Chapter 5
FIVE
CAIRN
The streets are packed. Women balance children on their hips. Men jostle for better views. Voices fill the air, and there’s almost a festive feel, as merchants move through the crowds, selling hot pastries and cider, as though this is a day of celebration and not an execution.
These people have come to watch a woman die. And they call us animals.
We move, unnoticed, through the crush. Therin on my left, Vessara on my right.
We’re glamoured to look like humans, wearing unremarkable faces, the kind mortal eyes slide right past and forget.
The glamours hold without effort. What iron there is in this city is buried beneath stone, and there are no wards keeping us out.
The king believes no fae would be foolish enough to walk into the heart of his power.
Maybe he’s forgotten what we really are. Maybe he truly believes the lies he tells his people. Or maybe he thinks I won’t walk into his city to take back what’s mine.
He is wrong.
I’ve spent centuries learning how humans think, and the one thing they would never expect is for the beast to walk into the slaughterhouse by choice.
We round a corner, and the square opens before us. My gaze locks on the scaffold. The pale wood. The trapdoor. The noose hanging from the crossbeam. To the left, there’s a raised platform draped in royal colors, waiting for the king and his court.
“There.” Therin nods toward a two-story building at the edge of the square. It has a flat roof, and a clear line of sight to the gallows.
I nod, and we ease through the gathering crowd toward it. When we reach the building, the door is locked. Vessara steps forward, snapping the mechanism with a pulse of magic while Therin and I hide her from sight.
The door opens, and we slip inside. Stairs lead up to a storage room.
A ladder just inside climbs to the roof.
From here, we can see everything. The platform where Alleria will be hanged.
The king taking his place on the dais. Brennan standing beside him, his ruined eye hidden beneath a fresh white patch …
… and the cart rolling to a stop at the foot of the gallows steps.
She moves stiffly as the guards set her onto the ground. The cotton shift she’s wearing is too big for her, hanging off shoulders that curve inward against pain she’s trying not to show. Her face is a mess of bruises, dark across her cheeks, and worse around the eye that’s swollen shut.
I catalog every mark. Every bruise. Every agonizing step she takes. And I file them away, because when I get my hands on Brennan, I will make him bleed for every single one of them.
“There’s a storm coming,” Therin murmurs.
I glance to my left. He’s dropped to one knee against the stone lip of the roof, a bow gripped in his hand. His silver eyes are fixed on the scaffold below, watching the king’s official unroll a scroll to read her crimes to the crowd.
“Will it be a problem?”
He snorts.
Below us, the guards lead Alleria up the steps. Through the blood bond I feel the erratic, terrified thud of her heart, and the way it lurches with every step she climbs.
The crowd falls silent as the court official continues to read the charges.
Treason. Conspiracy. Assault.
Her father offers mercy in exchange for information. Her terror spikes through me, yet she still says no.
“Aim true.”
I touch Therin’s shoulder, then make my way down through the building and out into the crush of the square. I need to be at the base of the scaffold when the arrow hits. Timing is going to be crucial. One wrong move, one fraction of a second lost, and she will die.
I’m almost close enough to touch the platform when the hangman steps forward.
The rope goes around her neck. Her panic hits me, flooding through every thread connecting us.
My fingers curl into fists at my sides, nails biting into my palms, but I hold still.
If I break cover now, before Therin takes the shot, we lose any chance of getting her away from here.
Brennan steps up to her. I can’t hear his words over the noise of the crowd, but I feel the shift in her emotions. Terror hardens into disgust, and then fury. She spits in his face. He walks away seconds later.
The hangman moves to the lever, and the fury leaves her, becoming exhaustion and resignation. She reaches clumsily in my direction, not knowing I'm close enough to touch her, and sends an apology I don't want and will not accept.
Then the trapdoor opens beneath her, and she falls.
“Therin … now,” I whisper, bracing to catch her and summon Selveryn once the rope is cut.
The jolt as she drops rips through me. Every muscle in my body seizes as the rope takes her weight.
I feel every second of it.
The burning in her lungs. The crushing weight on her windpipe. My own throat closes in response, reacting to the phantom pressure.
Where the fuck is Therin?
Her presence dims. She’s suffocating fifteen feet from where I stand, surrounded by humans cheering her death. The urge to draw my blades and butcher my way to the scaffold is a roar in my head. But I don’t move. I need to trust that Therin is waiting for a reason.
Light erupts from beneath the scaffold. Heat blasts outward in a shockwave, carrying the scent of smoke and cinders.
I throw up a hand against the glare as the crowd screams, surging backward in a panicked stampede.
The scaffold shudders as fire takes hold of the wood, and inside the flames something forms.
It rises from beneath Alleria in a rush of power. Wings unfold, shaped from smoke, as the beast lifts, its body solidifying as it moves.
Ash-gray hide. Ember light burning in its eyes and nostrils. Fire sparks from its hooves as it strikes the platform, forcing its massive bulk between Alleria’s legs, and taking her weight.
My gaze snaps to the rooftop, where Therin has his arrow aimed. His eyes are on the winged beast, and his aim wavers between the rope and the beast.
“The rope! Now!” The thought whips down the Nightwild thread connecting me to him.
Therin nods, and looses his arrow. It soars across the top of the crowd and severs the rope inches above Alleria’s head. Less than a second later, the creature launches skyward.
Wind and heat from its wingbeats flatten the onlookers. The scaffold collapses, fire consuming the wood at a speed impossible to stop. Thick black smoke fills the square. Screams echo off the walls.
I track the creature as it climbs with Alleria on its back, until smoke swallows them both, and they’re gone from my sight. I push and shove my way through the terrified people, and reach the building just as Therin and Vessara emerge.
“Move!”
The streets are in chaos. Mortals run in every direction. Guards shout useless orders. Smoke pours from the square, turning the air thick. We use the panic to our advantage, slipping through the gaps in the surging bodies until we reach the outer gate.
No one looks in our direction. No one tries to stop us.
Once we’re clear of the walls, we drop our glamours, summon our steeds, and ride.
Vel and Serath are waiting in a copse of birch trees half a mile south of the walls. Both have their swords drawn, and their steeds ready.
“Something flew over us,” Vel says before we’ve even stopped moving. “Large. Winged. Heading northeast.” Her eyes track over the three of us. “Where’s Alleria? What happened?”
“The thing you saw has her,” Therin answers when I don’t. He explains what happened while I reach with my magic, searching for Alleria.
The blood bond is silent. Completely and utterly silent. But the Nightwild magic tugs faintly northeast, matching Vel’s words.
“Mount up. We need to find her before the king’s men do.”
The storm hits fifteen minutes later. Rain coming down in cold, driving sheets. The horizon vanishes behind a solid wall of gray, turning the ground to mud. Visibility drops to less than a dozen yards.
The weather has no effect on the Nightwild steeds. We don’t have to worry about their footing the way humans do with horses. They move through the deluge the same way they move through everything—ignoring the slick earth, and eating miles in strides that bend distance with unnatural ease.
We ride in silence. The Nightwild thread flickers constantly—steady, then dim, then steady again—and each time it fades I have to fight the urge to push Selveryn harder. Where I should feel her, there's nothing, no matter how hard I reach.
Therin rides on my right, his eyes never leaving the sky.
He hasn’t spoken since we left the city, and I can guess why.
Vessara rides behind us. She hasn’t spoken either.
I'm sure they're both turning it over the way I am, trying to make it line up with something we know. It doesn't. None of it does.
Thunder rolls across the hills, lightning splitting the sky. The edges of the forest light up in the flashes. The pull draws me left toward a gap between two towering oaks.
I haul on the reins, turning Selveryn’s head and directing him into the trees. Branches whip past, shedding freezing water as we ride through. The canopy breaks the worst of the rain. Heavy drops still fall through the gaps, drumming against leaves, bark, and us.
The Nightwild magic gets stronger. We’re close now.
Then the trees open into a clearing. Selveryn stops so fast, I’m almost thrown from the saddle.
The beast stands in the center of a ring of crushed grass. Its wings are spread wide, curved like a shield over whatever lies on the ground beneath it. Rain sheets off the edges, pooling in the mud. Its gray coat has darkened to pitch in the downpour. Its eyes, glowing like fire, turn toward me.
Power hits me like a battering ram. It pours off this creature in waves, saturating the air and vibrating down every thread I share with my Guard. It’s the same magic that forms Selveryn. The same magic that ties the Guard to my blood and my oath.
Mine. This magic is mine.
“Cairn.” Therin’s voice is a tight whisper.
The steed’s head swings toward him, smoke curling from its flared nostrils.