Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
Aurelia
Cold air hit my face, thin and sharp, and the world opened from a slit in the rock to a silver-washed valley of Obsidian soldiers.
I didn’t let myself look there too long.
Instead, I watched as Slade, Eirnan, and Thorne slipped away, there and gone in an instant as Slade shadow-walked them down the rocky path toward the camp’s edge and then straight into its wicked heart.
Then it was Daegel’s turn.
Keres stood with half the Withered soldiers, their breaths puffing out in hot clouds as they waited for their camouflage to envelop them.
Daegel’s shadows were a dark ward around them, different from Slade’s murky portals, but just as effective, and soon, they were invisible, lost among the last dregs of darkness.
I watched them all go, my heart in my throat, and sent a prayer to whatever gods might still listen to keep them safe.
My thoughts drifted to Sonoma. And Ire.
Protect them, I pleaded.
The wind whipped in response; an assurance or a refusal, I couldn’t be sure which.
Rydian crouched beside me in the mouth of the fissure, our backs pressed to stone slick with condensation. He’d woken me a half hour earlier and hadn’t said more than necessary since. Neither one of us seemed interested in goodbyes.
When the others had gone, I shifted my weight, anxious to move.
He lifted two fingers. Wait.
His shadows rose—quiet, obedient smoke—then spilled over us both like a second skin. The torch behind me guttered as if suddenly choked for air.
Wrapped in that shadow, I tasted metal on my tongue. Fear. Steel. The promise of a fight. Remnants of a dream filled my mind. Ash and smoke and scorched earth—the whole valley burnt to a crisp. A dream or a nightmare.
Dorcha and Latha were strapped to my back.
My hair was braided tightly, and my Aine leathers were soft against my skin, cold in the damp morning air.
I didn’t feel the chill, though. Not when the flames beneath my skin heated me from the inside—ready to consume everything it touched.
But it was the hunger stirring in my belly that I leashed most tightly, my nerves dancing alongside that gnawing desire.
Makarios was a weapon I’d yet to master, but I would wield it just the same. Today, I would drain them all or burn them to ash. No more hesitation or being ashamed of what the gods had gifted me. Not if it brought Lesha home. Not if it made Menryth safe.
“On me,” Rydian whispered, pushing to his feet.
I nodded, and together, we slipped from the cave lip, moving down the slope like shadows of the night.
The ground crunched faintly with frost where there should have been dew and wild thyme. To my left, a thin ribbon of black water threaded the camp’s far edge. The sight of it made me think of Nali. And Amanti.
I turned away from those thoughts, focusing on our path ahead as the rocky descent leveled out into a more open ground packed hard by the frigid temperatures.
Rydian’s shadow curtain flexed with us—thicker when we crossed open ground, thinner when we hugged boulders and dead brush. My body whispered its training: Keep low, keep loose, keep moving. My power whispered something else: destroy. Burn. Protect.
Soon, the camp resolved into detail—rows of tents edged in frost, guy lines sparkling with ice crystals.
The cooking fires were banked low to spare the smoke.
Onyx-eyed horses stood tethered between posts, their coats too still, manes unmoving even when the wind cut through camp.
Obsidian eyes. No whites. No shine. A wrongness forced into the shape of a horse and then broken into lifeless obedience.
It was the same with the soldiers.
But I saw more than Obsidians standing watch or huddled around a fire, and the sight of what else Heliconia had wrought spread through me like a poisoned dread.
A cluster of figures in white leather and woven bone; when they turned, there was nothing where faces should be. Masks strapped to emptiness.
I stumbled, momentarily enthralled.
Rydian gripped my elbow, steadying me. I tore my gaze from the camp’s creatures and anchored myself in his gray-brown eyes. He didn’t speak, but I found steadiness in the way he looked at me. Like he was just as horrified as I. And just as determined to destroy them all.
We kept moving.
The ground near the outer tents was dead—the frost there not a film but a deep layer of frozen earth, scorched with the burn of ice. I was careful to step without slipping on the slick patches.
We rounded a thick hedge of briars, and Rydian raised his palm.
Two sentries moved along the outside perimeter, their patrol unhurried, spears tipped in ice-burnished metal. Their helmets were smooth—no ornament, only efficiency. The nearer one turned his head, and I caught the glint of eyes like polished coal.
Obsidian.
His pointed ears and male frame marked him as fae. Or former fae. Now, he was only an empty shell. A Made thing. Soulless and utterly loyal to its master.
“Left,” Rydian mouthed.
His shadows pulled across us like a curtain. Ten steps. Twenty. My heartbeat was a drum beating too fast. One of the sentries paused, head lifting slightly as if scenting.
We stilled.
He turned toward us.
Rydian breathed out, barely more than a thought, and darkness lifted from the ground to swath the sentry’s helmet.
“What are you…?” I watched, confused at the way the shadows merely hovered rather than struck a blow.
“An illusion,” Rydian whispered. “He’ll see us as fellow soldiers. Nothing more.”
The sentry stepped closer. The illusion stretched to accommodate him. His weapon lowered a fraction as if to accept us as his own.
Then the shadows parted, and his gaze snagged on the exposed mark inked on my throat.
Something flickered behind those obsidian eyes.
“Ident—” he began.
Rydian was already moving. His hand clamped the sentry’s jaw, shadows knifing between the helmet and skin. The Obsidian’s body went slack in a single, horrible sigh. Rydian lowered him without sound.
The second sentry came rushing; I was already there. Dorcha slid under ribs where armor parted for movement. The Obsidian’s breath whooshed out as his knees buckled. I caught his weight and lowered him to the frost-coated ground.
We dragged both bodies into the briars and kept going.
Faster now.
Past the outer line, where I scented animal, sweat, boiled meat.
Rydian steered us toward a line of heavy canvas structures near the northern quadrant where supply wagons sat: coils of rope piled beside crates, racks of barbed grapnels gleaming in the fading moonlight, stacked barrels that stunk of sour ale.
Somewhere on the other side of it, a guard sneezed.
We froze and let a patrol pass so close I could count the smudges on their boots.
Rydian’s shadows held. Then we were moving again.
We found gaps, slipped through them, became the night. My mouth was dry with fear that, at any moment, we’d be spotted and it would all come crashing down. I swallowed back the fear and pointed to the largest of the tents in this section.
The hub of supplies.
Hopefully, food stores or even weapons.
Either way, if that tent caught fire, the rest would burn with it. They stood too close not to catch on one another.
It was perfect.
My palms warmed at the idea of igniting this camp. The sleeping beast inside me that was my newfound well of power purred in a slow awakening. It was nearly time.
Rydian led the way, both of us keeping low despite the shadows shrouding us from view.
When we reached the tent, he slid the flap aside with gloved fingers, enough to slip under one at a time. Pressing in close at his back, I stepped through and was greeted by a wall of cold air, more frigid inside than out. Cold storage, maybe.
But it smelled wrong for any kind of food stores.
Instead, beneath the chill, I scented disinfectant—and blood.
Rydian stepped aside, and I glimpsed what we’d found. Cots. Rows of them, most empty, but a few of them with bodies wrapped in blankets. On the bedsides, lanterns burned low.
A medic ward.
I noted onyx-eyed soldiers staring unseeing at the tent ceiling. They showed no signs of life. A few others lay on their backs, bandages soaked through, breaths shallow. All of them past the point of caring at the sight of us.
One cot sat apart from the others. On its bedside were instruments laid out on trays: a bone saw, various blades, an iron hook. On the floor, a long, thick length of chains lay coiled. There was nothing healing about any of it. Only torture and suffering.
My pulse stuttered once, hard, and then recovered. Rydian’s fingers brushed my wrist, and I knew it was a warning. A reminder that we weren’t here for injured Obsidians.
And then I heard it. A raw, small exhale with just enough voice that I recognize it instantly.
I turned back to the cot and looked closer at the frail form lying wrapped in a thin blanket. Cheekbones like knives. Lips chapped and split.
“Lesha,” I breathe. Her name tasted like salt in my mouth.
Something in her eyes shifted.
She was alive, thank the gods.
“Lesha, can you hear me?” I whispered, voice cracking.
She blinked slowly, staring through me, then at me as if she had to practice the steps of remembering how to do it.
“Auri,” she whispered like it hurt to speak. Hearing her use my childhood nickname almost broke me.
“Yes.” I bent over her, fingers ghosting over her face, afraid to touch, more afraid not to. “It’s me.”
Rydian’s head snapped to the door. He inhaled, cocking his head, listening. “Two coming.”
“Please,” Lesha begged. It was hardly sound.
“We have you,” I told her, and I meant it with every piece of power in me. “We’re taking you home.”