Chapter 28
Everly
It was easier than it should have been to go about my life in the wake of my father’s death.
He hadn’t been a part of it to begin with, so all I had to do was tuck the memory of his final wheezing breaths away somewhere with all the torture and bloodshed and pain I kept in my box of trauma, then let the world keep turning as it would.
Mostly, it worked, especially since I was now able to be out and about in the palace. I started to oversee the villagers myself while Wynnie shifted her focus to the bustling infirmary, trying out new tonics and salves on an increasing unknown array of monster injuries.
The rest of the time, I still threw myself into research. I had told Draven about the Gorenvyr. Though it hadn’t yet been spotted again, it was enough to make me wonder what other Elderborne might emerge.
There were only three more known to history at all, and each of them was horrifying enough to make the Korythid look like a children’s pet.
I also had Draven accompany me to the glorious library, requesting everything I could find on the history of portals while Draven let his patrols know to be on the lookout for them.
Today, though, I was back to reading about Batty, wondering what else I had missed in the book about her.
The margins were dense with notes about bonded skathryns, about their habits and instincts, about how some were said to sense frostbeasts long before wards failed or sentries sounded alarms.
‘Protectors,’ the text had called them. Early little warnings wrapped in wings and teeth and venom, and of course, snow-flaked fury.
Batty, of course, seemed to take that particular revelation as a personal compliment.
She stood straight up on my shoulder now like a guard-skathryn on official duty, chest puffed, obsidian eyes sharp. I suspected she was proud. Of herself, certainly. Possibly of me too, for having finally learned something useful about her kind.
The skathryn book says some of them can sense frostbeasts, I thought toward Draven as he made his way to the war room. Apparently they’re meant to protect their bonded fae.
There was a pause, brief but distinct. Then his presence brushed back against mine, dry and unimpressed.
Didn’t you say they were also meant to be excellent singers, he replied. Unless yours has been holding out, I suspect Batty is… atypical.
I glanced down at the proud little skathryn, and tried not to recall the few times she’d regaled me with her particular efforts at musical prowess.
Perhaps she’s just focusing her efforts on her more important skills, I offered dubiously.
Whatever you say, Morta Mea, he answered.
A grin teased the corner of my lips, and I felt a similar brush of amusement from Draven’s side of the bond, though it was edged with something darker.
Is the Lord General more amenable in my absence? I prodded, suspecting that was the source of the darker part of his thoughts.
Sure enough, any trace of amusement abruptly faded. He has always been averse to change.
So no, then.
I suppose that means I should hold off on finalizing our friendship bracelets, then.
A reluctant chuckle hummed through the bond before Draven went back to addressing Eryx, and I went back to my book. Or at least, I tried to.
Instead, blinding agony went through me.
It was happening more often now, instead of less, and there was never any warning. Sometimes Draven could be gone for hours before my mana spiraled out of control. Other times, it was a matter of minutes.
Batty trilled in concern, but her abilities didn’t extend to catching my power as it swelled. It seemed that she had to wait for my powers to spill out to enact her interruption, something that got more painful each time.
The waves of power crashed and raged against one another, battering against my bones like a living, feral being that was trying to claw its way from under my skin.
Finally, my shadows shot across the floor, chased by a volley of icicles that felt like they were shooting straight from my soul. Nausea churned in my gut, and my vision went black under another assault.
Morta Mea…
Just as Draven’s voice sounded in my head, Batty did whatever it was that she did, stopping my mana in its tracks.
Fine. Even in thought form, my voice was weaker than I wanted it to be. I’m fine.
It’s getting worse, he returned flatly.
It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t respond. Not when there was nothing I could say without telling an outright lie.
It was getting worse. And I couldn’t help but wonder if there would come a time when nothing—not Batty’s intervention, not Draven’s siphoning—would be able to tame the power of the dragon before it consumed me from the inside out.
I had finally managed to focus on my reading again when I got to the page with the Gorenvyr. I froze.
This wasn’t the first time I had read about it since my father’s death, but this was the first time I had let it sink in. This was the monster that had killed him.
This time, I noticed things I hadn’t before. Its horns were twisted spires that curled out from a massive, bull-like head. Where the Korythid’s face was eerily expressionless, the Gorenvyr looked openly malicious.
Or maybe it just felt that way to me.
My heart beat faster in my chest, my hands trembling for reasons that had nothing to do with the shock Batty had just given me.
I blinked and saw blood spattering on navy furs, pale blue eyes shot through with red.
This kept happening, these moments where the grief leaked out the way blood seeped from a wound when the stitches were tugged.
Inevitably, the walls would start to feel more suffocating than protective, the silence more oppressive than peaceful.
I shot to my feet, accidentally dislodging Batty from her slumber on my shoulder.
She squeaked a rebuke as I reached up to steady her, while Lumen let out a snort that sounded suspiciously like a laugh.
Draven was still busy in the war room, and I didn’t want to bother him, but I couldn’t stay in these rooms another minute.
“Lumen, are there back hallways to Nevara’s suites? Ones where we wouldn’t be seen.”
He narrowed his eyes in suspicion, and I sighed, crossing to the dresser and buckling my dagger around my thigh while I talked in a tone I hoped was convincing.
“Look, I’m being extra careful, and my mana never surges quite this close together. But if it does, I’ll call Draven to hide me.”
Lumen tilted his head as though he was considering. Finally, he let out a huff of air, turning toward the door.
Slipping my shoes on before he could change his mind, I followed the massive wolf out the door, past the surprised guards, and down a back set of stairs.
Other than the two guards outside mine and Draven’s sitting rooms, Lumen had chosen our path well. We didn’t run into a single other person until we reached Nevara’s door.
Glimmering runes had been carved into the pale stone around the frame, their lines sharp as fractures in ice. I recognized the outer ones from the wards that protected the palace, but the central mark, the one shaped like a crescent moon carved through two parallel lines, was different.
Specific to this room and the Visionary that slept behind its doors.
The rune hummed faintly beneath my mana, as if aware of my presence.
Draven had called it the Aurelcár Rune. To Know and To Deny.
With a distaste that suggested he wanted no part in preserving their traditions, he’d explained how the old kings used it to keep their Visionaries locked away in this tower.
But considering the vulnerable state she was in, he had reconfigured it, repurposed the lock that once imprisoned Visionaries to protect the one currently lying unconscious on the other side of the door.
As such, Draven had only woven a few of us into the rune’s recognition.
Himself, of course. Amias and Wynnie, Mirelda, myself… and then, reluctantly, Soren. Anyone else who tried to cross the threshold would find themselves plucked off the doorstep and deposited directly into the dungeons, making the need for guards unnecessary.
I lifted my hand and pressed my palm to the crescent groove. Frost bloomed outward in a delicate pattern before recoiling, recognizing me. The rune warmed beneath my skin, and I traced the two inner arcs in the sequence Draven had taught me.
A soft click sounded as the frost along the door’s edge dissolved, retreating like ink sinking back into parchment.
Soren wasn’t in his usual chair. A note on the bedside table in his sharp, slanted hand informed the room at large that he had been dragged away by Amias for food, a bath, and “what one might romantically refer to as sleep.”
Judging from the dried tea stains and new pile of books stacked beside the chair, he had been awake far longer than was healthy.
The room was dim, lit mostly by the soft glow of lanterns that pulsed like slow, steady heartbeats. Nevara lay motionless beneath pristine sheets, her silver hair streaked through with that awful venom-black, but arranged in her usual artful braids.
Mirelda dressed her with care every day, insisting she would never be seen in any state close to dishevelment, unconscious or not.
Her delicate hands rested atop the blanket, still and cold as carved marble with the same obsidian streaks staining her fingernails.
They were carefully manicured, her skin shining with a faint sheen of oil.
Her dress was deep purple today, the lines perfectly pressed like she was going to court instead of wasting away in this bed.
My stomach twisted sharply. Somehow it was worse seeing her like this without Soren hovering or Draven pacing a trench in the floor with his worry. Without their presence to fill the silence, it was just me. Just her. And the awful stillness.