Chapter 3
Icould have done without the woman burning a glare into the side of my head as we climbed out of the carriage in Azurann, fog scattering beneath Kier’s and my boots.
We’d dressed for a battle in sturdy leathers, strapped with weapons all over, and I made sure both my rings were in place so I could call on my two fiercely powerful creatures—Valour, my jaguar, and Baby, my…
actually I had no idea what he was. Cat-adjacent, but three times the size of a housecat and made of rich sapphire blue magic, with a lion’s mane, huge canines, and claws that could rip guts out of a living person.
For obvious reasons, I felt better for having them both with me.
When Cleodora compelled me on the battlefield, she had to lock my magic deep inside me.
I’d had weeks to obsess over that moment, to wonder if she’d have been able to sink her claws into me if I had Valour and Baby to protect me.
I kept them close now. Not that she could do much worse than compelling me to bring my husband to a town where I knew she’d set a trap.
I tried, for the ninth time since leaving Lazankh, to warn him why we were here, to suggest we turn around and go home, but Cleodora’s magic bit deep. I wiped away a bead of blood from my nose and slanted a look at the woman whose violent stare burned the side of my face.
“Ah, Odele,” I greeted sweetly. “How I missed your beautiful face.”
“Zaba,” Kier murmured in a warning, but I didn’t miss the flash of delight in his deep blue eyes.
He liked me being territorial, no matter how much he chided me.
I gazed into those eyes, trying to see beyond the glamour he wore to the irises that had been as white as fog since the day he and the Haar merged. No one else knew, only the two of us.
I gave him an innocent look, and smiled at Odele, the ultra-beautiful spy who somehow always looked put together and dangerous despite rain, sleet, snow, or extreme sun. It wasn’t that I envied her, more that the snooty way she looked down her nose at me made me want to see her rumpled and mortal.
“It’s good to meet you again,” Odele said through her teeth, turning away from me to gaze around Azurann. “We shouldn’t be here.”
“What have you uncovered about this town?” Kier asked, his hand finding the small of my back as we moved deeper into the fog, the two-storey buildings around us topped with deep blue slate roofs and short chimneys, none of them puffing smoke unlike the last time I was here, when the troupe put on a performance in the square at the heart of the town.
Odele pulled herself straighter, like there really was a rod shoved up her ass, and with an air of self-importance said, “Before the Haar swept into the town, the mayor was due to visit Skayan to meet with your brother, Jyrard to discuss the rising tensions along the border.”
That made sense, given how close Azurann was to the forest between Greenheart and Bluescale. If the courts went to war, it would be one of the first towns to fall. It was a sad shame the Haar ripped away all the people but the town still stood.
He didn't kill them. He moved them somewhere safe. He saved them.
I still wasn’t sure what that meant, and Kier didn’t know where the Haar had sent all his people.
For all we knew, they were in the gods’ embrace.
But it was hope, where we’d had none before.
Hope for Kier that he hadn’t killed thousands of people.
Hope for me that my husband was redeemable and hadn’t committed acts of atrocity that made me sick.
“And has the Haar reached the capital yet?” Kier asked, keeping sharp eyes on our surroundings as if the fog might attack us. While the Haar had retreated from Lazankh when it merged with Kier, it remained everywhere else, and we didn’t quite know what it was capable of.
“I haven’t been able to get near Skayan, sire,” Odele admitted, a simpering apology.
I gave Kier a look. Can I kill her?
He arched an eyebrow. She’s useful, and a good member of my court.
I pressed my lips thin. Then she’d better stop talking to you in that tone.
His lips twitched. Bastard. I elbowed him, even as warmth spilled through the bond—his affection meeting my love for him. I hoped it covered the poisonous well of my fear.
What would he do when he found out I’d betrayed him, that I’d lured him to Azurann on Greenheart’s orders? That even now the queen laid in wait to—what? Attack him? Kill him? Snare him with her compulsion magic, too? The thought made my stomach twist.
“We’ll be fine,” he murmured, because clearly I wasn’t as good at concealing my turmoil as I hoped.
“I know,” I lied, my throat raw, like shards of glass raked over delicate skin and muscle with every word I’d spoken against my will for weeks.
But we wouldn’t be fine. He forgave me for trying to kill him, but a second betrayal when we’d only just reconciled?
It would break us. It would destroy our marriage.
My shoulders slumped as we walked down the tight street lined with empty taverns, butcher’s shops, and bakeries.
Odele stayed close, because of course she did.
Footsteps scuffed the cobbles behind us—guards to watch our backs, because as far as anyone knew we were here for a tense, political meeting.
I told Kier the Haar asked to meet me here before I returned to Lazankh, so it must have been significant.
There was something here the Haar wanted us to see.
I didn’t say it outright, but hinted that this could be the key to finding everyone the Haar had killed or exiled or hidden.
Kier hadn’t once doubted me. He trusted me again, and Cleodora would ruin that.
Valour, I said, reaching for my jaguar where she lived in the gold signet ring now where it belonged on my wedding finger.
It was moulded into the shape of a dragon eye—the mother, the goblins’ goddess—with a blue sapphire as its eye.
It was from those stones that Valour leapt into being, pouring through the air in a streak of electric blue light before she landed on four paws and prowled beside us.
Rook whistled behind us, and a bolt of pride and satisfaction broke through my guilt and terror.
Loathe as I was to admit I had feelings at all, I wanted Kier’s friends to like me.
Or in Xiona’s case, I wanted her to tolerate me enough not to fantasise about skinning me alive.
I could sense her murderous eyes on me even now.
“Scout ahead,” I told Valour aloud so Kier could hear the command. “I want to know what to expect.”
She sent me a mental picture of her fangs sinking into flesh, ripping out someone’s jugular.
If you find Cleodora, hang back and wait for us. If it’s a guard or any of her court, feel free to take a little nibble.
She gave me a fanged smile, her tongue lolling out. Valour’s idea of a little nibble involved essential organs hanging out, but for once I didn’t correct her as she streaked ahead of us. And as a nice little bonus, the colour left Odele’s face and she took a step away from Kier and I.
“Where did the Haar want to meet you originally?” Kier murmured, scanning the street as it opened up into the square at the heart of Azurann. Across from us, a small clock tower rang through the silent town as it hit noon.
“Here,” I answered in that broken-glass voice, tasting copper on the back of my tongue. I searched the low-slung mist, my heart quickening, panic crawling up the back of my neck. I did what she ordered, and brought Kier here at this exact time. I was free of that command now, right?
I brushed my fingertips over the bulge in my leather jacket where glass vials waited, full of highly concentrated madflower, alongside doses of sleeproot. Cleodora never said I couldn’t come armed, and I had no intention of letting her harm my husband.
“Then we’ll break into groups of three and search—Zaba?” Kier demanded, lunging to catch me when my knees buckled.
Pain scratched across my chest, leaving marks like claws dug in stone, and a yowling cry of pain rattled through my skull, making my ears ring. “Valour,” I gasped. Had Cleodora found her? Had she set her army of rats upon my baby?
“We’re not alone, and the princess is under attack,” Kier quietly told the others who fanned out around us. “Be on your guard. When you find the person harming my mate, bring them to me.”
I gritted my teeth and pushed away from Kier’s chest to stand on my own two feet, nostrils flaring at the crash of agony in my soul. But I was used to my soul being in pain after months spent away from Kier, with the mate bond howling at me. I could endure this.
I uncorked a vial and kept it at my side as we ventured deeper into the town square, where the pool I’d once thrown Hames’s stinky boots into waited in the centre of the paved square.
Valour? Where the hell are you?
She didn’t reply, which wound the panic in my chest even tighter.
I jumped when a shadow fell across my left, but it was just Xiona prowling ahead of us.
Her golden features were as sharp as ever, her honey-blonde hair in a punishingly tight braid down her spine.
I was glad to have her on our side, even if I could never be sure she wouldn’t bury a blade in my back.
Another guard fell in beside her, the woman who protected me in Cyana.
Talon didn’t even look at me as she strode past, a solid foot taller than me with long red hair, deep brown skin, and teeth so sharp they could easily rip out someone’s throat.
Her and Xiona striding into the square was a declaration, a statement that we weren’t here to make friends.
Longing tightened my chest, but I shoved it away even if I wanted to be one of the badass women striding ahead, to round out their duo into a trio.
Maybe bring Cherish and Aerona too, the five of us forming a deadly unit.
But Xiona hated me, and it looked like Talon had shifted firmly to Team Hating Letta.
Another twist of pain shot across my chest and I gasped. Right, got it universe, more important things to stress about than not being one of the Bluescale girls.
“She’s close,” I said tensely, glancing up when Rook framed me in an overprotective man sandwich.
He already had a potion bottle in hand, the liquid inside gleaming like opals.
“I can feel Valour…” I trailed off when I spotted the group who cut through the fog like a scythe cleaving wheat, not recognising the two male goblins—both with deep, sapphire skin, and bulging muscles, so clearly of this court.
No Cleodora. No Greenheart goblins. The hair rose on the back of my neck. I scanned the square, searching for my puppet master, my heart thumping as I anticipated her next move.
“Shit,” Rook hissed, grinding to a halt and giving Kier a pointed look.
“What?” I hissed, staring from one to another.
“Those men,” Kier said, angling himself in front of me, “are my brothers.”
I whipped back around to stare at the intimidating men who strode into the square, the mist fleeing their heavy footsteps as if afraid of them. But if the Haar was afraid, that meant Kier feared them.
I slipped my hand into his and squeezed tight, but a second later I ripped my fingers away and surged across the smooth flagstones. Because one of the princes, the tallest one, had a rope of dark, dark blue power coiled around Valour’s throat, dragging her into the square behind them.