Chapter 37
The Haar deposited us on a bridge made of ink-black stone. The second my boots touched down on the solid jet, my dizziness and pain vanished.
“Where did you bring us?” Kier demanded, squeezing my waist as he stared down the bridge, past its many dark towers, to where a mountain rose into the sky, covered in buildings, arches, pathways, and winding roads.
Although, island might have been a better word than mountain, because as I peered over the edge of the bridge, salt sprayed my face, fog drenching my hair from an ocean below.
White coils of mist moved along the rough water like foam, rising above the dark, craggy island, all the way to the spikes on the tallest tower of the castle atop the mount.
I’d never seen anywhere like this before.
I’d never even heard of this place. Kier raised a good question; where the fuck were we?
“We’re safe here,” the Haar answered, turning his face up as a gust of wind ruffled mist from his hair. The whole place felt like him—sweet and dangerous and protective.
“Did you build this castle-town-thing?” I asked, taking a step and unsurprised when Kier moved with me, his body as stiff as an arrow beside me.
“Yes.”
“Huh. I like it.” I tilted my head back to look at the spiked towers, then turned to see what lay behind us.
The ocean thrashed on two sides, but this bridge connected us to a vast expanse of land.
And there, visible in the near distance, was a sprawling metropolis far bigger than Lazankh.
It was the size of Seagrave. A city made of black stone and vivid fog, created by the Haar.
“This is where all the people you saved are,” I realised. Not just the island, but in the city. There must be a hundred thousand people in a city that big.
“Four towns,” the Haar said, edging closer, his cool hand brushing my elbow.
“I’m all for being modest, but that’s definitely a city. Wait.” I stared at him, my eyes wide. “There are three other cities the same size as that?”
He looked at the city, at the ocean, and nodded. “But one is bigger.”
“Damn,” Kier breathed. “Everyone you took from the Bluescale Court is here?”
“Yes. And Greenheart.” The Haar gave us a sheepish look. “Not the ones who eat humans.”
I suppressed a smile, something in my heart rising. I trusted Kier, and here was the proof that I was right to do so. He never killed anyone. He saved them. Most of them. “I’m guessing the human-eaters suffered mysterious disappearances.”
“Yes,” the Haar agreed, gazing at me, at Kier. “Accidents.”
“Why bring us here instead of the city?” Kier asked, his hand flexing on my hip. “Oh, this is where the military are housed,” he answered his own question. I watched his sapphire eyes brighten, lit from within.
“Any time you want to share with the class,” I drawled, pinching his hip.
“We need allies to stand against Jyrard and Cleodora. Or better—to prove their story is false. It’s the only thing that will stop Cleodora claiming any more of Bluescale than she already has.”
I raised my brows. “We’re going to fight her? With the army in that castle-island? Far be it from me to question your genius, but have you considered they might say no…?”
“I considered they might fight me instead, since I’m the reason they’ve been here for months instead of home,” Kier sighed, facing me with more than a little murder in those eyes I loved so much.
“But if we go back together… I can’t undo anything the Haar did, but I can damn well prevent their home from being overrun by a tyrant queen. ”
“I like it.” I patted his chest. “Let me do the talking, I know more than you.” I turned to ask the Haar how we got into the castle, but he was already down the bridge, floating like fog itself. I sighed. “Wait up, you impatient ass.”
“Excuse me,” Kier huffed. “That’s me too, you know?”
I threw him a look. “Oh, I know.”
I took a step and made a face when my body moved normally, no pain, no stiffness, no sign at all that we’d been attacked by Jyrard and his cronies on the dam road. I checked my body, but my injuries were wiped away. No stab wounds at all. “Hey, look, my blue scar is gone.”
“Coming here must erase injuries,” Kier murmured, his brow knotted as he searched his mind—the mind he and the Haar shared. “It’s a separate pocket world, and to enter it we pass through a sheer wall of fog that wipes away all suffering.”
I set off down the bridge towards where the Haar now waited for us at the edge, where a shadowy archway led somewhere. Hopefully not to hell. Or another tomb. “So… you made a world where everyone lives happily ever after?”
“Come on,” the Haar urged, impatience in the hand he waved in our direction. “Inside, before the storm.”
“The storm,” I echoed, peering at the sky. I physically jumped at the sight of a fog-wreathed cyclone that hadn’t been there minutes ago. “So maybe not happily ever after the entire time…”
“I’d say not,” Kier agreed, taking my hand and hurrying us towards where his misty counterpart waited by the dark archway.
I crossed my fingers that we were headed into safety and not yet another war as we entered the ominous arch.