Chapter 27
Gregory
The air in the cabin grew stifling with William and Adam commanding opposite sides of my dining table. Adam’s basket of honey cakes sat in the center between us. Harren stood rigid by the door, his eyes fixed obstinately on the floorboards.
Evan was a warm weight on my lap, and I secured my arm around his waist. He picked at a honey cake, unbothered by the thick tension in the room. He sat with me, where he belonged, smiling softly as he surveyed the ridiculous tableau of alpha power.
Then he leaned in, his breath a warm tickle against my ear. “You could have mentioned Adam had a brother,” he breathed out.
“That link is the only thing they share. Ignore him. He’s a preening bastard.”
Evan neither cowered nor obeyed. Instead, the spark of defiance I was coming to crave lit within him. He turned just enough to fix William with a composed stare. Bold, my omega.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lord William,” Evan said, his voice even and clear as he took a small bite of the cake.
William’s lips stretched into a wide, toothy smile. A subtle crackle of lightning with a faint trace of ozone sparked in his silver eyes. “The pleasure is all mine, my dear Evan.”
Though exhaustion clung to him, Evan let out a small, airy chuckle at the theatrical display, and a cold knot formed in my gut. The peacock’s blatant show of magic impressed my mate. Annoyance flared hot and fast, but I shoved it down. “Before you lose that smug smile, tell me why you’re here.”
Adam shifted in his chair, and the wood creaked beneath him. “Mordaine attacked the east border this morning while Harren was on patrol.”
Evan whimpered, and I tightened my grip on his waist, tracing slow, soothing lines with my thumb against his side.
“Was anyone hurt?” I asked, my voice flat.
“Thanks to the Mother Goddess, there were no casualties,” Adam answered.
“Mordaine fled further east. She was wounded, so it’s unlikely she’ll return before reinforcements arrive.
But she destroyed the holy crystals.” He let that settle in the room, his jaw set hard as stone.
“She must have had help from the inside.”
I jerked my head toward Harren. A growl started deep in my chest as suspicion, cold and vicious, lanced through me. The young alpha flinched, shrinking against the wall beneath the sudden pressure of my glare.
William gave Harren a subtle nod. The young guard pushed himself off the wall and took a hesitant step forward. He trembled as he reached into a satchel at his hip, drew out a dagger, and presented it to me.
“There was another shadow mage,” Harren fretted. “He saved me from Mordaine and left this behind.”
I reached forward as if to take the blade, but the moment it was within reach, I struck, clamping around his forearm. Searing heat, the fire that could burn away lies, flowed from my palm and coursed through his body.
It was a vile act, turning this judgment on a trusted alpha, but my mate’s safety mattered more than anything else. If Harren lied about Mordaine, if he were the traitor who aided her, I would melt him where he stood.
Sweat broke out across his forehead. Pained groans tore from his throat, followed by a strangled hiss as the interrogating fire searched his soul.
Evan jerked on my lap, gripping my arm. “Gregory, stop. You’re hurting him.”
I dismissed his plea, my will unshakable as the fire delved deeper, searching. “If he speaks no lies, then he can withstand the fire of truths.”
My magic met a smothering curtain of darkness inside him—a flimsy thing, woven from brittle, old panic. As my fire pushed through the gloom, a chilling dread flooded me. No, it was his dread.
Terror of a darkness had taken root in his soul as a child, the stench of burnt shadows and magic twisted into something foul. The deceit was a desperate attempt to keep that memory locked away, a secret he would rather die for than let back into the light. Loss. Fear. Guilt.
Harren gave a pleading shake of his head as a single tear tracked down his cheek. “Please.”
He was innocent of aiding the witch, at least.
I drew back my hand from his forearm and took the dagger. The instant I lifted my fingers from his skin, Harren scrambled for the door, sprinting outside into the morning without a backward glance.
Adam slowly tapped his fingers on the table as he relaxed into his chair. “Gregory, I know you are paranoid, and while the fire showed he spoke true about the attack, you just scarred that boy, son.”
“I’ll check on him,” Evan said.
Evan began to rise to follow Harren, but I caught his wrist before he could pull away. “Don’t go far into the forest,” I warned. “Stay within sight of the porch.”
“I will.” He scented my cheek. “Excuse me,” he said to Adam and William, sliding from my lap and hurrying through the open door.
William chuckled, the noise dripping with mockery. “Letting your mate run off to soothe the very alpha you just scorched?”
I smirked. “You’re not as clever as a lord is meant to be, William.”
“Let us continue with what we came here for,” Adam said, cutting off the argument. He gestured to the dagger in my hand.
I lifted the dark metal to my nose and breathed in. The pheromones were a distinct wild scent of pine needles and damp earth, carrying the raw, animal musk of wet fur. It hummed with the same discordant signature as the crystal that had dragged Evan’s soul here.
I frowned, turned the blade in my hand, and dragged my finger across the flat of the blade, causing every muscle in my hand to lock.
The metal had a grain to it, almost like bone, with a color that sat somewhere between black and violet, one that didn’t belong on any weapon I had ever held.
Wrong. A blade of this color had sung through the air the moment my father’s head left his shoulders.
I swallowed hard and turned the dagger over.
No. It was just a coincidence. Nothing more.
Tracing the fine, nearly hidden engravings along the guard, I murmured, “The North Lands.” I looked up at them, finding them both watching me. “This is a royal dagger.”
“So it is, then,” Adam mused. “We had our suspicions that he was another Imperial assassin, but saving Harren from Mordaine makes that theory obsolete. No Imperial agent would do that. The question now, Gregory, is whether this powerful mage—one strong enough to hurt the scarred witch—is another threat we need to prepare for.”
I examined the dagger, then the empty doorway Harren had fled through, and finally faced William. “No,” I remarked. “He’s not a threat to us.”
William sank back in his chair, folding his arms across the fine fabric of his doublet. One eyebrow climbed his forehead in an obvious challenge. “How can you be so sure?”
I held up the dagger. “We are not what the wolf-blooded alpha targets. But he found his prey.”
The words landed in the cabin’s quiet, and the air seemed to thin. Adam stroked his beard. “A wolf-blooded alpha of the old Vramikar line… still alive and has found his prey? Everyone thought the royal bloodline was extinguished in the Scouring Wars. That explains at least one thing.”
William pivoted his focus away from the dagger. “We still need to find the traitor who destroyed the wards.”
“I will find them,” I said, the decision forming the instant he spoke. I would not let anyone threaten the peace Evan and I were building.
“No. You have somewhere to go now, son. It’s the right time since Mordaine has fled and the way is open before the storm comes.
” Adam reached into a pocket of his jerkin.
With a deft flick of his thumb, he sent a small coin spinning through the air toward me.
I snatched the silver piece, tarnished with age and bearing the unmistakable profile of a grinning jester.
I stared at that grin. A binder mage dealt with the tying and untying of souls. If anyone could explain what happened to the original soul—where the first Evan had gone when this new, vibrant spirit arrived—it would be him. I needed to know he was at peace.
“The binder mage in Oakgon has information about the Conduits,” Adam explained. “He once entertained in the very hallways of Emperor Cassian’s palace. Show him that coin. He will know. And take Harren with you.”