Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Aurelia
The mountain wind smelled of frost and pine sap, the cold sharp enough to sting my lungs when I breathed.
The sun hadn’t yet cleared the peaks by the time I’d gathered my things and emerged from the cabin, but its soft light caught on the edges of the valley below—casting the world in soft gold that made the haze-wrapped Midnight Court look deceptively peaceful.
I joined Amanti near the stone circle, my swords strapped to my back—both returned to me this morning by Daegel—and a small pack of supplies in each hand.
“Did you get any sleep?” I asked her, noting the dark circles.
“Some.”
“I dreamt about Lesha,” I admitted.
“As did I.”
Worry coiled inside me. I shoved it away.
“Where are the others?” I asked.
I’d wondered if they would even join us.
Keres and Thorne, especially. But every single one had heard our plans and jumped right in with their own preparations.
No one had blinked an eye or bothered to make a pronouncement; they’d just jumped into action.
Like a unit. Like there was never any question that where one went, the rest followed.
“Thorne and Slade rode ahead to scout the way,” Amanti told me. “The rest are—”
“Here.” Rydian rounded the corner, leading a saddled horse in each hand. Daegel followed with two of his own, and Keres brought up the rear, already mounted astride a beast of her own.
I noted the double blades strapped to her back and the bow stowed with her saddlebags. She caught my eye and dipped her chin in greeting, then halted at the edge of the path, waiting.
“This one’s yours.” Rydian handed me the reins of a black mare that I was fairly sure had participated in my kidnapping from Grey Oak.
“What’s her name?” I asked, noting the way her coat gleamed like midnight itself. Her coloring reminded me of Shadow, the horse I’d ridden to the Autumn Court alongside Callan.
“Mouse,” Rydian said.
I snorted, but when he didn’t react, I stared at him. “You’re serious.”
Daegel grinned as he passed and handed Amanti the reins to a spotted grey. “Dove is all yours, Aunt,” he told her.
“Thank you, Daegel.” Amanti swung up into the saddle with all the ease of someone who’d done it a thousand times before, though I couldn’t remember ever seeing her on horseback in my life.
I glanced at her damaged wings, my heart panging for what she’d lost. What had been taken from her.
A Brindalorn.
Was the South still somehow full of all the things we once thought were mere myths?
Everything except the Verdant.
Rydian took my packs and strapped them to Mouse for me.
I stared up at the cabin, noting the last trace of hearth smoke curling from the chimney. Frithhold was already half-swallowed by fog, its memory dissolving into the cold.
Directly ahead, the Trolech Forest spread out of sight where I knew it would eventually give way to the vast, barren wastes of the Broadlands.
From there, our journey stretched all the way to the Osphanis, the winding river that cut through the land like a silver scar.
It would take at least four days to reach it, and that was if we made it unscathed through whatever lurked in these lands.
To my right, the Concordian Mountains stood tall and snow-capped in the lightening dawn.
I looked out over it all, watching the horizon swallow the last stars, and wondered if Lesha could see those same stars now.
The thought made my chest tighten, made the furyfire beneath my skin pulse with a heat that was both comfort and threat.
Control it. Always control it.
“Ready?” Rydian’s voice came from beside me, low and careful.
I turned to face him. He was dressed for travel in dark leather and worn cloth that seemed to drink the shadows, his sword strapped across his back with the ease of long practice.
The morning light caught the sharp angles of his face, and I noticed—not for the first time but with fresh awareness—how he looked at me.
Like I was something precious and dangerous in equal measure.
The Chosen One, I reminded myself. The savior of the realm. That look had nothing to do with his own personal feelings.
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I said.
Amanti approached, her scarred wings tucked tight against her back, a posture I’d learned signaled determination.
“We all know the Broadlands are no gentle crossing,” she said, her warrior’s pragmatism cutting through any false comfort.
“Stay close. Stay alert. These borderlands belong to no one, which means anything can claim what’s inside them. ”
“They’re welcome to try,” Daegel said cheerily.
“We go slow and keep alert,” Rydian said quietly.
The others nodded.
I shook off my own dark mood and let him help me into the saddle. Touching him was completely normal, I told myself. A friend helping a friend mount a horse. Nothing more. But my hand tingled with awareness even after I’d let him go.
Daegel and Rydian both mounted, and we fell into line; Daegel at the front with Rydian following. Then Amanti and I, with Keres bringing up the rear.
Our processional remained silent for the first few hours. Slade and Thorne didn’t appear, nor did they signal danger ahead, so we plodded onward, down the mountainside to the Trolech Forest’s floor.
Every now and then, I caught the glint of Rydian’s eyes when he looked my way. I pretended not to notice.
I wanted to hate him. Gods knew I had every reason to. But I understood him now in a way that scared me. His silence wasn’t arrogance. It was armor. And I knew what it was to wear that kind of shield—to fear what might break through.
The trail narrowed to a pass where the mountain wall rose sharply on one side and dropped steeply on the other.
Rydian slowed, allowing his horse to pick the best footing, and I followed his lead, bracing my hand against the rock that rose up beside me.
A few paces ahead, Daegel muttered something about mountain goats, and Rydian’s low laugh rolled like smoke in the cold.
The sound of it hit something traitorous in me.
I wanted to hear it again. To cause it. To call it mine.
When the path leveled out, I kept my gaze fixed ahead, counting the crunch of gravel under Mouse’s hooves, the hiss of wind between stones. Anything to ignore how my pulse changed when Rydian drew closer.
By midday, the mountains fell away behind us, though the trees remained. The air turned warmer, heavy with the scent of damp earth and fallen leaves.
We stopped only when Rydian called for it, his voice cutting through the silence. “We’ll rest here.”
Daegel shrugged off his pack and began clearing a space for a small fire. I knelt to help Amanti unfasten the straps on her own pack. Her fingers were stiff from the cold, but she brushed mine away.
“I’m not helpless,” she said.
“I know,” I said, smiling faintly. “You’d probably stab me if I treated you like you were.”
“I would never,” she said, lips twitching.
It was a small thing, that exchange, but it felt like something loosening between us—some old thread of loyalty pulled taut with her admission about being Rydian’s aunt now mending again.
An hour later, we resumed our trek, and the day passed quietly.
By nightfall, the world had quieted to only the sigh of wind through the trees.
Daegel took first watch. On my left, Amanti cupped a mug of tea, staring into nothing with a look that hollowed me out.
On my right, Keres sat, sharpening her blade with slow, deliberate strokes, the rasp of steel against stone steady as a heartbeat.
Rydian sat across from me on his bedroll. His limp had improved, but I could tell from the way he sat that his hip still twinged, thanks to the injury Koraz had given him.
We couldn’t risk a fire, but the moonlight was more than bright enough to see him watching me. I tried not to notice the way the starlight caught in his dark hair. The strong line of his throat. The capable hands that had killed for me, protected me, betrayed me.
“Tell me about the naiad,” I said, desperate for distraction.
Amanti looked up from the tea Keres had forced on her. “They’re a kingdom made of old magic. Older than the courts.”
“Tyrion never could get them to agree to help us,” I said.
“They still consider themselves outsiders in Menryth,” Amanti said.
“They’ve been here for a thousand years,” I said.
“For some, a thousand years is not long at all,” Keres said quietly.
“Maybe for the gods,” I snorted.
“It’s not just that,” Rydian said. “They consider Beneath a different realm. One not subject to the same threats as Above.”
“They must know by now that Heliconia will not allow them to remain neutral,” I said.
“Patamoi is no fool,” Amanti said. “But he is no pushover either.”
Rydian shifted, and I felt his gaze like a physical touch. “We’ll need to prove ourselves worthy allies. Show him our strength.”
“I’m good at strength. It’s control that’s the problem,” I muttered.
No one else said anything.
Rydian frowned. Silence stretched between us, thick and heavy.
“Aurelia—”
Amanti’s snarl was the only warning before chaos erupted.
One moment, we were sitting alone in the forest. The next, darkness itself erupted from the ground—shapes made of writhing shadow and malice, with eyes like dying stars and claws that gleamed like obsidian.
Heliconia’s soldiers.
I scrambled to my feet as an Obsidian launched itself at me.
My hand went to my back before I remembered I’d tucked my swords beneath the tree on the other side of my bedroll.
Too far away now. I scrambled for my belt, for the knife Daegel had given me when he’d handed over my swords, but the creature moved faster—
Steel flashed. Rydian was there, his sword cleaving through the Obsidian’s torso in a spray of dark ichor. The creature dissolved into smoke and screaming.
I dashed to my swords, snatching them up.
“Behind you!” Amanti’s shout spun me around.
Another Obsidian. Larger. Its claws reached for my throat.