3. Basten
Chapter 3
Basten
I wake to too much silence.
Jolting upright, sweat pouring down my bare chest, I can barely catch my breath. Dreams scatter into the shadows like rats under a light, disappearing before I can catch a single one. Her . I was dreaming of her, I know it. My mystery woman. Whose name I can’t even remember. Her face was there for a second, but now, it’s gone.
“Fuck,” I spit vehemently, throwing off the coverings.
I’m in Rian’s opulent bed, though I barely remember stumbling in and passing out after returning from the funeral encampment. My mind and body feel utterly ravaged, at war with one another, and I have no idea if I’ve slept one night or three. A tousled blanket on the leather settee tells me that Rian gave me the bed and took the floor for himself, though there’s no sign of him now.
I dunk my head straight into the wash basin’s frigid water, shocking me out of my stupor. I shake the drips from my hair like a dog and, mopping a towel over my bare chest, shove open the window pane .
The third-floor window of Sorsha Hall overlooks the Golden Heights neighborhood, a collection of upper-class houses bordering the Eastern Market. It’s normally a bustling square filled with vendors and promenading ladies with small, yappy dogs.
Today? It’s as quiet as a graveyard.
There are no carriages rumbling down the streets. No one out walking. No servants sweeping the front steps. Half the elegant manor homes look boarded up and abandoned. A single curly-haired dog barks at something in an alleyway.
The only significant activity is from a family in the corner house, who hastily carry out trunks and boxes and load them on a wagon parked in the street.
“Hurry, Eloisa,” a mother says to her teenage daughter. “Bring the candlesticks. Your father wants us out of Duren by midday.”
“Is Immortal Iyre truly awake, Mama? The servants said she stole Wolf Bowborn’s memories.”
“ Hush now. That’s only gossip .” The mother hurries her daughter to the wagon. “But we all knew the Lone Wolf and the Winged Lady story would end in tragedy.”
I jolt at the sound of my own name.
My stomach tightens, threading unease throughout my body.
“Lone Wolf and the Winged Lady?” I repeat aloud in a murmur, confused.
There’s something familiar about the story’s name, but I can’t summon it to mind. I remember standing in Duren’s arena, hearing the crowd chant for me: Lone Wolf! Lone Wolf!
But who’s the Winged Lady?
“You don’t remember the story, do you?” a voice says from behind me .
I snap into a defensive stance, unnerved that my senses didn’t pick up on someone approaching.
I’m still hazy. Not myself.
Lady Runa Valvere leans in the door frame, toying with a ribbon on her satin gown’s plunging neckline. Rian’s deceitful cousin. Or, rather, my cousin. It's hard to wrap my head around the fact that I’m actually a Valvere by birth.
Honestly? I think I was better off as a street rat.
I unball my fists, but my muscles remain tightly coiled, wary of danger from this soft-skinned viper.
“The Lone Wolf and the Winged Lady,” she repeats, sauntering over to Rian’s desk. “It’s a story that the people of Duren made up about you and Lady Sabine. They called her that because she had the godkissed ability to speak to animals. I suppose, when Iyre took your memories of her, everything related to her vanished, too. Do you remember escorting her here from Bremcote?”
My right eye twitches. “I remember making the journey from Bremcote. Alone except for a damn stubborn mare.”
Runa smiles as she drags her index finger over the desk, then rubs away imaginary dust between her fingers. “The story of the Lone Wolf and the Winged Lady is based on a story from the Book of the Immortals. The Tale of the Fated Lovers. Do you know it?”
“I haven’t voluntarily read a page of the Book of the Immortals in my life.”
Runa plucks a quill from the golden holder, twirling the feather lazily. “In a time before time, a handmaid from Golath and a baker boy from Spezia dreamed about one another every night, though they had never met. Aria would fall asleep at midnight after a long day polishing her mistress’s jewels, when she was charmed by nightly visions of a handsome boy. He was dusted with sand, surrounded by an open fire, with eyes like molten gold. Aron, who rose at midnight to begin the day’s baking, was equally tormented by dreams of a beautiful girl surrounded by jewels, with hair like spun gold and emerald eyes.
“Aria thought her mystery man was a desert warrior. Aron thought his mystery woman was a high-born lady. Immortal Alessantha toyed with the two strangers, besieging them with dreams of the other until they thought they would go mad from longing. Only then—in a typical bout of fae capriciousness—Alessantha drew their paths together at the Dramaine festival. Aria’s mistress had brought her to help with her dress’s train. Aron was there to deliver the ceremonial bread loaves.”
I shift from foot to foot, tapping my toe with impatience, but Runa remains indifferent as she runs the quill’s feathered tip against her chin.
“The fated lovers met at the Dramaine,” she continues. “Aron wasn’t a desert warrior covered in sand—he was merely a baker boy dusted with flour. Aria wasn’t a high-born lady bedecked with her own jewels—only a handmaiden tasked with polishing them. Still, the lovers recognized each other instantly. Time held its breath, and for once, the gods smiled upon mere mortals. For the rest of their lives, they lived happily.”
Runa drags the feather down the ample curve of her bosom, tickling the tops of her breasts in coy indifference as she leans back against the hard edge of Rian’s desk.
“Bullshit.” I grab an apple from the basket on Rian’s desk. “The gods don’t give happy endings.”
I take a large bite that drips juice onto my bare chest.
Runa arches an eyebrow as her attention sinks to that drop like she wants to lick it off. “Perhaps. In any case, the people of Duren thought you and Sabine were the same: Alessantha’s Fated Lovers reborn.”
My hand freezes, the apple still clutched in my fist.
“Say her name again.” Though my voice is deep, we both hear the edge of begging. “That…woman’s. The Winged Lady’s.”
Runa gives a lupine smile as she makes the gesture of locking her lips and throwing away the key.
Anger simmers deep in my chest, driving me to grab this viper by her long neck and throw her out—but she’s royalty.
And me?
Hell, I have more royal blood in my veins than her. But on paper? I’m a nobody.
“Poor little Wolfie.” Runa pouts in mock sympathy as she traces the quill feather down my sweat-soaked temple. “Iyre really did a number on you, didn’t she? And here I thought Lady Sabine was the one who ruined you.”
Sabine .
My eyes fall briefly closed . Somehow, it’s the first time I’ve heard it, yet as familiar as the grooves in my palm.
I jerk back from Runa’s feather-light touch. My eyes warn her off as I say, “What do you want, Lady Runa?”
“You can drop the honorifics with me, cousin. You’re not Rian’s lowly servant anymore.” She leans in as she whispers conspiratorially, “You’re the rightful king.”
Eyes snapping to the hallway to make sure we’re alone, I fight the urge to clamp a hand over her mouth to silence her.
Instead, I hiss, “Never speak that aloud again if you value your tongue.”
She taps the feather on the tip of my nose as she tuts. “ Such a hot temper. Don’t worry yourself—only those of us in the family know your secret.”
“I wasn’t loyal to Rian because of his title.”
She snorts. “You weren’t loyal at all—not when it came to Lady Sabine.”
I lift my chin, narrowing my eyes as I calculate how many years in the dungeon I’d get for throwing a royal lady out the window.
At my silence, she slinks over to the window, gazing down at the ghost town below in mild interest. “Sabine Darrow seduced you. She used you. She drove a spike between you and Rian. And now she’s disappeared with the fae back to her father’s enemy lands.”
I scoff, “You think she went willingly with Iyre?”
“She’s a Volkish princess. A natural-born traitor. For all we know, King Rachillon sent her to Astagnon to drive a wedge between you and Rian because you two have the strongest claim to his rival throne.” She leans out the window and cups her hand theatrically around her ear. “Can’t your gifted ears hear what the townspeople are saying? They’re turning on her. They finally understand that she’s always been our enemy.”
Though I remember nothing about this mystery woman, a fierce instinct to protect her rises in me, and I grab Runa’s wrist off the windowsill.
“You didn’t know—” I pause. “Didn’t know?—”
Fuck !
Already, my mystery woman’s name is gone from my memory.
Sensing my inner turmoil, Runa spins the feather lazily in her hand, her eyes lowered to my bare chest. She licks her lips as her gaze slides to the mussed bed sheets .
“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?” she asks.
I recoil, releasing her wrist like she’s a burning branch. By the gods, I’m her cousin .
Disgusted, I shove her away. Grabbing one of Rian’s black shirts, I slide it on and start to button it roughly, though it’s tight around my arms. “Get out.”
She drops the quill, letting it flutter to the rug, and grabs my shirt collar instead, stopping me from buttoning the upper half.
In a low whisper, she says breathily, “It’s my task to pack the Valvere jewels for the trip to Old Coros. Diamond pendants. Ruby earrings. Fae ear caps inset with turquoise. Do you know what else I found? A locket Rian commissioned when he was first betrothed to Lady Sabine. It has her likeness painted inside.”
I jolt like I’ve been bitten by a deathrattle snake. Narrowing my eyes into slits as fine as the quill’s point, I say, “What are you offering?”
“The locket, of course. It might be a poor substitute for a full memory of your so-called Fated Lover, but it’s the best you’re going to get. In exchange…” She perches her plump bottom on the desk’s edge, foisting her half-exposed breasts up, knowing that from my height, I can see damn near everything. “…I’ve always wanted to wear a queen’s crown.”
I might be a Valvere by blood, but I haven’t been schooled in political machinations as they have—so it takes me a second before realization smacks me across the face.
Her flirtation, her cunning smiles, her emphasis that I’m the true heir.
Fuck me.
This woman is a predator.
I stalk toward the desk, resting my blanched knuckles on either side of her perfumed little ass, bringing my lips to within an inch of hers.
“You would steal the throne from Rian?” My voice purrs with a barely contained threat.
“ You are the rightful king—you would be doing the stealing. I would simply be wearing your ring.”
I almost want to laugh at the gall of this pretty snake. She comes to her cousin’s bedroom, touches his belongings, and so sweetly conspires to stab him in the back with the man who has always been at his side.
This is the family I was born into?
In a move so fast she can barely gasp, I grip her neck in the vice of my hand and squeeze until I can feel her trachea close off. As her painted lips contort for air, I lean in close enough that my loose hair drags across her cheek.
“Listen closely, cousin . I will never betray Rian Valvere. I’d be a damn fool not to lick the filth off his boots in gratitude for all he’s done for me. I gave him the throne—and I would again tomorrow and every damn day after. I’d rather be buried to my balls in fire ants and doused with honey than marry you. And unless you want me to tell Rian about your scheming, you’ll stay the hell away from me.”
I release her with a shove that sends her collapsing backward on the desk, rasping for air as she massages her throat.
“Get out,” I snap.
She stops at the door. “You’ll rethink this, Wolf Bowborn. A lot can change in a matter of days—look how much already has.”