Chapter 7
Sabine
Facing Maximan through the fogged glass is like seeing a ghost.
For weeks, that stern old guard was my shadow in Sorsha Hall, silently tailing me through the Valvere’s lavish parties, watching me while I rode Myst, serving as prison guard at my bedroom door.
Seeing him now—here—breaks the delicate spell I’ve fallen into since entering Volkany.
Sure, it hasn’t been all sunshine—I did die, after all—but at least Basten and I are together.
Now, I feel jolted back to the stark reality that these fragile few days of peace were never meant to last. War has always loomed on the horizon.
My reflection catches on the polished metal frame of the greenhouse, flashing my own glowing fey lines back at me. Quickly, I smooth a sweat-soaked hand over my face and down my arms, willing away the fae until only human skin shows.
Maximan doesn’t know I’m fae, I remind myself. Or that any of the fae court is awake.
Basten wrenches open the greenhouse door, scowling at the old Astagnonian soldier. “Old man, how the fuck did you get all the way to Norhelm without getting yourself butchered?”
Maximan is no fan of Basten’s, either, but when he doesn’t match Basten’s sneer—or even throw off a rude comment about Basten’s bare chest—a spike of fear digs into my chest.
Maximan wipes his thinning gray hair off his forehead and says sternly, “I came to deliver a message. We encountered King Rachillon’s forces north of the border and surrendered. We need to talk, Lord Basten.” His once-blue eyes, now foggy with cataracts, shift to me. “And you, Lady Sabine.”
A painful silence falls around us like snow.
I can feel it. Our beautiful time here breaking, breaking, breaking like ice. Basten and I—we’re finally free. For once, I’m no one’s prisoner. Or pawn. Or bargaining chip. Especially not a naked bride on horseback.
So, of course, Rian would find a way to destroy everything.
I see that the gates of the Twilight Garden are open, and a regiment of twenty Astagnonian royal soldiers stand at attention behind Maximan, along with two enclosed wagons. One looks to be for supplies. The other, however, is the iron-reinforced wagon that Rian used to transport Tòrr.
Except, of course, Tòrr is here.
Which means something else now prowls in that locked cage.
Curious Volkish sentries watch from their posts at the castle gates, along with gardeners who don’t even pretend to be pruning dead branches. Woudix is among our audience, too, and seeing him makes a shiver travel down my arms, reminding me of his touch that unlocked so much.
I rub my bare shoulders, covered only by thin ribbon straps holding up my gown, which only seconds ago was shoved down to my waist.
“So, talk,” Basten barks.
Maximan clears his throat, a strange waver in his eyes that I’ve never seen before. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the old soldier was afraid.
“King Rachillon should be in attendance to hear my message,” Maximan says, eyes sliding to the caged wagon. “It would be against diplomatic policy not to include him.”
“He’s with his generals,” Woudix says smoothly, sauntering up with Hawk pressed to one leg. Like me, both he and his dog wear their mortal glamour. Only, now that I know the truth, it looks wrong on them, like an ill-fitting suit. I can’t believe I didn’t see the truth the first time I saw him.
Luckily, I don’t think Maximan has the eye to spot magic.
“I can speak for the king,” Woudix adds, reaching into his pocket to remove a solid gold calling coin studded with gemstones, the mark of the king’s favor. “I’m one of his three Blades, trusted with every royal secret.”
Maximan’s eyes narrow, ever skeptical. He gives Woudix a once-over, from his dark chin-length locks to the thin metal armor pieces that curve over his chest like rib bones. He might appear human, but the chill rolling off him—laced with the scent of myrrh—makes Maximan flinch back.
“It’s true,” I confirm, tipping up my chin. “And, as the king’s daughter, I give you permission to speak freely.”
Maximan lets out a tense exhale before pointing to two of the royal soldiers. “Private Hammon. Private Flynn. Unlock the cage door. The rest of you, at attention. Secure the chains.”
Basten’s nostrils flare—he scents something with his godkiss that makes his hand fall smoothly on the knife sheathed at his side. Always a huntsman.
Maximan signals to the soldiers. “Open the cage.”
Private Hammon shuffles forward, trying to hide his shaking fingers as he pulls out a heavy keyring.
Basten slips his hand into mine, gives a grounding squeeze. “Little violet,” he murmurs. “Check yourself.”
That’s when I realize that I’ve let my glamour slip—the fey lines on my hands are glowing. Quickly, I summon my disguise back.
Fortunately, no one’s eyes were on me except for Basten’s.
Private Hammon swings the door open and jumps back, gripping a thick chain threaded through the cage’s portholes. It pulls taut, and for a heavy second, we all stare at the dark interior of the wagon. From this angle, I doubt even Basten, with his night vision, can make out what’s inside.
A wheezing, deathly exhale rolls out like fog. Shuffling footsteps scuff the cage’s steel floor. Chains drag. I brace myself, brimming with pent-up fey, ready to step in and cast a punishing ice storm on whatever might emerge from that cage.
Another monoceros?
A mutilated, feral cloud fox?
I can’t stop a jolt of surprise when what steps down instead of a monster is…a boot. Slow. Measured.
It’s a…person?
The crimson robes of a Red Priest settle around the prisoner’s legs as he sways—moving in odd twitches—out of the cage.
Finally, he shuffles into the sunlight.
Every person in the Twilight Garden lets out a gasp, but none is as great as my own. Because the person isn’t a person—at least not anymore.
The man’s skin is gray, his cheek rotten out to show broken teeth beneath. His eyes are as glassy as a dead bird’s. A gash across his throat nearly separates his head from his body.
A fatal wound.
Yet he’s walking.
That’s when I recognize the white streak in his otherwise blood-stained hair.
I rear back, heart hammering. “It’s Beneveto!”
The Grand Cleric of Astagnon.
The last time I saw Beneveto, my father was sending him to Old Coros to help with the coup.
Until then, he’d been a source of comfort in Volkany.
Not an ally exactly, but a fellow human.
Someone who understood the fae ways and helped me come to terms with their world, before I even knew I was one of them.
Basten’s hand closes like a vice around mine, as in one swift movement, he draws his hunting knife and steps in front of me.
Beneveto—or rather, his corpse—steps jerkily down the wagon’s steps as strange gurgles reeking of decayed, fermented bile bubble up his throat. The chains fastened to his wrists pull taut as the royal soldiers hold him like a cross-tied stallion.
A brief worry spikes through my head. A walking corpse is terrifying, yes—but why the iron chains? What exactly, besides shuffling and gurgling, do walking corpses do that’s so dangerous?
Basten spins on Maximan, voice rising in disbelief. “What the fuck is this?”
“It’s the work of a godkissed Deathraiser.
” Woudix’s voice, calm and confident, cuts in and ripples like a deep undercurrent through the nervous crowd.
He steps closer with the unbothered confidence of a creature who’s never had to run from anything.
Hawk pads along at his heels, silent as ever.
“This cadaver is not alive. His body is merely animated like a puppet, commanded by godkissed magic.” He lifts his chin.
“The soul belongs in the underrealm, but it is only halfway there.”
The royal soldiers eye Woudix with suspicion. He never revealed that he was the God of Death—would they have believed him if he had?—but his easy calm radiates a wrongness that screams there’s more magic here than they ever imagined.
“I don’t understand,” I blurt out, clenching my fists, the fey in my veins surging hot and wild. “Why would Rian do this? Is this a declaration of war? Did he find out the Grand Cleric was a spy for Volkany, send him like this as a warning?”
Maximan, who’s been staring at the reeling undead thing with barely veiled disgust, jerks his head toward me. Gruff, he barks, “Beneveto was a spy?”
I blink, taken aback. “You didn’t know?”
His brow caves inward, the line between his eyes deepening to a chasm. Clearly, he did not. “You’re certain of this, Lady Sabine?”
I nod.
Maximan mutters under his breath, eyeing the cadaver with renewed disgust. “No, my lady. King Rian didn’t know. None of us did.”
My voice drops, a chill slipping into it. “Then why kill him?”
Maximan shifts his stance. “Grand Cleric Beneveto and Lord Kendan, with the help of Folke Bladeborn, attempted a coup upon the Astagnonian throne two weeks ago. They tried to murder King Rian while he was sedated, being worked on by a healer.”
The words fall like bricks.
For one breathless second, all I feel is panic. Rian was attacked? It wasn’t long ago that I explained to Kendan Valvere that Rian had an old back injury that required sedation and a healer’s touch the first of every month.
Is he alive?
I might as well have held the killing blade myself.
The guilt rises fast—but just as quick, it crashes. Why should I feel guilty for aiding the coup? Rian may have laughed with me once, touched me like I mattered—but underneath it all, he’s still the same bastard who earned the name Lord of Liars.
You don’t get a title like that by being kind.
“Their attempt failed,” Maximan explains, and gods help me, I feel a wild surge of relief before my better senses kick in.
Maximan gestures to the half-rotten cadaver wheezing at the end of the chains.
“In the skirmish, Rian killed the Grand Cleric, then was able to escape. No one knows his current location. At present, the Kingdom of Astagnon is without a ruler. The throne stands empty. I don’t have to explain what danger that puts Astagnonians in. ”
Basten paces, his face pale, his stance tense as a bowstring.
It’s a lot to process for me, too, but one question lodges in my mind like an arrow. “Wait—if Rian is a fugitive, how could he order a Deathraiser to resurrect the body and send it here as a message?”
“You misunderstand, Lady Sabine,” Maximan says gravely.
“Rian didn’t send the cleric. Lord Kendan was the one who had the Grand Cleric’s body raised in an attempt to hold the throne, at least temporarily.
After Rian, Beneveto had the greatest claim to the throne out of anyone in Astagnon.
We thought he’d be more-or-less comatose.
Easily manipulated, like a child’s doll.
None of us expected…” he motions to the corpse, “…this would be the result. Consider him evidence, from Lord Kendan. Of the coup. And how dire our situation is.”
The air seems to go still around me. I lightly drag my fingers over the godkissed mark on my breastbone, thinking of the poor Deathraiser who was forced to create this undead abomination.
“Kendan needs someone on the throne,” I say, finally understanding. “Someone alive.”
At my side, Basten stiffens.
Until this moment, I don’t think he fully grasped what this entire horror show was about. That, for the first time since we set foot in Volkany, this isn’t about me.
It’s about him.
Maximan lowers himself to a knee, his old bones cracking, and dips his head to Basten. The royal soldiers follow suit behind him, and the ones holding the chains bow their heads.
I know it must kill Maximan to have to bend the knee to Basten—the scofflaw he knew as Wolf—but Maximan is nothing if not loyal to the crown.
“Lord Basten,” Maximan says. “I’ve been commanded to bring you back to Astagnon to assume the throne. Immediately. At any cost.”