Chapter 46
Rell
Rell’s patience had the lifespan of a match lit in a storm.
“For fuck’s sake, Rook, I need that crate.
” Rell jabbed a finger at the wooden box where the mute trainee had parked himself like an oversized paperweight.
Dust motes danced in the late afternoon light slanting through the storage room’s high windows, highlighting the stacks of supplies they’d been inventorying for hours.
Symond didn’t budge. He sat with his arms folded tight across his chest, jaw set in defiance, blond hair falling over eyes that burned with silent resentment. The slate that usually hung at his belt remained untouched.
Rell’s fingers twitched at his sides. Ever since they’d rescued Symond from Gerard’s tower, the kid had been even more difficult than before. Losing his tongue had somehow amplified his ability to be a pain in the ass.
“I know you lost your ability to speak,” Rell said, leaning forward until he was eye-level with Symond, “but I’m pretty fucking sure you didn’t lose your ability to hear. Get the fuck out of the way.”
Symond’s eyes narrowed to slits. The death stare he leveled at Rell held all the venom his missing voice couldn’t deliver.
“That’s enough.” Violette appeared at Rell’s side, her presence a cool interruption to the brewing conflict. She placed a hand on his shoulder and gently nudged him aside. “Symond, we need to count what’s in that crate. There’s another one over there you can sit on.”
Violette’s voice softened to that particular pitch she used with wounded animals.
Rell’s shoulders bunched toward his ears as he pivoted away, teeth grinding until his jaw muscle jumped beneath stubbled skin.
He snapped the manifest open with unnecessary force, eyes skimming the same inventory line four times without registering a single word.
It irritated him how Violette babied Symond. The kid was eighteen, not eight, and being mutilated by a sadistic Imperial guard didn’t exempt him from basic courtesy. Yet Violette always stepped in, always smoothed things over with that patient tone she reserved for broken things.
Rell’s irritation crumbled at the edges as he watched her.
That’s how it had always been with Violette—his anger softening in the presence of her gentle authority.
Years ago, when he’d been Symond’s age with a knife always in hand and nightmares that wouldn’t let him sleep, she’d approached him with that same careful patience.
Back then, he’d been the wounded animal she tended to, though his scars weren’t the kind anyone could see.
Symond finally slid off the crate, each movement a declaration of protest, and Rell found himself staring into a mirror from years past—those defiant eyes reflecting back a fury he knew all too well.
He remembered the nights after he’d fled Kilfaire, how the alcohol had burned his throat but never quite burned away the memory of his sister’s face.
How he’d wake up in ditches, alleyways, barns—wherever he collapsed—with his hand already reaching for the knife he kept strapped to his thigh.
Ready to kill or be killed. Not caring which.
The manifest in his hand crinkled as his grip tightened.
Without Violette, his life would have bled out before the year’s end.
He’d have either opened his own veins or stormed back into that estate like a madman, knife drawn, foolishly believing he could convince his sister to flee.
The fantasy always ended the same way—his body swinging from the manor gallows while her and her husband watched.
Four years he’d searched. Four years hunting rebels for leads and slaughtering Snatchers when they failed to give him answers. Four years of failure after failure until that final, terrible success.
The screaming came first—her voice shattering the moment as she entered the room to find him pressing steel against her husband’s throat.
The bodies of Imperial guards sprawled across the hardwood floor where his fellow rebels had left them.
In his singular focus, Rell hadn’t even noticed the child until its wails pierced the air, tiny fists clutching at his sister’s dress as she backed away from him in horror.
Josephina. She had the same forest-green eyes that had once sparkled with wonder, the same chestnut-brown hair that fell in waves past her shoulders but housed in a stranger’s face.
Her cheeks, once round with childhood, had hollowed to sharp angles beneath shallow skin.
Dark half-moons hung beneath those familiar eyes, and fine lines etched the corners of her mouth—a fourteen-year-old with the weathered countenance of a woman three times her age.
The toddler’s existence—the product of her captivity—made Rell’s blood boil hot enough to scald his veins.
“Rell?” Violette’s voice pulled him back to the present. “The manifest?”
He blinked, realizing he’d been staring at nothing, the parchment twisted into a tight scroll between his fingers.
“Just a moment,” Rell muttered, smoothing out the wrinkled parchment with his palm.
But the manifest’s numbers blurred before his eyes, meaningless.
He was back in Kilfaire again, watching his sister’s face drain of color at the sight of him standing over her husband with a knife.
The way she’d clutched her child closer, as if Rell himself were the monster she needed protection from.
“Take him,” she’d said, her voice so cold he barely recognized it. The guards had seized him before he could process her words, wrenching his knife away, twisting his arms behind his back until his shoulders screamed.
“Josephina,” he’d gasped, struggling against their grip. “It’s me! It’s Rellius!”
Her lip had trembled then. She clutched her son tighter, turning the child’s face away to shield his eyes from the sight of his mother’s would-be savior.
Her husband ordered their executions. Eight good people—people who trusted him—were strung up for all to see.
Rell’s jaw tightened at the memory. The manifest trembled in his hands.
He had waited for his turn to die. The cell was cold, dark, and the stone walls were slick with moisture that soaked through his clothes as he slumped against them. They’d kept him there for three days. No food. Just enough water to keep him alive. On the fourth day, she came.
Josephina had stood on the other side of the bars.
The torchlight cast half her face in shadow, but he could see the hollow emptiness in her eyes.
Her hands trembled, throat bobbing as she tried to find the words she wanted to say.
But none came. She had turned to leave, but he grabbed her hand through the bars, a silent plea for her to listen to him.
“Josephina, let me help you. I can protect you. You can be free—”
She pulled her hand away, her brow creasing despite the sniffling sounds escaping her.
“N-no, you can’t.” Her voice caught, fingers twisting in the fabric of her dress.
“You tried to m-murder my husband, orphan our ch-child.” She swallowed hard, her next words tumbling out in a rush.
“I don’t need your help or your p-protection.
” She spat the last word, but her trembling chin betrayed her.
Rell had wanted to scream sense into her, shake her and force her to wake up and see how fucked up her life was. But he didn’t want to startle her into running. “He’s not your husband. He bought you.” Her eyes glistened with tears. “You were only ten, Josephina.”
She shook her head, as the tears began to stream down her hollow cheeks.
“Josephina, please. I’ve been searching for you since the day mother sold you.” His own eyes were seeping tears.
She’d grown eerily silent. Her verdant eyes looked up at him like they were back at mother’s farm. “I w-waited for you.” The words splintered his ribs. But her next words stabbed him through the heart. “You’re too late.”
“Rell.” A firm grip drew his attention back to the storage room. He didn’t know when he ended up kneeling on the floor but Vye was there beside him. “What’s wrong?”
Rell sniffled and dragged the back of his hand across his face. The last thing he needed was Symond seeing him cry. “Nothing. Just thinking.”
“About Elora?”
He almost laughed. “No. Not this time.”
Rell opened his mouth to say more when the metal band around his finger interrupted him—a sudden warmth spreading across his knuckle like a whisper of a flame.
The ring grew hotter, stopping just short of pain, demanding his attention.
His hand lifted, drawn upward by an invisible thread that tugged with quiet determination toward the sky above.
His heart jolted behind his ribs. Elora had shifted.
He glanced at the darkening sky visible through the high windows. Sunset had only just passed, the last purple streaks fading to deep blue. Too early for her to turn in for the night. Dinner hadn’t even been served yet.
With Josephina’s rejection still raw in his mind, what might have been simple worry calcified into desperate panic.
“I have to go,” he said abruptly, already moving toward the door.
Violette frowned. “We’re not finished here—”
“It’s Elora,” was all he said, not bothering to elaborate further.
His feet carried him swiftly through the corridors of The Hive, the ring’s pull growing stronger with each step. The tugging sensation led him upward, past their bedroom, toward the roof.
He slammed his shoulder against the heavy metal door at the top, bursting out onto the open rooftop. The night air hit him with the chill of approaching winter. Wind whipped across the flat expanse, catching his hair and clothes.
The moonlight caught the outline of something massive at the western ledge—a creature poised between staying and going.
Wings stretched wide from a powerful body, one clawed foot already testing the empty air beyond the roof’s edge.
The nightglider’s muscles tensed, ready to surrender to gravity’s pull.
“Elora, wait!” Rell shouted, sprinting across the roof.