Chapter 8 Nox
Nox
“Dance with me, Nox,” Sage said, those dark eyes sparkling with mischief.
My lips curved into a smile. “With no music?”
“Music?” She chuckled. “We’re rebels on the run. We don’t get such luxuries.” Her grin stretched across her face as she stood from our spot by the campfire and held out a hand. “Dance with me.”
“As you wish.” I pulled her into my arms. The wind whistled through the trees surrounding our tent, blowing her mass of black curls over her shoulder.
Her sleeve had slipped down her arm, and I couldn’t resist the urge to kiss her soft skin, my lips trailing up her shoulder and to the base of her neck.
Her head rested against my chest as we swayed to the sound of wind and leaves, buzzing insects and the distant river lapping at its banks. “Where are we going after this?” she asked softly.
I swallowed, thinking of Scarven’s anger if he discovered what I’d done. The lengths he might go to in order to get me back.
“I don’t know.” I leaned away, cupping her face in my hands. “But I promise you, Sage, it will be a better life than the one we left behind.”
She blinked once, long lashes brushing against dark cheeks. “I love you, Nox.”
“I love you, darling.”
I bent to kiss her. When my lips met hers, I tasted something salty. Metallic.
The vision wavered. Her skin went ashen, and crimson blood pooled at the corner of her mouth. She choked and inhaled sharply, eyes filling with dread. I let out a strangled yell at the blood coating my hands.
A slit appeared at her neck, long and gaping. She collapsed in my arms as we both fell to the ground.
“Sage! Sage—no—” I cried out, struggling to keep her in my grasp. Everything was covered in blood.
I scrambled back on my knees with shaking gasps and clutched my hair in my bloody hands. This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t have found us so quickly.
In the blink of an eye, the scene changed. Our moonlit campsite was replaced by sunny cliffs overlooking the Sea of Scarab. Ahead of me at the edge of the cliffs stood two figures I recognized in a heartbeat.
Mother twirled Vera in a circle, my sister’s high-pitched giggles breaking the quiet air. They both shared the same blonde hair as me, but Vera’s held a hint of rust.
“Noxy! Come play!” my little sister called, her voice rising above the waves crashing below.
My heart lurched in my chest. I stepped forward, reaching out to touch them. I hadn’t seen them in five years. I was so close—
The cliffside began to shake. Rocks dislodged and crumbled into the sea below. With my next breath, my family disappeared.
I glanced around in a panic, then ran to the edge of the drop-off, my pulse pounding in my ears. When I blinked, I saw my father flying off the cliff.
I shouted for him, lunging forward as his body fell into thin air, his hand outstretched as if to grab mine. Before I could shift and catch him, the scene changed once more.
My body slammed into metal bars.
The sunlight vanished, and I was staring at familiar cold, dark walls, with the sound of water dripping from cracks in the ceiling. But this time, it wasn’t me inside the cell.
I glanced up to find my sister—no longer the bright, giggling five-year-old but a hardened teenager.
She looked like she did the last time I saw her, when she was almost sixteen.
Her cheeks were pale and gaunt, those golden eyes now lifeless and dull.
Her dirty-blonde hair was tangled and matted, mixed with so much dirt and sweat that it appeared brown.
My stomach hollowed when I saw how emaciated she was—her arms and legs were practically skeletons, the bones jutting out as if she hadn’t eaten in weeks.
I reached through the cell bars to grab her hand when the shadow of a lion formed on the floor before me.
A dark chuckle echoed off the walls. “Hello, brother.”
My eyes burst open with a gasp as I sat upright in bed, my fingers already shifted into talons.
Moonlight from the window dripped off my claws, sharp as steel.
Chest heaving, I took several deep breaths to calm my racing heart.
I couldn’t stop the tremor in my arms. The panic from seeing all of them was so real and visceral.
I hadn’t dreamed of Sage in years. She had died a decade ago, after Scarven caught us trying to leave Drakorum. He’d given me a small taste of freedom, a blessed reprieve after nine years in his house, and I bolted the first chance I got.
It was all a test. He knew I’d run. And he made sure I paid for it.
Sage was a girl I’d met in captivity, an orphan they’d found on the streets of Drakorum and snatched up in one of their first batch of test subjects.
She kept her radiance and light even when Scarven’s men did everything in their power to dim her.
My first love—my only love. The girl I’d given everything for.
He made me watch when he killed her.
“The price,” he said, “for thinking you could be rid of me.”
He slit her throat as she screamed my name. The first of many moments I would come to realize were my fault. If I had only done as he asked, if I hadn’t let my pride make me think I could escape, if I’d just been better.
So I became better.
I learned how to deceive. How to hide my intentions with a silver tongue, how to get what I wanted without raising suspicion.
I became his subservient little lapdog while swiping his prisoners from beneath his nose.
I played the part, did what he asked, and shed as little blood as possible while doing so.
My loyalty gave me the freedom to move among the empire as I pleased, and eventually, I started the Ashen Order and led our group of rebels in rescuing more and more helpless people.
But that mistake had taught me well. Sage would still be alive if it wasn’t for me. Anyone who meant that much to me, who got that close, who captured my heart the way she had…they were as good as dead. Scarven would make sure of it.
I would never let someone in so deeply again—not until Vera was safe and Scarven’s head was hanging on my wall.
I scrubbed a hand down my face before remembering it had shifted into talons, and blood instantly welled to the surface of my nose and cheeks.
I savored the sting, letting it bring me back to reality.
Within seconds, the wounds had already clotted, courtesy of my quick Shifter healing.
I forced my claws back into normal hands and threw the covers off my legs.
It was still dark out—half past three in the morning, according to the clock on my wall. I groaned. Tonight was the secret shipment from Mysthelm Tessa had found out about. It was going to be a long day, and I needed to be alert. But there was no chance of going back to sleep.
I padded to my closet and stared at the rows of shelves built into the back.
They were full of hundreds of little wooden figurines in various stages of completion.
Some fully rendered models of animals, ships, and people; many half-crafted designs still encased in wooden blocks that I’d given up on over the years; stashes of fresh planks of wood, blank canvases simply waiting for me to sink a blade into and carve something precious.
I grabbed one at random, a rich, hard chunk of maple wood, and swiped a carving knife from a chest on the shelves.
After making my way back to the window by my bed, I sat on the wide sill, turning the block of wood over in my hands.
My fingers were already searching for the shape hidden inside.
It was a habit I’d formed many years ago, when I desperately needed something to do with my hands and my mind.
It was often the only thing that kept me from splintering.
With a quiet breath, I set the knife to the grain, letting muscle memory guide the first careful cuts.
A curve here, a sweep of wings there. It took my mind off the memories that threatened to crush me, off the hopelessness that always reared back to life.
All I had to do was keep my fingers moving, keep the image clear and ready in my head, and let the worries drain into curls of wood at my feet.
“You look like trash. You sure you’re up for this, Noxy boy?” my third-in-command said by way of greeting as we made our way to the stables of the Keep. Everett and Kieran were already waiting for us with the horses.
I forced a smirk onto my tired features. “Trust me, Tessa, I have no problems keeping up. Tell me again what you found when you scoped out the port this morning?”
“The Mysthelm ship is scheduled to dock ten minutes after midnight,” Tessa said. “The guards have a shift change right on the hour, and there’s about a two-minute window of opportunity to sneak in and intercept the ship before Scarven’s men get there. We’ll have to be quick.”
“Quick’s my specialty,” a new voice said as Arowyn popped into the empty space before me. Tessa jerked back with a cat-like hiss, still unaccustomed to the Strider being able to appear without any warning.
“Sorry, did I scare the kitty-cat?” Arowyn mocked.
I snorted. “One of these days, you’re going to get a pair of claws to the face.”
“Worth it.”
When the others had settled, I went through their tasks.
“Arowyn, you stay back with Kieran to keep our escape route cleared. We need you free to stride in and break us out if it comes to that. Tessa, you and Everett will come with me.” I pointed to the two of them.
“Everett will cast an illusion to keep us concealed while we take the south alleyway up to the port, and once we get close enough, Tessa will shift and slip onto the ship. We’ll find out what they’re carrying and destroy it. ”
Arowyn and Kieran went over the details of their escape plan while we all mounted our horses and took off north on the thirty-minute trek toward the port. The sun had set long ago, leaving us with the blustery, frigid night wind and the stars to guide our way to the water.
Silas, our head Alchemist and final member of the Ashen Order, had stayed back at the Keep with his apprentice, Milo, to reinforce the wards and protect the refugees.
The Keep was made up of a wide variety of Veridians.
The vast majority of them were Shifters, but Scarven didn’t limit his experimentation to Drakorum citizens.
Over the years, he’d captured many from all provinces, wanting a range of magic at his disposal to run trials on as he pleased.
One thing Scarven’s victims had learned in their time under his hold was how to fight—for their lives, for their freedom, for those they cared about.
And we taught them how to hone that survival instinct.
We showed them they would never have to be weak or helpless again.
If the Keep came under attack, they knew how to protect themselves.
We were all a bit uneasy about leaving them, but this mission was critical. We had to find out what Scarven kept importing from Mysthelm. If it was something he was this secretive about, it must be big. Deadly. Capable of putting even more destructive power into his hands.
We stuck to the cliffs that ran along the eastern shoreline. As we neared the small village off the port, the dark silhouette of a ship loomed in the distance.
A hint of worry flared to life in the back of my mind. Something was wrong. It was too close. It was half an hour to midnight—forty minutes early, if Tessa’s scouting was correct. But this ship was already making port.
Tessa and I exchanged a glance before she, Everett, and I spurred our horses toward the village, cutting through the alley between two taverns that led straight to the cargo dock.
I looked to my left to see the hood of Everett’s cloak fall to his shoulders, revealing short-cropped black hair and a hint of the numerous chains he wore around his neck. His dual-toned eyes, one dark green and one bright gray, found mine as he gave a sharp nod and said, “You’re covered.”
Having an Illusionist at our disposal certainly came in handy.
He had the magical ability to cast illusions into the minds of others.
To anyone looking, we would be nearly invisible—as if our bodies were blending into our surroundings.
It was similar to what Scarven’s ring did, but I was too suspicious of that gift.
I didn’t feel comfortable using his ring when we needed to be covert.
The three of us dismounted right as we reached the alleyway and tied our horses to a post. There was nothing in sight. The village was asleep, as expected. We made sure the horses were secure before we shot down the narrow street.
As we neared the entrance to the port, the hushed tones of dockworkers grew louder, the sound of feet pounding on wood and water splashing against the decks far too loud for this time of night. Warning bells rang in my head.
The alleyway opened into the wide port, exposing several levels of docks stacked on top of each other for both smaller and larger cargo ships.
The mid-sized vessel I’d seen from a distance towered over the unloading dock, the crest of Mysthelm waving on their dark blue sail—a tree with four branches and a sword and sickle crossed at the trunk.
My hackles immediately rose. There were far too many workers. Firelight shone off several gleaming silver masks that some of the men wore, and I caught the familiar shape of a lion’s face embedded in them.
Scarven’s personal guard.
They weren’t supposed to be here yet. We planned our intercept point perfectly—before the delivery was set and in between guard rotations. But here they were, littering the entire port.
“Tessa, we’ve been compromised. Fall back,” I hissed to my third. “They can’t know we’re here.”
“I got it, Boss,” she cut in. “You stay. I’m not leaving until we find out what’s on that ship.”
I growled in response. “Tessa, I swear, if you—”
She gave me a quick wink before bursting into a sprint and shifting mid-air, her long, black locks disappearing into fur, her lithe legs shortening to paws.
She landed on top of a low awning as a small cat, then rushed to the ground and took off toward the ship.
Tessa had the unique ability to range the size of her Shifter form, from something as tiny as a housecat to a raging lion.
It was particularly useful for getting into places she didn’t belong.
I pulled my hood tighter over my face. “Remind me to have a little chat with her later.”
Everett grunted. “Nox, you can’t—”
I cut him off. “Is your illusion holding?”
There was a pause, and he sighed. “Yes.”
“Good. Don’t let it fall, or we die. No pressure.” I tracked Tessa’s shadow nearing the Mysthelm ship. “I’m going after her.”