Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT
Our hosts delivered breakfast at what I assumed was dawn, though of course in our chamber beneath the ground there was no real way to be certain.
We ate and dressed in Cascadian garb while Vesper muttered irritably about wanting to get on with her task in Avanis.
But we knew the fastest way to get to Stone Castle was to do as they wished of us in Cascada first.
Lazarus led us back to the chamber which held the three archways and I looked over the Fae who had been selected to join us in this task.
A group of six Vampires, led by Lazarus and accompanied by the Werewolf North all looked back at us with more than a little distrust written into their features.
“Cuffs,” Vesper said sweetly, holding her wrists high so that Lazarus could remove them for her. I said nothing as he did the same for me, but I sighed as I was reconnected to my magic at last.
We took our packs and weapons back from them next and the Werewolf shifted uneasily beside us.
“How does this work then?” I asked, staring at the stone archways and wondering how something so innocuous was supposed to transport us across The Waning Lands.
“Like this.” Lazarus took a pouch from his pocket and poured a measure of glittering black dust into his hand. He took a step towards the archway but I lurched forward, snaring his wrist in my grasp and peering down at the substance he held.
“Where did you get that?” I snarled, a Dragon’s growl rolling up the back of my throat with the words.
“It was a gift,” Lazarus said hesitantly. “Do you recognise it?”
“The Fae who held me against my will forced me to create that. They dragged comets into the cave where I was chained and made me blast them with Dragon fire. This glimmering dust was the result of that. They gathered it up greedily and I know no more of its use or value than that. But it was the reason my life was stolen from me, the only purpose my captivity served.”
Lazarus pressed his free hand to my bicep, his brow furrowing as he peered up at me with sorrow in his expression.
“That is how stardust is created,” he said. “And without Dragons it cannot be done. The world’s supplies of it are limited indeed. But I am so very sorry that you had to suffer so much for it to be created.”
Accusations rose to my lips but the Fae who’d captured me had been Reapers.
This man was actively working against their kind and he was a Vampire no less.
I certainly hadn’t seen any of his Order during the years I’d spent locked beneath the ground.
He couldn’t have had anything to do with my captivity.
But that didn’t make me feel any better about seeing the substance which I had suffered so much in pursuit of.
I released his wrist and he stepped back, moving to place the stardust into a shallow depression at the foot of the archway.
Vesper watched as the stardust raced up and over the outline of the archway, illuminating it in a bright, golden glimmer through which I thought I caught glimpses of something beyond this place.
Her hand knocked against mine, her fingers brushing my palm for the briefest moment. An acknowledgment of my suffering.
I gritted my jaw, meeting her eye for a moment before the two of us strode forward as one, diving straight into that glimmering light and letting it sweep us away in a rush of motion that had my head spinning while whispers pressed against my ears like we were being watched.
We stepped out of the archway, leaving it at our backs as bright sunlight blazed down on us and stole my ability to see much beyond my own boots.
Our entourage for this expedition followed closely behind us. Supposedly here to help us, though we both knew they were here to watch us too. Neither I nor Vesper required any help and they knew it.
I turned to frown back at the glimmering archway as the vortex of stars at its heart faded away and it was left empty. Only Lazarus held the stardust used to re-open it and without him we’d be returning to Stormfell on foot.
Sand shifted beneath my boots and I frowned down at it while the glimmering blue of the ocean lit the world in pale tones warmed by the sun in a way I hadn’t felt in over two hundred years.
“If this is madness then I am happy to lose my mind to it,” I murmured, tilting my head back and welcoming the warmth onto my face.
Vesper moved closer beside me, her fingers brushing against my waist, a poorly concealed smile on her lips as I looked down at her.
“What?” I asked.
“Poor Bastian,” she teased, her fingers tiptoeing up my chest. “I didn’t know you were such a sucker for the sunshine. Have you been suffering in the mountains of Stormfell all this time, hating the cold and the snow?”
“I gladly endured the torment because my reward for it was your company,” I replied, causing her smile to widen a little more.
The bright blue dress she wore to blend in with the Cascadians suited her well, the thin fabric meant for this climate and allowing me a look at far more of her flesh than the leathers she favoured in her home country.
“Are you two a…thing?” North blurted, reminding me forcefully that we had not come here alone.
“No,” Vesper snapped while I replied with a firm, “Yes.”
She scowled at me and I scowled in turn.
“Now he knows to use you against me if he has to,” she chided.
“Not the other way around?” I asked, catching her hand as she made to withdraw it and pressing it flat against my chest above the pounding of my heart. “Feel how it beats for you alone, spectre. Tell me yours doesn’t match its rhythm.”
She swallowed back her reply, finding herself captivated by me for several long seconds before she snatched her hand away and turned to face the Wolf.
He’d been sent with us by Mirelle as a test – if he didn’t return with news of our success and in good health then we would be held to account for his demise.
“So which is it?” North asked expectantly and Vesper sighed, tugging her hand free of my hold and rounding on him.
“Ignore the Dragon. I have him in my thrall. I can place you under it too, if you like?” she suggested.
I growled, fixing my darkening gaze upon the Wolf who quickly shook his head.
“No thanks. I wouldn’t fall for that shit anyway.
That’s an issue for weak minded Fae. So you’re all his or he’s all yours or whatever but I’m just here to watch…
I don’t mean to watch you fucking, just to watch you do this keystone thing.
Unless option A is on the table and I might be persuaded – in a totally non-thralled kind of way. ”
I growled again, Dragon fire burning the back of my throat but Vesper only snorted dismissively and strode away from us both, heading along the beach and away from the rocks which concealed the archway.
North held my gaze for longer than most Fae would have managed but as I took a step toward him he ducked his head and strode after my spectre.
Pity. I wouldn’t have minded wringing his neck.
Vesper hadn’t so much as slowed her stride to wait for us and I stalked along at her back, watching the wind as it blew her dress around her legs, revealing the daggers strapped to her thighs.
Blonde hair tangled in the breeze too and I found myself lost to the idea of her being able to simply stop and enjoy a single moment of peace.
I remembered then that this was the land she truly hailed from.
She’d been born for the sun, her bloodline that of this place, not of the frozen expanse of Stormfell.
I knew she couldn’t have any memory of ever having been here but she’d taken her first breaths in this land, first opened her eyes to the warmth of this sunlight and felt the kiss of it upon her skin.
My gut knotted at the thought of her never having had a say in whether she’d wanted to leave Cascada.
The Vampires passed me to follow her and all thoughts of stealing a moment with her in this beautiful place vanished. We weren’t alone and our task here couldn’t wait.
“We know that the keystone is somewhere in this region,” Lazarus said, taking a map from his pocket and unfolding it. “We’ve been researching old records and have managed to dismiss some leads but–”
“I don’t need a map,” Vesper replied, not even bothering to look back him. “It’s calling my name.”
“What’s calling her name?” North asked.
“Something far more powerful than anything you’ve ever so much as dreamed of, pup,” I said, striding past him and the confused-looking group of Vampires so that I could follow Vesper along the coastline.
The sandy beach was beautiful but inland cliffs rose up behind it, all manner of caves and formations decorating their faces.
“Is it far?” I asked her in a low tone.
“No,” she replied, taking my hand in hers and dropping the barrier to her magic in offering. The moment I let my shields down too, the roar of her name filled my head with so much force that I released her hand at once.
“VESPER!”
She gave me a knowing grin then turned abruptly toward the cliffs.
“Are you going to explain what you meant by that?” Lazarus asked, appearing on Vesper’s other side in a flash of movement that had a snarl pulling back my upper lip.
“Maintain your distance,” I warned him and he sighed but obligingly took a few steps to the side so that he wasn’t walking so close to her.
“You might as well just wait out here,” Vesper said. “Unless one of you wishes to volunteer yourself in sacrifice?”
“Sacrifice?” North barked. “Who said anything about a sacrifice?”
“It’s not necessary, but the ether is always willing to accept fresh blood. And it might even save me a measure of pain if I offer up a willing victim for it.”
“If it isn’t necessary then let us go without it,” Lazarus said firmly.
“Pity,” Vesper sighed and I released a low chuckle because I knew she meant that.