Chapter 26
LYRAE
Istill tasted Ryland on my lips as I crept along the darkened balcony overlooking the study-slash-library, where Rooke lounged gracefully in his cracked leather chair like it was a solid gold throne.
He truly was a pompous asshole, but right now, I was enjoying the effects of that cold arrogance as I watched the Butcher of Evernight’s composure slowly unravel like a ball of yarn.
“Tell me where you’re hiding them, and I will go easy on you,” he snapped. “There’s no sense in lying, since you and I both know how this will end, should you defy me.”
Surrounded by Fae soldiers bigger than any I’d seen before, Lord Gravelock loomed over the captive prince, yet somehow, Rooke made it seem like he was looking down his nose at Lord Butcher, the subject of childhood nightmares and scary campfire stories.
“You’re an asshole with a plethora of enemies,” Rooke inspected his perfect nails with the sort of practiced boredom only the wealthy can truly achieve.
“How am I supposed to know who snuck into the Shadowlands undetected? Do you see anyone here but me? If I were you, I’d look somewhere else for your trespassers, Lord Butcher. ”
Kaden lifted his eyebrow at a seething Gravelock. “Oh, do you need me to define plethora?” He sighed, rolling his eyes. “Fine, it means a lot—like a lot of people hate your guts because you’re a megalomaniac tyrant with a tiny cock.”
I closed my eyes. Don’t say it, Rooke, don’t…
“Would you like me to define megalomaniac, because I’d be more than happy…”
“I’m going to make you suffer, Rooke,” the Butcher hissed between clenched teeth, the leather of his gloves squeaking as he bunched his hands into fists. “And how I will enjoy your screams.”
While Gravelock postured, I was scanning every inch of the room, heart thumping painfully against my ribs. There was absolutely no sign we’d eaten breakfast here only an hour ago. No coffee cups strewn on tables, no broken plates or crumbs on the floor.
No clothes or footprints, like the entire castle had been wiped clean of our presence in a matter of seconds.
Just a cheery, crackling fire outlining the Prince of Darkness, a mocking smile lifting his lips enough to show off perfect, white teeth.
“And if you’re insinuating I granted said trespassers access to my prison, your ward must be for shit.
” Rooke, who must have a death wish, raised his other eyebrow in mock outrage.
“Is your magic for shit, Venmir? Because if that’s true, you should really pay more attention to your dying kingdom and stop fucking around with your… pet projects.”
Lord Venmir Gravelock looked exactly as I remembered him from four years ago, a tall, rail-thin Fae male with cruel, dark eyes and black diamond-tipped ears curving up from straight white hair.
He was too thin, like his hate had hollowed him out, the epitome of cold-hearted violence, especially with that ugly smile twisting his angular face.
The gloves were a new addition, though—black, edged with silver.
The Fae King had worn similar gauntlets—to hide his dark little secret—and I tipped my head, wondering.
I’d been there the day Gravelock came to buy Anaria, and I well-remembered the part I’d played in the proceedings that day. Back then, cruelty had come just as easily to me as it had to Gravelock, but no more.
Now the memory turned my stomach.
Made my cheeks heat with shame.
Today’s world would only be a dream if this bastard had taken Anaria away.
She never would have defeated the kings, become queen, claimed the magic and reunited the realms.
Our lives would still be a living nightmare, me serving at the mercy of the Shadow King, tethered to the Oracle by her foul magic. Varian and Ryland still hunting witches in the High Barrens, while a thousand-year war raged on forever.
Chances were, I’d be dead by now.
Tavion Montgomery had—through quick thinking and guile—saved us all, the day he’d stolen his mate away from this soulless bastard. Maybe, if I made it back to the Citadelle alive, I’d tell him so, though praise usually made his ego even more insufferable.
“I know they were here.” Gravelock made a show of sniffing the air, the light from the tall windows glinting off his silver hair. “I can smell them, Rooke. This place reeks of Caladrian Fae. Now why don’t you tell me who they are, and where they went, and save us both a lot of time and pain?”
The Butcher’s voice dripped with anticipation, his eyes gleaming.
Surrounded by all those guards, he wasn’t offering Kaden a deal.
No, he was planning to hurt him today, whether he found us or not.
His eyes gleamed with hunger—the Butcher needed to cause pain, like he needed to breathe and eat.
And still, Rooke’s mocking grin never dimmed.
If anything, that annoyingly bright smirk grew wider, like he was calling the bastard’s bluff.
Hidden in the dark, I rocked back on my heels, debating my smartest move.
Twelve…no, fourteen guards, plus Gravelock were in the room below me.
Six more, patrolling the castle.
Presumably searching for Ryland, Var, and me.
I had two blades, plus a short knife in my boot. The closer I looked, the more I noticed every single guard possessed some form of powerful magic. Fire wreathing their fingers. Electricity sparking in circles around their palms. Wisps of shadow spilling from them in dark, poisonous clouds.
Steel—even Valarian steel—wasn’t going to—literally—cut it.
And I was many things, but magical…I was not.
My best bet was to search the castle, isolate the patrolling guards, take them out one at a time, then come back here and do what I could to stop whatever depravities Lord Butcher had planned for Kaden Rooke.
“You make such poor choices, Kade, yet you continue to surprise me. Very well.” Gravelock mock-sighed, lifted a gloved hand, then Rooke floated into the air, rising until he was eye level with me, his lean body bent at an impossible angle, hands twitching, mouth open in a silent scream.
This close, the light picked out the blue in his eyes, blazing like sapphires against the flood of red pooling in the corners, before blood began dripping down his face in gaudy, crimson streaks that were far too bright against his too-pale skin.
I crept as far forward as I dared, keeping one eye on Gravelock below, his hollowed-out face twisted into something like a smile, if you called those bared fangs anything but hideous. And Rooke…
Gods, he thrashed in midair right in front of me, almost close enough to touch, silently enduring what looked to be excruciating pain, and here I was, hiding in the fucking shadows, watching him writhe and struggle while I just…
Rooke’s dark eyes snagged mine. Our gazes locked together like magnets.
I have to do something.
I have to stop this.
Deep slashes scored across exposed skin, his clothing began shredding as magic ripped him apart, like he was being lashed with a cat-o’-nine-tails. Blood began flowing like a river.
From his body.
From his nose, his ears…his eyes. Everywhere.
The Butcher was carving Kaden Rooke to pieces with invisible, razor-sharp knives.
And he was doing it with a smile.
A smile I would carve from his desiccated face, then feed right the fuck back to him by shoving it down his throat.
I braced my hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath as an inhuman groan slipped out of Rooke’s mouth. I’d never seen anything as horrendously cruel as that perfect skin shredding, the relentless drip, drip, drip of Rooke’s blood hitting the floor like a faucet.
Bloodsinger.
Gravelock—Lord Butcher—had Bloodsinger magic, and after only hearing tales, now I was seeing that hideous power in action, carving deep gouges through Rooke’s flesh, turning the arrogant prince into a macabre masterpiece of red and black and white, as I frantically re-counted the guards, deciding how many I could take out in my first sweep.
I rose from my hiding place, hand gripping the banister, preparing to jump, when Rooke’s pained one-word moan—No—pinned me in place.
His bloodied eyes narrowed in warning, before he managed to jerk his head to the side. Just once. Something poked at the edge of my consciousness, and then, inside my head…a deep, masculine voice…
Stay right there, commander.
Today is not your day to die.
Let this play out.
Along with his warning, pain blazed through me in searing ribbons, every hard-fought word sounding like they might be Rooke’s last.
I can do this. Let me help.
You’re…no good to me dead, commander. Stay right the fuck there.
“I’m…not sure…what you think you’re…accomplishing. You…kill me now…where will you ever…get enough blood…for your pathetic scheme to work?” Rooke grunted, body torquing wildly beneath Gravelock’s assault, hands clenched into white-knuckled fists.
Gravelock sighed. “You are, for once, correct. As entertaining as this has been, soon enough I shall need every last drop.” Rooke crashed to the ground with a bone-shattering thump. “Fan out.” He ordered the guards. “Scour every last inch, bring me whomever you find.”
Which meant Rooke bled out like a stuck Grimbeast on his pristine marble floors for the next twenty minutes while I tried to stay one step ahead of the guards, out of sight of a raving Gravelock, pacing back and forth in front of Rooke, telling him all the very creative ways he was going to die in a voice loud enough to carry through the entire castle.
Stamping feet marched past my hiding place, where I curled myself into a ball beneath a window ledge, drawing myself back into the dark crevice as far as I could go.
I could make a run for it, try to get free of the castle, but something about leaving Rooke at the mercy of the Butcher didn’t sit right with me.
I took a bracing breath, tightened my grip on my knife and slid from the shadows.
I was nearly out of my hiding place when a black feather floated down in front of me, landing on the stone floor.
Fire roared through the empty space, incinerating the feather—fire that would have turned me to ash if I’d crept out from my dark corner. A second later, two Fae guards swept past, flames flickering at their fingers, a look of death on their blank faces.
Something rustled above me and I ducked lower, then a raven flitted through the air, landing on the back of a chair, tilting his head, peering at me. He flapped away, soaring through an open doorway.
“Fuck,” I muttered. “Are you helping or leading me into a trap?”
I kept my head down, following the sound of rustling wings, heading deeper into the castle, away from that ranting voice, ducking into one room, then the next.
Every time the raven stopped, I found somewhere to hide while he perched high up on the ceiling beams like a silent sentinel until it was finally time for me to move again.
It was uncanny, the way the little beast anticipated the soldiers’ movements, kept me from being incinerated more than once, fluffing his feathers once the enemy was gone before taking off again.
The two of us wove through the labyrinthine castle, down twisting stone stairs, cavernous hallways, until I had completely lost my bearings.
I hid in armoires and under beds, behind tapestries that smelled like mold.
Until finally, I was back where I started—up on the balcony, guards closing in from both sides. Trapped, I crab-crawled back into the shadows on my hands and knees while my friend the raven soared up into the highest part of the ceiling, like he knew I was beyond saving.
Or maybe he just wanted a better view of me getting incinerated, who knew?
“You think you’re smarter than me, but where has all your cleverness ever gotten you?” Gravelock crouched down in front of Kaden, ran his finger through the blood on the floor, smearing it around like a painting. “You’re weak, like your father, and like him, you will die at my hand.”
“At least I’m not the one wasting my afternoon chasing down a mirage,” Rooke panted, “but by all means, continue to waste your time searching.”
I folded myself beneath a writing desk under the window, heavy boots tromping back and forth as the guards poked swords into the shadows, shot tendrils of fiery magic into every dark corner.
Sooner or later, I’d be burned out of my hiding place—or skewered—and then I’d be about a hundred ways fucked.
Like hanging in the air while I bled out, fucked.
I slipped my hand down into my boot and pulled out my knife, grasped the hilt as those plumes of fire got close enough for me to feel the heat, the scraping of steel on stone turned into a shriek. I’d have one chance to take these two out, and then, maybe, if I moved fast enough…
Out of nowhere, the atmosphere inside Frostveil shifted, like the first big storm of winter was blowing in, air pressure dropping fast enough my ears popped. Gravelock froze in place, the guards stopped poking about.
The hair on the back of my neck rose, the stone walls around us groaning ominously, as if the entire castle was shifting on its foundations, on the verge of collapsing into the water.
“Looks like somebody left themselves a wee bit exposed.” Rooke’s taunt was followed by a wet, hacking cough that sounded…bad.
“See what I meant about being distracted by your…pet projects?”
“Get to Gravespire.” The Butcher’s panicked scream echoed through the castle, followed by rushing boots and clanking weapons. “Fucking thieves. They aren’t here…they’re after the Triune. Someone’s broken through the wards, the artifacts are in danger.”
“Good luck, Venmir.” Rooke rasped. “I sincerely hope you’re fucked into next year.”
Gravelock paused, long enough to send a scathing look over his shoulder. “Your time is coming, Rooke. When I wring the last drop of blood from your pathetic body, your kind will cease to exist and the world will be a far better place.”