36. Sabine
Chapter 36
Sabine
A rtain points the arrow at the one target he knows will break my soul—Basten.
The fire burning in the pit of my stomach catches and spreads until I feel like I’m wildfire itself, ready to rip through the world and leave nothing but ash in my wake. The times I’ve felt this angry before were the ones when I slipped into the minds of animals to force them to do my bidding.
And now? I’m not working with birds and mice. Not even tigers.
I have a monoceros —and he could burn down the world.
My vision sharpens as I slide my hand along Tòrr’s neck, feeling his strong pulse as my own changes its rhythm to match.
I’ll do it.
I’ll burn everything .
Tòrr stomps, releasing a burst of steam from his nostrils. This time, when I reach into his mind, he doesn’t resist like the other animals did. Instead, I’m greeted by a flicker of red-hot glee—he’s just as bloodthirsty as I am.
“Tòrr.” I speak the name that holds so much power.
We’re going to push each other to lose control. I can feel it. I’m ready. He’s ready. Ready to end it…
“Stop!” Samaur’s golden eyes sizzle as he extends his hands wide, muscles so tensed the veins in his arms pop out.
My heart skyrockets to my throat, and for a second, my rage falters. Will he…will he do it?
One clap. That’s all it takes.
“Stop,” he seethes, “And I’ll give you what you want.”
“Like hell, you will!” Artain lowers his arrow an inch but keeps the bow drawn, ready to fire. “If you turn day to dusk, I lose the game.”
“So? I’m not losing Thracia for your stupid game!” Samaur yells. “You want to toy with mortals, fine. Risk your own damn neck—not ours.”
He jerks his head toward Woudix and Iyre, who are both still braced to aim their fey against Tòrr if he tries to use his solarium horn.
“This is all about your fucking ego, anyway,” Samaur spits at Artain. “About sticking it to Vale by tricking his daughter into being your plaything. In a fae bargain that he can’t do a thing to break. It’s him you want to play against, isn’t it? Not this human. Not her. You’re only using them to get to Vale.”
A muscle bulges in the side of Artain’s jaw. “Vale will thank me when I win, and Sabine is bound to Volkany. To me.”
“Oh, get over yourself!” Samaur yells .
His palms connect. Like a crash of thunder, the clap reverberates with a ground-shaking burst of orange-gold fey.
I drop low, clinging protectively to Basten’s arm. The sky immediately darkens. Purple shadows stretch across the mountains. The temperature drops. Birdsong stops. A confused rabbit darts out of the bushes and into its den. The sun streaks across the sky like a shooting star to sink below the horizon.
In the west, the last shard of the sun’s orb vanishes behind the mountains.
“Dusk,” I whisper in disbelief.
It’s real. It happened.
More confused shouts come from the castle’s direction. First, there were the explosions. Now, dusk has come hours early. Courtiers and servants alike must think the world is ending.
A soldier runs up to the shattered gate, taking in the scene with wide eyes, and I call, “Fetch a godkissed healer. Lord Basten needs help!”
None of the fae attempt to stop the soldier as he unsteadily runs back into the castle. They’re all focused on me, not the man bleeding out at their feet.
“It’s over now.” I push to a stand, wiping Basten’s blood onto my shirt as I stare at Artain, daring him to challenge me. “It’s dusk. The game is over.”
“It’s not fucking over,” he snaps.
“ You set the terms.” I speak measuredly because one wrong word with these tricky assholes, and they’ll twist it. “The game ends at dusk. Natural dusk or not, it’s still dusk. You didn’t catch me. Neither did Basten. I evaded both of you until the end. We have an unbreakable bargain. ”
Artain lets his bowstring slacken, though he keeps the handle clutched with white knuckles. He takes the arrow in his other hand, squeezing the shaft so hard I can’t believe it doesn’t shatter.
“She has you there, brother,” Woudix states quietly.
“ Fine .” Artain’s pretty features are twisted now, ugly. “So, it’s a draw. That’s what all this was for? A fucking draw? That’s what you and your fae monster want?”
He jabs the arrow in Tòrr’s direction, and the monoceros responds by lowering his horn like a battering ram. Now, post-dusk, he can’t harness his horn’s solarium, but I’d bet a hundred coins that no fae could survive a monoceros horn through the heart.
Artain wants to rattle me, but he can’t. Keeping my shoulders squared, I press on. “We agreed to a coin toss if the game ended in a draw.”
Artain’s eyes nearly pop out of his head as he huffs incredulous little laughs, antsy feet pacing over the rubble. “A coin toss…? What? But…you were jesting. You weren’t serious !”
“Maybe, but I’m serious now.”
And oh, am I. Basten’s life is bleeding out of him into the grass, and I’ve never been more deadly serious in my life.
Artain falls silent at the tone in my voice, blinking hard at me as though it’s the first time he’s paused to look beneath the pretty gowns and seen me .
Whatever he sees makes him swallow a knot of fear. “Fine. Whatever. So Lord Basten and I will toss a coin to determine the winner—you’re only prolonging the same game. It’s pointless. Not to mention, I don’t know how the hell you’re going to get an unconscious man to toss anything. ”
I rake my sweaty hair off my face. “That wasn’t our bargain. I didn’t say anything about you and Basten. I said we would flip a coin.”
His pouty lips purse as he sputters little breaths, waving his hands in the air. I can tell he’s about to ask what difference it makes, when the realization crashes over him.
His face pales. The fey lines running down his abs flicker in intensity like a sputtering flame about to go out. Hoarse, he says, “You devious little thing.”
I pat my trousers and shirt pockets, pretending to feel for a coin. “Your bow can’t help you now. It doesn’t matter if you’re the best huntsman in the kingdom. There’s no skill to a coin toss. It’s up to chance now. Fate.” When my pockets turn up empty, I drop down to dig in Basten’s pocket. “Here—I’ll even let you toss it.”
I pull out Rian’s Golath dime and throw it to Artain as though it’s any other coin.
Like I haven’t played this exact game before.
He steps forward to catch the coin with a mixture of indignation and anger. A dangerous combination in a fae. Especially one as prideful as Artain, who, until a few minutes ago, thought I’d be on my knees for him tonight.
Gods, it feels good to prove him wrong.
“This is ridiculous!” Artain raises his closed fist around the coin. “We haven’t even set terms?—”
“Yes. We have. Same terms. You win, I spend my nights with you. I win, and I have my freedom. I can walk out of here whenever I want—and you don’t touch Basten.”
I can see the indecision turning cartwheels in Artain’s eyes. This is outside of his wheelhouse. Immortal Popelin is the God of Chance, the patron god of gamblers, sinners, and competitors. If Popelin were to weigh Rian’s Golath dime in his hand, he’d instantly realize that it’s a weighted coin.
But wherever Popelin slumbers underground, he can’t help his fae brother now. And for the first time since I set foot in this kingdom, I see fear in Artain’s eyes.
“No,” he sputters, casting his hair back in his signature hair-toss, though it feels even sillier now. “No. You twisted my words.” His attention latches onto Iyre. “Iyre! Iyre, you heard the terms. Use that perfect fucking memory of yours to remind this human of what was said.”
Iyre’s lips pull in frustration as she hunts for something to say. It’s clear in the flare of her nostrils that she can’t contradict me. Finally, she spits, “Just toss the damn coin. You’re a fucking god . You’ll win.”
Artain whirls on Woudix next. “Do something. Bring death to her lover unless she takes the loss—he’s practically dead anyway!”
Woudix strokes Hawk’s head at his side, his face emotionless. “It was your game, not mine. You play.”
Artain garbles a curse before turning to Samaur. “Clap your damn hands and bring back dawn!”
Samaur rolls his eyes. “I can’t go backward in time.”
“Fuck!” Artain punches the air, pacing, until a light shines in his eyes. “Captain Tatarin! She can take us back to this morning! Can’t she? I don’t know how the hell her godkiss works…someone get Captain Tatarin here right fucking now to?—”
“No.”
A deep, unmistakable rasp travels over the rubble from the direction of the busted gate.
The sound raises the hair on my neck like I’ve walked through a graveyard .
Judging by Artain’s even paler face, he feels the same.
My father, in full fae regalia from his Battle Helm Crown to the fey lines radiating from his cheekbones, steps over a splintered piece of wood with terrifying calmness as he looks over the wreckage of the southern gate.
“Vale.” Artain recovers fast, giving another hair toss. “B—Brother. I’m glad you’re here. You can settle this disagreement.”
“Disagreement?” Vale hisses the word like a snake.
Artain blanches. “Well?—”
Vale cuts him off as he rests a hand over his anatomical heart brooch. “First, I feel the earth shake. Holes are blown in my castle walls. Then night comes half a day early. The screams are so loud throughout the towers that I had to leave the council chamber, where we’re planning a war .”
Artain looks on the verge of dirtying his pants.
Truth be told, I don’t feel much more confident. I shift from foot to foot. There’s no way of knowing what my father will do. On the one hand, Artain went behind his back to trick us into this game. Vale would be well within his right to bring down one of his axes on Artain’s perfect head.
But Vale is fae . No matter the lengths he went to find me, he’ll always be fae. Fickle. Deceitful. Deadly.
Which has me throwing glances between Tòrr and Basten, trying to calculate my chances of saving us all.
“Now, I have to clean up more of your messes, Artain?” Vale’s voice is dangerously low as he makes his way around a minefield of fallen stones. I snap my attention back to him, breathing through my fear, afraid to hope. He continues, “Every thousand years, you find new ways to fuck up, don’t you?”
“It was only a g— game,” Artain sputters.
Vale continues, “A game? You know as well as I do how deadly the consequences of fae games can be. I heard Sabine recount the terms just now. This was the stupidest gamble you could have made, and now she’s called your bluff.” His arm flies out to grab Artain’s pretty chin. He pulls the sputtering god dangerously close to his face. “Toss the coin.”
Artain’s jaw hangs open as he searches for words. Between smooshed cheeks, he babbles, “If she wins, she could leave.”
“You should have thought of that instead of assuming you couldn’t fail. Idiot .” He shoves Artain away by the jaw with enough force that the God of the Hunt trips backward over a fallen joist, barely catching his balance. “You bound yourself to a fae bargain. Now, you have no choice but to play this to the end. Toss. The. Coin.”
Artain massages his jaw, testing out the joint, as his sculpted chest rises and falls hard. No fae likes to be put in his place—but he knows better than to argue with Immortal Vale.
With an angry sneer, he holds out his fist with the coin. He shoots at me, “Call it.”
“Serpent.”
My voice is barely audible. Basten’s face is paler than I’ve ever seen it. He has to have lost nearly two liters of blood. The makeshift bandage is soaked through. His chest barely moves when he breathes—at any moment, it might not rise again.
“Scepter.” Artain spits bitterly, tosses the coin, catches it, and slams it on the back of his opposite hand.
There’s a terrible moment when I’m afraid I got it wrong. That I didn’t remember which side always lands face-up. Or that Artain somehow knows the coin is fraudulent, is toying with me.
No creature—fae, human, animal—breathes as Artain lifts his hand.
I cry out as the coin toss is revealed in my favor, relief flooding me like sunlight melting through ice. I didn’t realize I was holding my body as tensely as a bowstring until my muscles finally uncoil. The blood rushing to my ears quiets. I press my hands against my sides, feeling the cool, still-damp fabric to ground myself.
“I won,” I murmur.
Artain turns away, letting out a sharp curse.
Woudix’s face flickers with the faintest streak of satisfaction, though I doubt he feels joy for my win—I can’t imagine he cares about me. He doesn’t care about anything . Except, that is, the cruel delight of seeing another fae bested.
Iyre and Samaur are silent, still as their statues in the Garden of Ten Gods. If they had the power, I think they’d like to disappear into the background, outside of Vale’s reach with his axes.
They might as well be granted their wish because Vale doesn’t glance at them.
He only stares at me.
“It’s decided, then.” His voice feels strangely distant. Oddly, impossibly calm. “Sabine wins her freedom.”
Something itches up and down my skin, warning me that this is too easy. My father spent twenty-two years trying to find me. He sent a goddess and half an army to bring me back.
Is he really going to let me go?
He signals to a group of soldiers inspecting the southern gate’s damage. Matter-of-factly, he says, “Send a stretcher to take Lord Basten to the infirmary. Fetch the stablemaster to return Tòrr to the monoceros stall—and tell him to do a better job locking up the goldenclaws next time.”
The soldiers bow before rushing back toward the castle, picking their way over the rubble in the twilight darkness.
“Woudix. Samaur. Iyre.” Vale snaps. “Lock this idiot in the dungeon until I decide his punishment.”
Artain gapes, resting a hand on his hip as he tries to protest, but his fellow Blades and Iyre shove him around with enough glee that he finally holds up his hands in surrender. He follows them toward the castle, throwing a possessive glare back at me.
In the distance, two soldiers jog toward us across the Woodland Garden with a stretcher, but they’re still half a minute away.
For a moment, I’m alone with Vale.
My father’s strange calmness makes the hair lift along my arms like a ghost whispered across it. I fold my arms across my chest, rubbing away the goosebumps, and lift my chin to face his ethereal beauty.
“You’d let me go?” I ask. “Just like that?”
He slowly runs a hand down his tangled beard. “You were bound in a fae bargain. You won your freedom. Naturally, after the lengths I’ve gone, I want you to stay here. But what I feel bears no consequence. I cannot force you.”
I shift my weight from one foot to the other, locking my knees to keep myself upright. My entire body is heavy with exhaustion. I feel wrung out from worrying about Basten. My father’s words should fill me with relief, so why do I still feel uneasy?
This could be another fae trick.
Or…is that only paranoia talking? I can’t find any faults in Vale’s logic. I did outsmart Artain. I followed all the fae rules. Even the King of Fae himself is standing here telling me that I’m free.
Gods, I don’t know . I’m too damn spent to keep standing. Too tired to think straight. All I want is to know that Basten is safe and then to collapse into days of sleep that would fold around me like a cocoon.
“Good,” I murmur. “Okay.”
My voice rings hollow—because I’m empty. Depleted. I sway on my feet by the time the soldiers arrive with the stretcher, and it’s all I can do to murmur soft reassurances in Basten’s unconscious ear as they cart him off to the Aurora Tower.
And then, it’s done.
It’s over.
My father watches with an inscrutable look that makes it impossible to know his true thoughts. My legs finally give out. When was the last time I had water? Food? I’m bleeding from dozens of scratches, a rash of bruises blooming along my arms and legs.
I stumble forward?—
—and catch myself on Tòrr’s horn, which he lowered to me like a helping hand.
Take me away from this damn castle , I tell him.
No one argues against a monoceros, not even King of Fae.
Tòrr uses his muzzle to lift me onto his back, and he carries me to the stable, to Myst’s stall, where I collapse in the soft, clean hay.
Outside, Tòrr stands watch by her stall door .
Myst sinks down to curl up beside me, nuzzling her velvety nose against all of my sores.
As I drift off— I’m free, Basten is alive —I feel little paws climbing over my gown. The stable’s mice form a warm blanket on top of me. A snake comes to lick the blood from my arm.
And the spiders?
The spiders sing me to sleep.