Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Rydian
Iwoke to the sound of leaves rustling softly.
Not dripping water, not the roar of a river or the crackle of fire in a stateroom inside Patamoi’s castle Beneath—just the soft, constant hush of wind threading through branches.
For a second, my half-conscious mind insisted it was some new form of drowning, the world reduced to one endless, rushing.
Then I realized I was breathing.
Air, not water.
I dragged in another lungful, greedy and sharp. It tasted like earth and sap and sunlight. My chest hurt with the stretch of it, ribs bruised but intact.
I opened my eyes.
A tent roof hung above me, canvas dyed a deep, moss-green.
Light bled through it in shifting patterns, as if the whole thing was tucked under a canopy of leaves.
The air was warmer here than it had any right to be after what I remembered last—the frozen valley burning, furyfire rolling uphill, the river’s black mouth opening under my feet.
I was on my back on a narrow cot, boots off, armor gone, stripped to a plain linen shirt and trousers. Flexing my fingers, I patted my body, seeking the familiar weight of swords, daggers, anything.
Nothing.
Panic flared.
I shoved myself upright.
The world tilted sharply. My head spun. My stomach roiled. I braced my elbows on my knees and stayed very, very still until everything stopped pitching like a ship in a storm.
“I was beginning to wonder if you were intending to sleep until winter ended. Which, granted, would be a statement in itself, given current politics.”
I looked up.
Talthis Knuhina stood just inside the tent flap, holding it open with one olive-skinned hand. Sun-dappled forest framed him—towering trunks, sprays of emerald leaves, shafts of light spearing through the canopy.
He wore Lightshore green, but not the formal silks he’d shown off at Aurelia’s almost-wedding when I’d last seen him.
We hadn’t spoken that night, but I wondered if he realized I’d seen right through the ridiculous glamour he’d worn to disguise himself.
A shifter indeed. His clothes had been far too soft and expensive for anyone to believe it. Least of all my shadows.
This was a soldier’s traveling gear. Dark leathers softened with wear, a light breastplate of overlapping bronze leaves.
A cloak the color of new moss hung from his broad, lean shoulders.
His eyes were the same as before, though—bright, calculating, amused at everything and everyone, including himself.
“Talthis,” I said, voice rough.
“Rydian, you old, crusty shadow. Good to see you up and breathing.”
“What are you doing here?” I grunted.
“The real question is, what are you doing here, my friend?”
“Feel free to answer either one.”
His gaze swept over me, quick and assessing. “How do you feel?”
“Like I lost a fight with the river and then got trampled by a pack of Obsidian horses,” I said. “Where am I?”
“A very long way from where you nearly died,” another voice answered.
Princess Naliadne slipped past Talthis into the tent, her bare feet silent on the packed earth floor.
Her dark blue hair hung in wet ropes down her back, dripping onto a simple shift the color of riverstone.
Her skin still held the faint, pearly sheen of the river’s magic, eyes a shade too bright to belong to anything wholly mortal. Or wholly fae.
The naiad had dragged me under. Apparently, they’d decided not to keep me.
“You brought me here,” I said.
“Beneath didn’t suit you,” she said, glancing at my body currently wrapped in a thin blanket. “Too much shadow. Not enough scales.” She looked at Talthis, a playful grin on her lips. “Besides, Talthis made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
I looked between them, trying to figure them out. “I hadn’t realized you two were… friends.”
“It’s more of a partnership,” Talthis said.
Nali’s gaze glittered at that, and I decided not to ask for details of this so-called partnership. Instead, I tried to piece together what led me here.
I remembered hands on my ankles, my wrists. A pale face underwater, blue hair fanning around it like ink, eyes luminous in the dark. A pressure against my mouth that had tasted like cold lightning and let me breathe where no one should.
Then nothing.
“How long?” I asked. “How long since you pulled me under?”
Talthis and Naliadne exchanged a look.
“Two days,” Talthis said.
My heart lurched. “Two—”
“Your lungs were full of smoke,” Naliadne said. “Your skin was half-cooked. Your shadows were… tangled.” She tilted her head. “You should be grateful you woke at all.”
I wasn’t feeling particularly grateful. Not with the image that slammed into me next: Aurelia on that hillside, surrounded by Frostwights and Obsidians. Her mark blazing. Power pouring out of her like a god had taken her over.
“What happened?” I demanded. “Aurelia—”
“Is alive,” Naliadne said before the panic could finish carving its way through me. “My scouts saw her reach the caves. Your friends dragged her into the mountain before the fire could eat her as well.”
Some of the tightness in my chest eased. Not much. Enough.
“Then we need to go,” I said. “If they’re in the tunnels—”
Talthis made a quiet sound, somewhere between a sigh and a laugh.
“You’re in the Emerald Forest, Prince, smack in the center of Menryth.
Four days’ ride from the Concordian border if your horse doesn’t break a leg in the foothills.
And that’s if you had the strength to remain in the saddle—or a horse, which you don’t. ”
I stared at him. Then at the tent walls. Then at the trees beyond his shoulder. “The river dragged me this far?”
“It might have dragged you much farther,” Nali said pointedly.
“And deeper had my father gotten wind of your presence. Instead, I remembered my partnership with Talthis. One where I deliver messages regarding various news of the realm.” Her mouth curved faintly.
“Consider yourself one of those messages.”
I studied Talthis with more wariness. “And what are you doing on this side of the realm?”
“Certain developments of late have required me to maintain a post closer to our allies.”
I eyed him, remembering the adamant claims Autumn’s emissaries had returned with from every trip. “I thought you had no allies.”
His smile sharpened. “We have no allies in Autumn,” he corrected.
I shook my head. “You were always a smug bastard.”
“In this case, it’s earned. Lightshore has more eyes in Menryth than most assume. Some of them have legs.”
“And some of them have fins,” Naliadne added with a wink.
“You’ve been using the naiad as spies. Patamoi agreed to this?”
“This has nothing to do with my father,” Nali said quietly. “But I won’t sit by while my friends are at war.”
I shook my head. Patamoi would lose his mind if he found out. The river god did not enjoy being circumvented.
“Talthis has been meeting with us for years,” she said. “He brings us word from Spring. We bring him news from the rivers. Between us, we’ve been trying to slow the bleeding while your kings bicker and your queens plan weddings.”
My jaw clenched.
“And now?” I asked, glaring at the Spring fae male. “Do you plan to remain on the sidelines, observing like this is all some sort of game for your entertainment? Or do you plan to fight?”
“That depends on your savior,” Talthis said.
“Do not mock Aurelia, or you might find yourself at the pointed end of her wrath. And mine.”
His gaze sharpened on my face. “You’re sure she’s the one, then.”
“She’s the Chosen One,” I said.
“That’s prophecy.” He waved it aside. “I’m asking if she’s the leader you thought she’d be. Before you drove yourself half to death, trying to keep her alive.”
Images slammed through me: Aurelia in the garden with Duron, scorching him to ash with a flick of her hand.
The way she’d sent me to deliver the Aine to safety—like all that mattered was the one life against her own.
The hillside below Nygard, burning with her furyfire, her control gone. Her power unstoppable.
“She is,” I said quietly. “And she’s more dangerous than any of us realized.”
Talthis studied me for a long moment, then nodded once. “Good. That’s what I told my queen.”
“You spoke to her of what happened at the war camp?” I asked.
“I told her what Nali’s scouts reported.”
“Which is?”
“Half the army in that camp—scorched to ash.”
I blinked. Half? Aurelia had destroyed more than two thousand Obsidians. It was…too vast a number to go unnoticed. And when Heliconia found out, she would rain fury down on us all.
“And what does your queen intend to do about it?” I asked. “To keep dithering while the rest of us bleed?”
He didn’t bristle. I’d give him that.
“My queen said that, if the Chosen One could strike Heliconia’s army and live, Lightshore would consider offering aid.”
My hands curled into fists. “So she sat in her gilded tree while the rest of us fought and bled.”
“Kings and queens have been doing that since we learned to put crowns on heads,” Talthis said. There was no heat in it. Just bitter humor. “You should be familiar with the pattern by now.”
I thought of Duron.
Point taken.
Still, the thought of some Spring council weighing Aurelia’s life like a gamble on a board made something ugly twist in my gut.
I looked at Nali. “Do you know where she’s headed?”
“They remain on a return through the caves,” she said. “When they emerge, our scouts will know their direction.”
I rubbed my hands over my face, fingers scraping over stubble. “How long until I can at least hold a sword without my arms shaking?”
Talthis glanced at the light filtering through the tent flap. “Give it a couple of days,” he said.
Silence settled between us, threaded with the distant murmur of the forest outside. Birds called somewhere high in the canopy. A breeze shifted the tent walls, carrying the cool, green smell of the Emerald Forest inside.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll stay. I’ll wait for word.” I pointed a finger at Talthis. “But I want to know everything your scouts report. The minute they emerge from those caves, I want her location.”
“Done,” Talthis said easily.
“What do you want in return?” I asked warily. With Talthis, there was always a favor traded.
“We are, in fact, short on soldiers who have actually seen Heliconia’s army up close. Consider yourself conscripted.”
Naliadne grinned. “Careful, Prince, he’s already the general of the Chosen One’s army.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
She winked. “A good spy doesn’t reveal her secrets.”
I glared.
“Rest now,” she said. “I’ll send word to your aunt that you’re awake.”
“She’s here?”
Naliadne softened. “She is on an errand for my father and not permitted to travel with me. But I will get her a message. It will please her to know you are well.”
“Thanks,” I told her.
When they were gone, I slumped back against the pillow. Aurelia was alive. Trapped once again in those blasted caves. But alive.
I was useless for the moment—but not for long.
Heliconia had lost half her camp.
And somewhere in Lightshore, a queen was weighing lives and deciding whether to risk hers to save theirs.
I stared at the tent roof until it blurred.