Chapter 45 Nox
Nox
“She still hasn’t responded.”
“She probably just fell asleep, Nox. It’s late,” Tessa assured me.
“But we were in the middle of a conversation.”
“Then perhaps she doesn’t hang off every word you say. You’re not as riveting as you think you are.”
I glared at my third. I knew Tessa was trying to ease my anxiety about Devora’s sudden silence, but it wasn’t working.
Plus, I didn’t know what she was talking about. I was incredibly riveting.
“Believe it or not, I tend to agree with Tessa on this,” Kieran said from the couch in the workshop.
Tessa raised an eyebrow. “Well, would you look at that.”
“You cannot simply go bursting into Scarven’s manor on a whim,” Kieran continued, propping an ankle on top of his other knee.
“Especially since your magic hasn’t come back,” Tessa added.
“You’ve both made your point, thank you,” I muttered. I ran my fingers through my hair, my eyes drifting down to the parchment every few seconds. Waiting. Pleading. Hoping for a response.
N
That was the last thing she sent. Then, nothing.
Tessa was right. And it had taken me a while to respond right before this. She could’ve just gotten tired of waiting and fallen asleep. It was late, and she’d had a long few days.
Kieran stood and walked to my desk, resting his hands on top of it before gently saying, “She is not Sage. She’s going to be fine.”
I let out a breath. She may not be Sage, but Scarven was still Scarven.
“Let’s just wait until tomorrow, okay?” Tessa said. “That was the plan. She checks in every evening, and she already checked in tonight. We don’t need to sound the alarms yet. Once we do, there’s no going back.”
“I know this is difficult,” Kieran said when I anxiously twisted the ring on my little finger.
“You bear the weight of so much, Nox. You feel that every decision is on your shoulders, and yours alone. If you decided to rain fire down on Scarven’s mansion this very night, I would go with you to the end.
But you must realize the precarious nature of this mission.
If we react rashly, we could tip it over the edge. ”
I met his gaze, my talon-less finger tapping against my desk. He was right. He was one of the only ones who could force rational words through my chaotic mind. I gave a quick nod, and both his and Tessa’s shoulders relaxed.
But as they turned to leave, I said, “There’s only so much more waiting I can do. On any of it.” I slowly got to my feet, fists resting on top of the desk. “A storm is coming, and we have to be ready to face it.”
Tessa’s lips thinned into a resolute line. “We will be, Nox. We will be.”
I tossed and turned in my bed, fighting sleep and the nightmares that awaited me.
I eventually gave up and, like most nights, sought solace in my blocks of wood.
But my fingers were clumsy. I nicked my skin countless times, watching the blood bead and drop to the floor as my slow magic started to come back.
It had been over twenty-four hours since Devora’s last message. The fatesprig was starting to wear off, and my powers trickled in little by little. Like hot oil dripping through my veins, filling the cracks its absence had left.
And it was impatient. Restless. Waiting.
My dragon half yawned somewhere deep within me, slowly rising from the dead. The ghost of talons scraped against my mind, its maw opening as a fire burned low in my gut.
It craved retribution. It craved bloodshed. And it craved her.
Here in these dark, quiet hours, I could let that part of myself admit my own desires. Admit that she was no longer just another member of the Order. Admit that she had come to mean something more to me.
And she was in trouble. I could feel it.
Tossing the half-formed figurine of a pomegranate to the side, I tugged a shirt over my head and left for the workshop. It was a little after midnight, and I knew Silas often worked late. He claimed his Alchemist magic was strongest under the moon.
Sure enough, when I strode into the room, I saw his brown-and-gray hair bent low over his table, those familiar glasses perched on the tip of his nose.
He looked up with a raised eyebrow. “Need another sleeping draught, Nox?”
I shook my head. “I’m not sleeping tonight.”
His features turned grim. “You’re going after her.”
There was no use lying. “I need something to make my magic stronger. Do you have a potion? Some sort of spell?”
My question seemed to catch him off guard. His wise eyes grew larger behind his glasses. “Nox, that is a dangerous request.”
I realized what it sounded like I was asking for. Who I sounded like. “No, no, not like him. Just…something to make my magic come back quicker. It’s there; I can feel it, but it’s not at full strength yet.”
“And that’s why you shouldn’t take this on by yourself. Let’s make a plan, get a team together,” Silas urged. “Busting down doors and blowing up buildings isn’t always the route to go.”
“I’m not risking any of you getting hurt.” I crossed the room to the target practice area where we kept extra weapons and examined a pair of knives before shoving them back in their sheaths. “This is my doing. My responsibility.”
“You Shifters and your hot heads,” he said with a sigh. “You don’t even know where she is. She could be—” He cut himself off, and I turned to see what the pause was for.
“Silas, what is it?” I moved closer to him. His eyes darted across his stash of herbs, blinking rapidly as he rubbed his fingers against his apron.
His gaze finally fell to me. “I think I can find her.”
“How?” I demanded.
“Can you get me something of hers? A strand of hair, or—or something she wore. Something that would have her signature.”
I didn’t bother responding. I stormed out of the workshop and headed straight for her chambers, already tuned into her scent.
Wrenching the drawers of her dresser open, I was flooded with the smell of pomegranates and salt and sunshine.
It opened up an ache in my chest, a yearning that threatened to break me.
I grabbed the first thing my hand touched—a gray sweater, the one she often wore when I visited her in the tower.
“Will this work?” I asked as I burst back into the workshop.
Silas took the sweater with one hand, his other busy grinding several herbs with a pestle. He laid it on the table, took the mortar, and sprinkled the crushed leaves onto the top of the sweater. An earthy, musty scent mixed with something spicy hit my senses.
Silas reached into the pockets of his apron and pulled out a piece of flint, then struck the side of a steel blade against it until it sparked. The small fire caught onto the bed of leaves, licking and spreading along the fabric of her wool sweater.
“Vidia,” he said under his breath.
I surged forward. “What are you—”
Silas held up a hand. “Wait.”
I gritted my teeth and balled my fists at my sides.
Flames danced in the air, consuming the herbs and sweater.
The wool ignited slower than the leaves, the edges of it curling up and blackening under the orange haze.
It left behind a dark, brittle ash that scattered as Silas leaned down, gazing in fierce concentration at the smoke.
He inhaled sharply, and I blinked. Where the flickering fire turned into smoke, an image appeared.
All the breath left my lungs.
“Oh, Devora…” Silas’s quiet sigh of distress made the vision waver.
There was a flash of red hair, black cuffs on pale skin, steel chains nailed to a cracked stone wall. I gripped the edge of the table and got as close as I could, taking in every detail with sharp focus.
Devora’s hands were held above her head by chains staked into the wall.
Her arms strained as her body hung limp and her chin rolled along her chest, that fiery hair sagging down one side.
Her shoulders were pulled so tight, I thought they were going to pop out of place.
A small spot on the exposed side of her neck caught my attention—a red pinprick with dark lines branching from it.
The bastard injected her with something.
My dragon fully awoke inside of me, clawing its way to the surface. Talons erupted from my hands and shredded the tabletop. Chunks of wood broke off and fell to the ground, and it took every ounce of control I’d learned in my thirty-three years to force my magic to calm.
The vision showed her sucking in a breath, her neck jolting up when she woke. Dirt and smudged kohl lined her pale face. Her bloodshot eyes were wild as she jerked against her restraints, knees dragging the ground until she found her footing.
“Look who’s finally awake,” Scarven’s muffled voice said.
A shadow appeared in the corner, and Devora’s eyes narrowed in on her assailant as her jaw clenched. A spark of pride bloomed in my chest at the savage look on her face.
“Look who’s finally figured it out,” she snapped back.
There she is.
The shadow stalked forward until the back of Scarven’s head came into view. A snarl of rage ripped from my throat.
“Ah, the little lamb has sharp teeth,” he said. “That was what I liked most about Miss Nyte. Although, I suppose it’s Devora now, isn’t it?”
In a flash, he stood before her, clutching her throat in his hand. The workshop was filled with the sound of her scream. My stomach twisted, and it felt like my chest was caving in as red wrath clouded my vision.
But then something else snagged my attention.
On the wall next to her left arm were rows and rows of small scratches etched into the stone. Jagged lines, one after another after another, all down the side of the cell wall.
I knew those lines.
A memory reared to the forefront of my mind.
I was sixteen again, my back against the stone, sweat plastering my shirt to my body. My arm shook as I raised it, shifted the tip of my finger into a talon, and sank it into the wall, breaths laboring with the energy it took just to scratch the small line.
Footsteps pounded outside the cell door, and a second later, it swung open to reveal two lion-masked guards with rope and a needle. They took one look at my half-shifted hand and launched forward, one of them holding my arms back while the other plunged the needle into my leg.
That image vanished as the one of Devora wavered. The flames coming from the herbs began to dissipate.
“It won’t last much longer,” Silas warned.
“I know where she is,” I said, my voice barely more than a growl. “He’s holding her in the south tunnels beneath the servants’ quarters.”
“How do you know?”
I straightened my spine, my eyes never leaving Devora’s face. “It’s the same place I was kept.”
He knew. Scarven knew she was working with me. He was sending me a message, keeping her in the same cell I spent years of my life in.
And he knew I would come for her.
It was an obvious trap—another one of Scarven’s mind games, him laying the chessboard and letting me take my turn right into his hand.
“He’s baiting you, Nox,” Silas warned. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
I didn’t care. There was nothing in this world that would stop me.
“Wake the others,” I said, already charging out of the workshop. “We leave in half an hour.”
I’m coming, darling.