Chapter 2
T he fire burning in Feris’s hearth was more than enough for Rayner to materialize inside his rooms. He took in the space. Dirty uniforms crumpled in a heap in the corner. Unmade bed. Weapons discarded haphazardly across a desk.
He could hear him moving around in the bathing room, and Rayner swiped up one of his daggers, examining it. Shirastone. The upper level guards were each issued one. The other weapons were of standard make. Steel and practical.
He leaned back against the desk, lifting a palm.
Smoke swirled, the arrow from the producing room appearing in his hand.
He held it up, studying the arrowhead. That was not shirastone.
It was darker, seeming to absorb light. Memories of the same material digging into his skin when he was in a cell flashed in his mind.
The Marshal who had let him out had called it deathstone, but Rayner had never seen it on weapons when he was here.
Unless this was one way they had prepared for his return.
The sound of shuffling feet told him Feris was coming. Rayner didn’t even bother to look up. When he heard the muffled curse though, he slowly raised his head, peering out from beneath his hood.
Feris stared back at him, hatred shining in his eyes. “The favorite returns,” he spat.
“Am I still the favorite?” Rayner questioned, reaching up and pulling back the hood.
He wanted Feris to see his face. Wanted him to know he had come to collect the memory he had promised to make.
“That doesn’t say much about you. I have been gone for decades, and you still haven’t managed to take my place. ”
“The Baroness has plans for you,” Feris snarled, but it sounded more like he was reminding himself. Rayner had no doubt Moranna had issued orders about what to do with him if he showed up, and those orders did not include Feris killing him.
“I have plans for her as well, but first I need some information,” Rayner said.
“Fuck off, Ash Rider. If you think I’m going to tell you shit, think again.”
Rayner only smiled. Holding his stare, he tossed the arrow up. Ashes swirled around it, and when it reappeared, it went through the back of Feris’s shoulder.
He bellowed out a curse, trying to grab the thing, but it was lodged just out of his reach.
“That is quite the weapon,” Rayner said casually. “Are there more?”
“It is deathstone, you fucking prick. We do not have weapons with it.” His face was turning a mottled red from pain and anger.
Rayner sent him a frank look. “Do not lie to me, Feris.”
“I’m not.” His lip curled back, but it quickly morphed from a sneer to a grimace. “She only has a few items of deathstone. Arrows are not one of them.”
“Then where did it come from?”
“You tell me. You are the one who possesses such a thing.”
Rayner studied him as he continued to struggle to reach the arrow. He was almost inclined to believe that he did not know where the arrow had come from, which opened up a whole new set of questions. It couldn’t have simply appeared out of nowhere.
“What preparations have been made?” Rayner asked in a low voice.
“Fuck. Off,” Feris ground out again from between his teeth.
Rayner sighed, pushing off the desk and prowling forward.
The male’s lip peeled back, elongated canines bared, but the arrow was suppressing his earth magic.
He was also weaponless, having clearly just come from bathing.
Sloppy. Rayner always had a dagger or knife within reach, even in the bath.
Feris was just as arrogant as ever, his next words only solidifying that fact.
“Go ahead and kill me, Ash Rider. I’m not going to tell you a godsdamn thing.”
Rayner lifted a hand, flesh becoming ashes. “You won’t be meeting death until I say so, Feris, and that will not happen until I have the information I need.”
His hand snapped out, sinking deep into his throat where fingers of ash wrapped around his windpipe, squeezing. Feris’s eyes bulged, Rayner’s favorite look of panic settling into his cold eyes. He abandoned his attempt to reach the arrow, now clawing at his neck, mouth gaping.
“When I allow you to take a breath, I expect to hear what preparations have been made for me. If that is not what I hear from your mouth, you will learn a few more of my new talents.”
He eased his grip, pulling his hand back and wiping it on his cloak. Feris sucked in breaths, gasping, “You twisted fuck.”
And Rayner’s ashes sang as they sank into the length of Feris’s arm. They expanded, layering along the bones, muscles, veins…and then they sank in even further, turning it all to ash. Feris screamed, feeling every bit of desecration.
He pulled his magic back, keeping a grimace from his face. His magic reserves were starting to deplete. He needed to make sure he had enough magic left to get back to the continent, so he really needed Feris to start sharing some secrets.
The male opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Rayner said, “The words you are about to say had better be how she has prepared for me.”
“She has an enchantment on the islands. The entirety of them,” Feris rasped, beads of sweat running down his brow. He was staring at his boneless arm, and Rayner snapped his fingers in his face to keep him from going into any type of shock.
“How?”
“I don’t know, but she knows when you come. Every time. She knows you are here now.”
“Then why hasn’t she come for me?”
“She’s not ready for you yet.”
Whatever the fuck that meant.
Rayner didn’t have time to waste on this now. He had other things he needed to know, then he needed to get the fuck out of here while he still had the power to do so.
“The most powerful. Where does she keep them?”
Something hardened on Feris’s face as though he were going to decline to answer, but Rayner merely needed to lift his hand again, ashes drifting from his fingers, and Feris was blurting, “In one of her secret chambers. I haven’t seen them since she moved them there.”
Interesting.
“Aravis. Where is she being kept?”
At that, something sinister crept across Feris’s face. “When she’s not fulfilling her assignments, she warms my bed, Ash Rider.”
A snarl of rage left Rayner as his hand plunged into Feris’s chest. This time, he didn’t leave it as ashes. He let his flesh reform, solid fingers wrapping around Feris's heart.
The male gasped, face contorted in agony, but he still managed to say, “She let me take her for the first time. Let me teach her how to prepare for her duties. And she will use her to claim you once more.”
He bellowed a roar of pain when Rayner sank a dagger deep into his side, twisting sharply. “Arius will welcome you into the Pits of Torment,” Rayner snarled.
“You will be in the Pits with the rest of us,” Feris rasped between ragged breaths as Rayner’s fingers tightened around his heart.
“I’m counting on it,” Rayner replied. “I will find you there and finish what I started here.”
He ripped his hand back, Feris’s heart in his palm. Blood bubbled from the male’s lips as he sank to the floor, and Rayner watched the life drain from his eyes before he tossed his heart atop the body and disappeared among the smoke.
He’d been right. That would forever be one of his fondest memories.