Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Rydian
The Broadlands stretched before us like an open wound, all sun-scorched grass and drought-baked earth.
It had been three days since the Obsidians had found us.
Three days of hard riding, rationed water, and the knowledge that, somewhere behind us, survivors carried word of Aurelia’s location to the Winter queen.
I watched Aurelia from the corner of my eye as we rode. Always watching. Always aware of the precise distance between us—close enough to reach her if something emerged from the sparse scrub, far enough that I couldn’t see the exact shade of gold in her hair where the sun hit it.
Far enough that I couldn’t do something stupid.
She sat her horse better now than she had at the beginning of our journey. Back straight, hips moving with the animal’s gait in a way that made my cock twitch as I imagined those hips moving against mine. I forced my gaze forward, jaw tight.
This was torture of my own design.
You sent her away, I reminded myself. You lied to her then, and you're lying to her now.
Every hour that passed without telling her the truth about who I was—what I was—drove the blade deeper.
“You’re brooding again,” Amanti said, drawing her horse alongside mine. My aunt looked as tired as I felt, dark circles under her eyes, but her spine remained iron-straight.
“No, I’m not,” I protested.
“Your face gets this particular thundercloud quality.”
“I’m thinking.”
She smirked. “Same thing.” She glanced back at Aurelia, then at me. “You should tell her now. On your terms. It’ll go better coming from you.”
I shook my head. “Not yet.”
“Your funeral.” But her voice held something softer beneath the words. Sympathy, maybe. Before she’d left for the Aine, Amanti had watched me grow up, had trained me to fight, had kept my secrets for years. She knew better than most what those secrets cost.
We made camp that night under a scatter of scrub oaks where the ground rose into a knoll high enough to break the wind and still give us sightlines. A fire was out of the question, so we stuck to cold rations, finishing up the last of the bread and meat.
Across from me, Amanti lay back with one wing half-open while Keres rubbed salve on it. I watched as my aunt pretended not to wince. Beside them, Aurelia sat, staring up at the stars like she could force them to tell her what came next.
She’d barely spoken all day. Ever since the attack, something had shuttered behind her eyes. I’d seen her hands shake when she thought no one was looking, seen the way she stared at her palms as if searching for bloodstains only she could see.
I wanted to go to her. Wanted to pull her against me and swear I’d never let her face that fear alone. Wanted to kiss her the way I’d almost kissed her three days ago, before Slade’s interruption saved us both from my catastrophically poor judgment.
Instead, I watched her until she caught me staring. Our eyes held across the space. Something electric snapped in the air between us, hot and hungry and dangerous.
She looked away first.
I felt the loss like a punch to the chest.
“Get some sleep,” I said to no one in particular. “Long day tomorrow.”
Aurelia took my advice and retreated to her bedroll. It didn’t take long for her breaths to even out as sleep claimed her. Amanti and Keres followed soon after, leaving Slade and me.
Thorne had taken first watch. Daegel was already snoring soundly and had been for an hour. The tough bastard could sleep anywhere, anytime.
Slade waited until the others’ breathing had evened into sleep before speaking. “We going to talk about it?”
“About what?”
“About the fact that you’re one bad day away from doing something truly stupid where she’s concerned.” He nodded toward Aurelia’s sleeping form.
I reached into my pack and pulled out a skin of whiskey, drinking deeply. “I’m handling it.”
“Handling it,” Slade repeated. “Is that what we’re calling the longing looks and the general aura of sexual frustration you’ve been projecting for the past week?”
“Fuck off.”
He grinned, unrepentant. “At least, your face is healed. Though I can’t say it’s improved any without the rainbow of colors.”
“It’s better than your ugly mug,” I told him.
He laughed.
“Your mother’s going to be disappointed,” he said after a moment, sobering. “That you didn’t stay long enough to let her meet Aurelia properly.”
My shoulders tensed. “Keres said she chose not to.”
“You and I both know she was only waiting for you to return first.”
I didn’t bother to argue. My mother’s belief in me was a tired subject. “It’s better this way. For now.”
“Better for who?”
“Everyone.” I looked out into the dark, not meeting his eyes.
Slade was quiet for a long moment. “You’re going to have to tell her eventually.”
“I know.” The words came out sharper than I intended. I forced myself to breathe, to unclench my jaw. “After we secure this alliance.”
If we secured this alliance. The doubt sat heavy in my gut.
Slade must have read something in my expression because he leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “What is it?”
I glanced at Aurelia again, making sure she was truly asleep. Then I said quietly, “The river people hate us.”
Slade frowned. “You think they’ll refuse the alliance because of old history?”
“You were there the last time we attempted to negotiate with them. You saw what they did to that Midnight fae soldier.” I stared into the dark, but I was seeing something else. Somewhere else.
He grunted. “Does Aurelia know?”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to disappoint her. She’s put so much hope into this alliance.”
Slade snorted.
“What?” I asked.
“The princess is a big girl. I’d say she’s earned the right to process her own disappointments. And the sooner you figure that out, the sooner you stop making a mess of this whole damned thing.”
I watched Aurelia turn in her sleep, hair sliding over her cheek, fierce even there.
Slade followed my gaze. “She’ll ask you again how to open the gates. To let her try.”
“I know.”
“You’ll say no.”
“Until it won’t kill her.” The word kill was a foreign body in my throat. I forced it out anyway. “Until then, I keep her alive even if she hates me for it.”
The following day, before the sun had hit its midpoint, a tributary of the Osphanis revealed itself with the arrogance of old power—broad and bright and slow at the surface, deceivingly serene until it was far too late.
Underneath the surface, I knew, monsters lurked.
Lights moved like eyes opening far down in the green murk.
We stopped at a bend where the bank rose into a little tongue of clay and root. From the looks of it, someone had camped there recently and left nothing but the remains of a small fire and the way the reeds leaned like they remembered a weight.
I said, “No closer.”
The others halted.
“What is it?” Aurelia asked.
“A traveler moving on,” Daegel said.
“Or a meal dragged Beneath,” Slade added.
Aurelia blinked, considering.
“From here, we let them come to us,” I said. “Aunt?”
Amanti stepped to the edge, tested the clay, and let out three sharp notes. They knifed through the lapping of water at the bank; a signal. I watched the ripples carry the sound and wondered which kind of predator would come to answer it.
Aurelia’s fingers flexed at her sides, not a trace of furyfire beneath her skin.
I stood where the bank gave me the best angle to intercept anything coming out of the water.
Slade shifted to take our rear, eyes on the reeds.
We didn’t draw steel; that would be read as rudeness, or worse, war.
But my shadows loosened of their own accord, uncoiling along the ground like patient snakes.
“Whatever happens,” I said, without looking at her, “you let Amanti speak first.”
“I’m not an idiot,” Aurelia muttered.
I looked down at the water, at our reflections broken in the ripples.
The reedbed to our right shivered. Not wind. Rhythm. Something reverberating from Beneath.
I stepped half in front of Aurelia before I could stop myself.
“I don’t need a shield,” she said softly.
“I know,” I said. “You have one anyway.”
Behind us, the horses stamped the ground. Likely, they sensed something coming, as did I.
A moment later, shapes broke the surface: dark hair slicked flat to skulls, skin with a moon’s hue to it, eyes too clear and opaque to be anything of the surface.
The first naiad rose to her shoulders, naked, and set her hands on the bank like she meant to pull the land closer.
Water slid from her knuckles in threads.
“Amanti of the Aine,” she said. A voice like a current at the bottom of a pool. “You took your time returning to us.”
“Has Patamoi passed his crown, then?” Amanti said, and there was fondness in the name. “Or are you the royal welcoming party?”
A smile showed small, pointed teeth. “He sent me to decide if you’ve brought him a flood or a drought.” Her gaze slid to me. The current darkened. “Shadow-bearer. I’m surprised you would dare to return to these banks.”
I kept my hands visible and empty of any weapons, including my shadows. “Princess,” I said, bowing my head in respect.
The royal naiad’s eyes cut to Aurelia last. The river stilled like a held breath. “Summer’s secret,” she said, but she said it like it was a title as much as any insult.
Aurelia didn’t flinch. “Your Highness.”
The naiad’s smile widened.
Farther out, three more heads surfaced, each watching me and the Midnight fae that lined the ridge over my shoulder. Behind them, the current swirled in on itself.
Amanti stepped forward, wings tucked, and showed her empty hands. “We’re here to ask an audience with your king. We come with news and a debt he may wish to collect.”
“Your debt,” said the naiad, “is overdue.” She tilted her head toward me. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“The Winter queen seeks to detain us,” I said. “We wish you no harm, I swear it on my own blood and that of the gods. Will you grant us passage?”
The naiad princess lifted her hand and flicked water from her sharp-nailed fingers. The naiad watching her back perked up.
“Follow,” she said. “If you can keep up.”
She vanished. The others slipped under with her, leaving only rings chasing rings across the surface of the water. Slowly, those rings became a tunnel. The water slid away from them, creating a hollowed path into the depths.
Amanti glanced at me. It was dangerous, letting her venture Beneath, considering the debt she owed. I knew better than to talk her out of it.
I stepped to the lip of the bank and held my arm out to Aurelia.
“I don’t need—”
“I know,” I said. “But the naiad should see you are not unprotected.”
This time, she didn’t argue. She took my wrist, warm and alive, her touch heating my skin in a way that had nothing to do with furyfire, and we moved together as the river opened and decided—for the moment—not to drown us.