Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Thorny vines cover the trees before me. They rustle in the warm wind, swaying like snakes waiting to strike, as I walk away from the portal to give the others room to move through as well.
I suppress an involuntary shudder and turn away from the twisting forest to instead stare out at the city visible through the tree line.
A bright midday sun shines down over the grasslands that separate the forest from the lone city that currently makes up the entirety of the Seelie Court.
From this distance, I can’t see any of its inhabitants.
But I know that they’re there inside the city walls.
Hungry and exhausted fae men and women who work their fingers to the bone in a once glorious city that is now nothing more than a backwater village.
After my visit to the capital of the Unseelie Court, the difference between their court and ours is glaringly obvious.
I didn’t realize it back when I lived here, because I had nothing to compare it to.
But now that I’ve seen more of the world, I understand the true extent of what the Icehearts have done to us.
I suppress a bitter laugh. I felt like a child after I first left this court. I didn’t know anything and I just believed the things that I had been told all my life. Finding out the truth was a harsh awakening, but one I desperately needed.
My gaze drifts towards the northern side of the city, where my parents live.
Another stab hits me straight to the chest. But this time, it’s both pain and hope mixed together.
Back in the Unseelie Court, I not only found out the truth about our neighboring court, I also found out the truth about my own powers. A truth that my own mind has been blocking out and shielding me from almost my entire life.
That I can create emotions out of nothing. That doing so fills me with addictive pleasure. That the emotions I create are permanent.
And that I might have accidentally made my parents hate me with my magic.
That burst of pain and hope pulses in my chest as I stare at the pale stone walls of the city where my parents are waiting.
All I need to do is to go down there and knock on their door.
Then I can reach out with my magic and check.
A few minutes. That’s all I would need. And then I would know.
Do my parents hate me of their own free will?
Or has it been forced on them by my magic?
An embarrassingly large part of me wants to run down there right now and check, but I manage to suppress it. We have more pressing problems right now. But as soon as this is all over, I’m going to go back there and find out the truth. Whatever it may be.
“If you’re just going to stand there and daydream like a useless piece of furniture, we’ll leave you behind.”
Tearing my gaze from the city before me, I turn around and meet Draven’s harsh glare while arching an eyebrow in challenge. “Daydreaming? I was simply calculating how much space your scowl needs so that it doesn’t cut anything down when you turn.”
He blinks at me, looking stunned for a second, before drawing his eyebrows down and simply stalking away without another word. Lyra and Galen once more glance worriedly between the two of us. I pretend not to notice and instead start after Draven towards our entry point.
Alistair and Isera fall in beside me without a word. After giving Grey some instructions for when to return with the portal, Orion does the same. At last, Galen and Lyra exchange a glance and hurry to catch up as well.
The sound of rushing water fills the forest around us as we reach the spot where the River Andunir is pushed up through a hole in the ground before continuing to flow towards the lake beside the city.
Draven has already stalked through and is making his way down the small hill below.
I watch the way his muscular body moves while I follow him down into the underground forest where the dryads live.
I try to focus on why we’re here. To recruit the dryads to our side so that we can hopefully win a war against two immortal dragon shifters who have ruled this continent for six millennia.
But in this place, of all places, it’s difficult to focus on anything other than my more personal problem. On him.
My heart beats erratically as we draw closer to the spot where the rock wall is located. The spot where I, for the first time, admitted to myself that I felt something for Draven. The spot where I finally acted on those burning emotions inside me.
Once we’re almost there, I look more at Draven than my own two feet, and almost end up tripping over a root.
Catching myself, I straighten again and then snap my gaze back to Draven.
I wonder how he will react when we reach this spot.
I know that he remembers. The unnatural hatred in his chest didn’t wipe his memories.
It’s just forcing him to see his memories and his feelings through a manufactured lens of hatred. But maybe, just maybe, if we—
“This isn’t a sprinting contest, you know,” Orion snaps from somewhere behind.
“What’s the matter, princeling? Can’t keep up?” Draven replies without even turning to look.
“I find it quite amusing that you keep using the derogatory title princeling instead of my actual title. Could it be because you yourself are feeling insignificant now that your once prestigious Black Dragon Clan is hiding like rats and you’re no longer the Commander of the Dread Legion?”
Draven comes to a halt right next to the rock wall. My heart leaps. Did the sight of it make him feel something other than hatred? I can barely remember to breathe as I close the distance to it as well.
But then Draven simply turns around and locks eyes with Orion instead, as if this place holds no special significance.
“Keep talking,” Draven warns with a threatening smile. “See where that gets you.”
Orion’s eyes gleam, and he opens his mouth.
However, before he can say anything else, Isera cuts him off.
“Enough.” Then she turns to Draven and shoots him an impatient look.
“Can’t you see what he’s doing, Ryat? Because he can’t get out of this bargain himself, he’s deliberately making himself as obnoxious as possible so that you will snap and send him back to the Unseelie Court instead. ”
A sly smile ghosts across Orion’s lips, but it’s gone by the time that Draven has finished shifting his gaze from Isera back to him.
Draven arches an eyebrow at him. While still meandering slowly towards us, Orion lifts his toned shoulders in a lazy shrug in response to Draven’s silent question.
But his black and silver eyes are sharp when he gives Isera a sideways glance.
“Apparently, there is at least one person in this broken group of misfits who possesses some measure of intelligence.” He clicks his tongue. “What a shame.”
She scoffs. “Some measure?” Then a smile as sharp as a blade spreads across her lips. “Given that I outsmarted you and trapped you in this bargain, what does that say about you?”
Lightning flickers in his eyes.
While the two of them continue mocking and threatening each other while closing the final distance to us along with the rest of our companions, I shift my gaze back to Draven and once more search his face for any spark of recognition. There is nothing. He’s just standing there, scowling at Orion.
Frustration and heartbreak rip through my soul, and that oppressive darkness presses in closer.
In a flash of stubborn defiance, I stalk the final two steps to the rock wall and lean against it. Then I pretend to stretch my arms above my head, mimicking the exact pose I was in when Draven pinned me to that rough stone surface and fucked me like I was his.
“Well,” I drawl, leaning casually against the wall like that. “This brings back memories.”
Draven turns towards me, already looking annoyed, with what is no doubt another angry curse on his lips.
But then his gaze lands on me and he starts.
Surprise flits across his face for a moment, and his gaze darts from me to the river where we bathed to get the green plant slime off, and then back to me.
Primal fire burns in his golden eyes for a second when he meets my gaze again.
And something tugs at my chest.
The feeling of it shocks me so much that I actually stumble, my arms dropping back down by my sides again. Draven gives his head a hard shake and then draws his eyebrows down in a scowl as he snaps his gaze back to the rest of our friends instead.
But I can barely concentrate on what’s happening around me, because I’m still reeling from that tug.
Sucking in an unsteady breath, I stare down at my own chest.
Our mate bond is still broken. It still drifts there inside me like a violently snapped rope that ripples in the wind, seeking its other tether.
But that tug.
It was there. I felt it. It was real.
Tilting my head up, I stare at Draven while shock still rings inside my skull.
There was a tug on our mate bond. As if it tried to reattach itself. As if he tried to pull it back to himself.
I draw in another unsteady breath.
In the middle of that sea of dark despair and black rage that crowds my soul, a small spark of light suddenly blooms. Hope. That oppressive darkness inside me immediately tries to snuff it out, but it refuses to die. I lean into that small spark of hope with everything I have.
All is not yet lost. Draven is still in there.
The real him is still fighting somewhere deep down underneath that massive flame of hatred that I forced into his chest. And if I can just figure out how to remove it, everything will be okay.
The world will return to the way it should be. He will return.
I squeeze my hand into a fist as I cling to that tiny spark of light that now shines in the middle of the all-consuming darkness inside me.
There has to be a way to fix this.
There has to.
“Let’s go,” Draven declares once the others have caught up. “We’re burning daylight.”
“We’re below ground,” Alistair points out.
Draven turns his scowl on him.
“I also have fire magic,” he continues with a helpful smile that seems specifically designed to annoy the scowling dragon shifter.
On his other side, Lyra presses her lips together to suppress a smile.
When that doesn’t work, she turns her whole head to hide her expression all together.
Draven heaves a sigh and levels an exasperated look on Alistair.
The snarky fire wielder just shrugs, that troublesome smile still on his lips.
However, they all pick up the pace a little as we start down the river again.
Once we reach the spot where Draven and I met up after we were ambushed by the dryads last time, we leave the river behind and start moving straight into the forest instead.
And then we walk.
Since the layers of thin tree trunks that make up the ceiling block out the view of the sun, I can’t tell for certain how much time has passed, but I can feel the hours slipping away.
Worry gnaws at my chest as I sweep my gaze over the endless forest before us while we make our way deeper into the woods.
Trees in all shapes and colors stare back at us impassively. Lyra jumps up gracefully and taps a thick branch above her as she passes it. It makes the branch shift slightly, rustling the beautiful pink leaves. A smile blows across Lyra’s face as she watches it while she strolls past.
The sight of her easy smile dispels some of the tension in my chest. I’m glad she’s here. I’m glad Draven has her friendship again. He needs it. In fact, I think we all need it. Between the seven of us, she might be the only one who actually contributes to the good mood at the moment.
“Enlighten me,” Orion begins in a voice that somehow manages to sound both mocking and annoyed at the same time. “How did you find the dryads last time? Because it feels to me as if we’re just wandering aimlessly through the forest.”
Draven opens his mouth to reply, but given the irritation that flickers in his own eyes, I know that he’s about to snap at the Unseelie King, which will just turn into another argument between the two of them.
So before he can get the first word out, I quickly reply, “We didn’t. They kind of found us.”
Orion shifts his gaze to me and arches a dark eyebrow. “So what’s the plan then? Just wander around hoping that they will find us again?”
“No, we know that they—”
Vines shoot out around me and wrap around my whole body.
I gasp as they snake around my wrists and ankles, quickly trapping me, but the sound is cut off as a thick vine slides between my teeth like a gag.
Then the world goes dark as another vine wraps around my head, blindfolding me as well.