Chapter 39
Wilder
Lochlan’s parties remind me of where Malachi gets his ideas. Although, Malachi’s knockoff celebrations pale in comparison to the parties in Solace. There’s a reason the Vaelier court would disappear to Lochlan’s manor when visiting Lyrichia before the war. No one throws a celebration like Lochlan.
It was during one of those many trips that I became friends with him. Even now, as we sit on opposite sides of this war, he grins up at me when I stop at his couch.
“Too good to wear the clothes I’ve offered you, King Riven?” He inhales a drag of haelmarrow. The simple fabric draped at his shoulder and waist hides little.
“If a battle breaks, I’d prefer to be wearing pants.”
“There’s no battle here.” Lochlan laughs as smoke curls from his lips. “And I seem to recall many stories of you in my manor, wearing nothing more than a sheet. The females were bored for decades after the war broke out because they no longer had you to keep them company.”
“It’s a shame your court wasn’t better at satisfying them.”
He chuckles, glancing around the room at his court galivanting.
On a nearby couch, a group of Fae are licking wine off each other’s chests, wearing absolutely nothing.
The thick fog of haelmarrow is loosening their inhibitions.
And Lochlan is right; there was a time I’d be happily partaking in all of it.
That time feels so long ago now.
“Come sit.” Lochlan pats the cushion beside him. “I’d offer you one of the females who have been watching you since you walked in, but I sense you’re preoccupied at the moment.”
“You’re one to talk.” I glance at the empty space at his other side when I drop down onto the couch. “Where’s your company?”
Some drown pain in isolation or drinks or drugs. Lochlan drowned his in the bodies of others for centuries. I’ve rarely seen him without at least one Fae dangling from his arm.
“It’s been a long century.” He takes another deep inhale, tipping his head back. “Much has changed.”
“That it has.”
Lochlan smirks, tilting his head in my direction. “How is Alyssium this time of year? Still miserable and bitterly cold?”
“Only you would joke to a man who just spent a hundred years in that hellscape.”
“You expect me to care that you spent a century in a prison?” Lochlan hitches an eyebrow, taking a long puff of haelmarrow. “The walls are irrelevant when the mind is a much worse place.”
Darkness flashes in his bright eyes, a stark contrast to the runes on his face, and I imagine he understands the depths of that statement better than most.
He passes me the stick of haelmarrow, and I draw it to my lips, holding it in my lungs until my head hushes. For a breath, the demons in my mind quiet. The crackle of my magic settles.
“You seem awfully calm and content for the war brewing.” I hand him the haelmarrow.
“Wars come and go. Realms come and go. Fae come and go. There’s no point dwelling on it.”
“Says the lord on the side set to prevail.”
Lochlan chuckles, his gaze drifting to the entryway of the room. “I thought that was the case. But now… I suppose we’ll see.”
Callum and Greer step inside, revealing Elorie behind them. Her snow-white hair is tied back at the sides of her head, with rivers of blue resting on either side of her shoulders. In her white dress, her silvery-gray eyes are even lighter. Her constellation of freckles sparkles on her cheek.
Elorie’s eyes move around the room, taking it all in, as a pretty blush crawls her neck.
“When I heard you challenged the Rite, I thought it was a move to get closer to Selia.” Lochlan’s gaze locks on Elorie. “But a human girl…”
He chuckles, and my spine prickles with a faint surge of magic. After all these years, he still sees through me.
Elorie catches my gaze, and her cheeks redden. Her fingers clench the thin fabric that clings to her every curve. Her stare is a bolt of silver spearing me in the chest before it leaves me entirely.
She disappears into the crowd, like she thinks that’s enough to avoid me.
“Did you get it?” I ask Lochlan, watching Cyan walk into the room next.
Lochlan nods, following my gaze to Malachi’s adviser. “It’s at the bottom of the soap dish in your bathing chamber. I hope you know what you’re doing, Wilder.”
I nod once, barely, not daring to take my eyes off Cyan as he makes his way through the room. When he finally disappears out the other side, I push to stand.
“Wilder.” Lochlan stops me as I start to walk away. “If we don’t come out the other side, we’ll do this again in Sarrow.”
“I have no doubt that someday we will either way.” I smirk, and he grins, taking another inhale of haelmarrow and disappearing into his head with his demons.
I cross the room, searching for the flash of blue hair that tugs me like a magnet, only to find her standing alone on the balcony with her dress blowing in the hot breeze. Through the blistering heat, she still smells like a snow-kissed forest. Her gaze is a constellation of ice crystals.
“You found me,” she says, not turning to look at me while her gaze is set on the city below.
“I always know where you are.”
“That makes one of us.” Her eyes slide my way.
Years on the battlefield couldn’t have prepared me for the decimation of her gaze.
Clearing my throat, I meet her at the railing, slipping along that thread that ties us and finding it open. “Something is on your mind.”
Elorie tugs her lower lip between her teeth. “I heard how Lochlan got his runes. How he lost his wife. His children.”
“As I said before, war is rarely pleasant.”
“You have no sympathy?”
“Lochlan doesn’t want my sympathy. It’s showing respect not to offer it.”
Her gaze drops to her hands gripping the ledge before she lifts her eyes to the sky. The brightness of day has been replaced by a clear night. Moonlight bathes her cheeks, shimmering against the blue in her hair. The glow of nearby realms lights the night.
When she finally looks at me again, her focus is on the runes on my chest. “Will you tell me how you got yours?”
“You don’t already know?”
She shakes her head. “I know when you got them but not the details of how.”
“It’s a shame. I’m sure the rumors are far more interesting than the truth.”
A small smile creeps up in the corner of her mouth. “I’m sure they are.”
Resting my forearms on the ledge, I look out to the city below. Small plumes of smoke curl from the square where they’re roasting meat.
Lochlan and I used to get high on haelmarrow and wander the streets, feasting on the spiced meats and freshly baked breads throughout the city.
Vendors sell cherries on almost every corner.
They were one of my favorite things about Solace.
We’d drink and smoke our way through the night, waking wherever we’d end up by morning.
The time before the Realm War was another life.
Sighing, I turn toward Elorie.
“Queen Delayna, my mother, and King Erdem, Malachi’s father, made an arrangement after the Collision to keep peace between our realms. We were close before that, so they tried to stave off tensions early.
They agreed to handle the draining of magic peacefully.
But Malachi didn’t agree with that. He rallied Lyrichia’s lords to overthrow Erdem. ”
She glances over her shoulder to where Lochlan sits inside.
“Lochlan didn’t vote either way. He avoids political games where he can. Although, he’s smart enough to pledge his loyalty to your king now.”
Elorie turns back to the city, her cheeks bright even in the darkness. Gods, she’s stunning, and she doesn’t even realize it.
“After Erdem was overthrown and executed, we tried to negotiate with Malachi, but he wasn’t as willing.”
“I’m not surprised since he knew your mother was planning to use the Well to her own advantage to kill his people.”
I grin. “Ah, so you have heard part of it.”
“Nothing good.”
“That I don’t doubt.” I shake my head. “The queen had many thoughts about the Well. It was one of the areas where we disagreed. She believed it could be harnessed, but I wasn’t willing to risk my people for it.
We were at an impasse. And while we were busy arguing over how to save our realm, we missed my sister drifting away and becoming a problem. ”
“Why does Selia hate you so much?”
“I told you I wasn’t there for her when she needed me.”
“But you’re her brother.”
My fingers grip the ledge tighter. “The court is a ruthless place, Elorie, under any ruler. The rules of royalty are not the same as they are for others. We are not our own; we belong to our people, and that requires sacrifice at many levels.”
My jaw sets as I close my eyes, taking a deep breath.
“The queen was my mother by blood, but that was the extent of her nurturing us. We were her heirs to be used as needed to guarantee the success of our realm. She expected us to comply in any way she saw fit. Whether that be through bloodshed or bedding.”
“She forced you to—” Elorie shakes her head, not finishing that thought, even though I hear the whispers of it in her mind.
“The prison feeds on your nightmares; it doesn’t write them on its own. What you walk in with is how it will torment you, and all I can say is that it was a long hundred years.”
Longer in the last few when Elorie’s voice became a song in my head—hope I clung to. Until the prison found new ways to torment me using her. Playing visions I’ll never be able to erase.
That much, I keep to myself.
“That’s horrible.” Elorie shivers, not knowing the worst of it.
I chuckle at the irony because I’m horrible, and what I plan to do to Lyrichia is horrible, but Elorie still feels sympathy for me because she has goodness in her heart.
“Yes, it was,” I agree with her. “But I was better at disconnecting from it than Selia. And when I left to train in Andare, things got worse for her. Selia caught the attention of someone our mother needed in her favor, so she… made arrangements.”
“She forced your sister to sleep with him?”
My teeth grit because it’s not as simple as that, and I still wish I’d been there to stop it.
“What?” Elorie’s eyebrows pinch, and even if her gaze bleeds with innocence, I know she understands more than people think.
On the outside, she’s delicate. But in her heart, she’s stronger than anyone realizes. Which is why I decide not to shield her from the truth.
“Immortality is a blessing, but it makes for a long life. Things that bring joy and pleasure at first get stagnant for some who live too long. Their needs aren’t as easily met.”
“You’re referring to sex?”
“Sometimes sex. Sometimes violence. Everyone’s needs are different, and those who become numb seek those old feelings. They’ll do anything to recreate that rush they once felt.”
“What did he do to Selia?”
“Things worse than anything I faced in that prison or before it. And not just from him, but his comrades as well. My guards said Selia had been chained for at least a few moons when they finally retrieved her.” I lift off the ledge, dragging my hands through my hair.
“I should have been there to stop it. She never forgave me, and I don’t blame her.
Not that our mother cared. So when the queen decided to then use Selia to smooth over relations with Malachi, it was no surprise that Selia grew attached instead.
Anything to escape the Quietus Court. As horrible as Malachi can be, he’s not that kind of monster. ”
“So Selia never went back home after that?”
I shake my head. “She sent messages that she was gathering information when really, she was in Malachi’s bed, whispering in his ear about our plans.
It was her idea to draw the courts together, claiming they wanted peace between our realms, only to turn on us instead.
By the time I realized the reason for the meeting, it was too late, and Malachi had his entire army waiting. ”
“But you’re strong. Your magic is something of another realm.”
“I appreciate the compliment, Starfire.” I wink, and she scowls, but there’s no bite behind it.
“But everything has its limits. I watched my men die. Then my father. And finally, the queen. I fought with all I had, but Malachi had more power behind him. An entire army. Magic unlike anything I’d been up against. That’s when I started to Cleave. ”
Elorie’s eyes flash wide. “Nothing survives the Cleaving.”
“I wasn’t trying to survive. I decided to end them all with me.
Pulling in so much magic that I started to tear into pieces.
I was no longer me. I was something else…
” I brush my hand down my face. “Something stopped me. I don’t know what, but it didn’t feel like the gods, even if these markings appeared right after. ”
“And the scar?” She scans my face. “Is that how you got it?”
“Part of me was still split open when they put me in obsidian shackles, and it never healed properly. I thought Malachi was going to end it there, but it’s like something changed his mind.
He put me in the prison instead. And now this scar and these marks are nothing but a reminder that I failed them all. I won’t do it again.”