Eské,” I swore again, thinking on how hugely this would shift the dynamic in the war.
“So what will you do?” he pushed.
I let that question hang in the air while I thought over my answer.
Mirelle wanted the monster gone. I needed a strong force to get into Never Keep on the night of the blood moon.
I couldn’t let Harlon down, he was counting on me.
Who really knew if Mavus would show up now?
I hadn’t seen him since the battle and the trader was hardly the most loyal Fae in The Waning Lands.
But this decision meant placing my trust in the hands of my enemies.
With time ticking down to the blood moon, the whole of Cascada hunting for me and few Fae to rely on, what choice did I have but to follow this path?