Chapter 10
LYRAE
Iwasn’t sure I would call Varian’s one minute experiment a success, given we were choking to death inside a deadly dust-filled vortex, where the only things that felt real were the rough walls of the narrow corridor, Ryland’s cloak whipping against my face, and Varian’s fingers digging into my shoulder.
One hundred steps, I’d told myself. I could endure anything for a hundred steps.
I couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, could barely breathe.
And Ryland…
Head bent, blinded, he slogged on, protecting Varian and I from the brunt of onslaught, wide shoulders braced against the roaring gale.
Overhead, the whipping air currents were full of rock and sand, sharp enough to shred flesh from bone.
But down here, sheltered between the high walls, we escaped the worst.
Which meant instead of having our flesh stripped down to bone, every inch of exposed skin was being sandblasted. And try as I might, there was no keeping every part of me covered, not with this godsdamned wind ripping at my clothes.
Not when I couldn’t hardly think past the roaring.
Yet I slogged along. Having my face scraped raw was no picnic, and fresh air to breathe would be nice, but up there…I risked an upwards glance at the absolute shitstorm raging over our heads.
Even ten feet higher, without protection, we’d be dead.
Finally, the darkness thinned, the air cleared and we stepped out of the screaming maelstrom into a quiet pine forest, where a steady breeze shivered through the branches, setting the needles whispering.
I yanked my face covering down, sucking in lungfuls of clean air.
“Drink something,” Varian shoved a full waterskin into my hands. “Your lips are bleeding.”
I drank greedily as I dropped my pack, then let the straps slide off my shoulders, feeling the sting of cut skin where they’d cut too deep.
I’d never hiked before, never carried a pack this heavy, and apparently, after three years of living in relative luxury, my body wasn’t accustomed to this level of strain.
Though to be fair, we were all a mess.
Fine, black dust coated us from head to toe, glittering with specks of mica, sanding my sore eyes, grinding between my teeth. I took another deep pull of water, swished it around my mouth and spat out a stream of gray, grainy liquid.
Ryland shed his pack, his cloak, corded forearms flexing as he lifted his waterskin to his lips. Damn my eyes, drawn to the criminal sight of tan, muscled skin glistening with mica dust, of that powerful throat moving with every deep swallow.
Once, I’d kissed that throat. Listened to deep, purring growls nestle inside that wide chest, my ear pressed tight over his racing heart.
Once, I’d imagined us spending our lives together, until…until…fuck. I yanked my gaze away from Ryland Storme and his unfairly sexy forearms, blowing out a shaky breath.
I had to pull my head out of my ass and get back in the game, because after a shaky start, I was inside enemy territory and I hadn’t even died.
Besides, the Shadowlands were one of the most magnificent sights I’d ever seen.
Onyx sand dunes stretched endlessly beneath a slate gray sky, while in the distance, mountains forged by ancient cataclysms thrust into the clouds.
Those toothy peaks were scarred and broken, rising like a line of silent sentinels.
Now that we were beyond the roar of the ward, the air hung heavy with silence, only a few errant breezes stirring sand up into dark, fleeting spirals.
I’d never seen anything like this. A place of stark, haunting beauty—where the world felt unmade, untouched by time, stunning in its isolation.
“The main road is that way.” Ryland pointed west, but his gaze remained fixed south, where steep black roofs caught the afternoon sun, shredded black flags flapped from wicked, pointed spires that jabbed upwards like sharpened knives.
My mouth fell open. Through the spindly cover of the trees, the two tallest towers shot upwards from each end of the fortress, so thin they didn’t even seem real, with small, slit-like windows at the tops. The place looked inherently evil, as if it had been carved from shadow and malice.
I didn’t know what I thought I’d find here, but it wasn’t a cursed city, peaks as jagged as the mountains framing those whipping banners.
“That is Evernight, ruled over by Lord Venmir Gravelock.” Ryland’s quiet tone held an edge. “We’ll be avoiding that place at all costs, unless you want to end up hacked apart on Lord Butcher’s table. Let’s go. The city is this way.”
“Lord Gravelock,” I repeated, remembering him as the monster who tried to buy Anaria as his bride. “Lord Butcher? Do you mean Gravelock is the Butcher of Evernight?” I’d only heard stories of that monster, then dismissed every one as too brutal to be believed.
Ryland and Varian looked at each other, then me, suspicion darkening their expressions.
“The Butcher preyed upon the Fae armies,” I explained. “A horror story that popped up once a year or so, tales of soldiers disappearing from their tents, their naked, butchered bodies found drained of all their blood, covered in a thousand wounds, mouths still open from screaming.”
They’d called him the Butcher of Evernight, but once the kings were dead and the war ended and Anaria became queen, I’d never heard of him again.
If he’d been hiding here all along…
I stared down at the fortress, my mind slippery with horror at what might have happened to Anaria if she’d been brought to this black castle. If not for Tavion’s intervention, our queen might have ended up as Gravelock’s wife.
Or one of his victims.
“How could you possibly know Lord Gravelock?” Ryland asked carefully, his body still, like he was waiting for me to reveal some huge secret. “I mean,” he seemed to fumble for words. “It’s just…”
Varian answered before I did. “I heard he forged an alliance with the Shadow King before the king’s unfortunate…removal from power.”
“Yes, I saw him at a few court audiences. Three years ago, and only a handful of times.” I took another long, hard look at those black spires that sucked up every drop of sunlight.
“He tried to buy Anaria as his bride. To bring here.” I swallowed, my sore throat burning. “Thank the gods he didn’t succeed.”
But my mind turned over this new information.
Why had Lord Gravelock wanted Anaria in the first place?
He had pursued Anaria with a single-minded purpose I’d found strange, at the time.
And the Shadow King had willingly sold his daughter to a dangerous, deadly male he’d never trusted.
Fae lived a thousand years. They had plenty of time to play long, drawn out games and their infinite patience was legendary.
Had Gravelock been making some subtle play for the throne, only to be thwarted?
Or was something more insidious at work?
Could Gravelock be…the prince?
Fuck. Now that would put an interesting twist on my mission.
I took a closer look at the fortress, the impenetrable wall, the round towers rising higher than should be possible. The dark stone and brooding nature of the castle fit every preconceived notion of where I would find my enemy.
No water, not so much as a puddle.
“We’ll reach the closest town by nightfall,” Ryland said, brushing dust off his shoulders. “There’s a tavern I frequent—the owner is discreet. We get some sleep, then in the morning, I’ll ask around about this Prince of Darkness. Shouldn’t be too hard to figure out where he is.”
I screwed the lid back on Varian’s canteen and handed it back. Debating. Always debating how much to reveal. How many questions to ask, how to exploit my advantages. I didn’t even feel guilty, because these two were doing the same.
They’d know if Gravelock was the prince, unless they were leading me on some elaborate goose chase.
And while I didn’t know a lot, I knew something. I had to find an island in the center of a frozen lake. Surely there couldn’t be more than one of those.
But let Ryland ask around, I reasoned.
Let him play his game, while I played mine.
No sense in giving too much away, I reasoned further, especially if the answers reinforced what I already knew.
“Lead on then, since this is your forte, being an expert tracker and all.”