Chapter 8
Allie
“The crypt,” Ryker deadpanned as the wind hissed through the trees bold enough to survive on the rocky edges of the highest hill within walking distance of the fortress.
It overlooked the frozen lake that apparently had never once thawed in the crater’s history.
The written one at least. “You hid this machinery in the sacred crypt.”
No, I hid the machinery and my crown in the crypt.
“It’s the safest place in all of Solkar’s Reach, right?” I asked tersely–and loudly, so my words wouldn’t be swallowed by the gusts hitting us in waves.
Ryker had positioned himself to my side, so he’d take the brunt of it, but I was still too irked to even look at him.
“Allie said your warriors wouldn’t take kindly to it,” Dax quipped from beside the fir he was holding onto for dear life, as his wings flailed in the wind. “And she was right, they are not friendly.”
Ryker grimaced as he stared off into the distance. He’d been doing that a lot since the dinner fiasco, a permanent frown etched between his brows.
Under his incredulous stare, we’d retrieved the huge backpack, before he guided us to the top of the hill without a word. He’d walked ahead of us, facing the wind first, only glancing my way a few times, always with that impenetrable stare.
Which annoyed me even more. I wasn’t the one throwing suspicion across the dinner table.
The silence between us was pressing, making me feel exposed in ways I wasn’t used to, chest tight and breath jumpy.
Was he fretting, too? Or had that damn spark in his eyes cool the longing in his veins, as well?
Despite the irritation, my body still ached to stand close to him and hear him breathing, of all things. I was just cold and he was always hot like a furnace, that was all.
“I just want to mention, again, how absolutely ridiculous this is,” I said between chattering teeth, as I struggled to wrap more of my arms around myself through the layers upon layers of furs that did nothing to keep the biting night cold from slithering across my skin.
“The wind is going to jerk you around and smash you against a tree like a mosquito.”
“So little faith.” Dax’s grin was all edges and fixed his hard gaze on Ryker. “The benevolent ruler wanted a demonstration.”
“Come off it, we proposed one.” I scoffed, acutely aware of the backpack and the Protectorate crown it held, resting only feet away from me. I swore I could hear a metal whisper in the air. “He’s seen the wings, he has my word.”
“I don’t have his.” Ryker looked down at me. One look at my tight face and his expression softened once more, even as a wrenched sigh flattened his chest. “But this can indeed wait until tomorrow.”
Dax rolled his shoulders, rustling the wings. “I want to see how they perform in the most atrocious conditions. Your crater has graciously supplied them.”
“This is not the time to let your pride lead,” I said.
“No.” The humor vanished from Dax’s face in one breath. “It’s a time to find any advantage we can get. War is coming.”
The frustration burned away.
This was no longer a family tiff.
It was a strategic discussion.
“The Serpents might be attacking your bloody Clan, but we’re all involved.” Dax gave me a measured look that dug deep. I knew what he was seeing. My body leaning toward Ryker’s, him positioning himself to protect me. “Let’s fight any way we can.”
“That thing can’t be reliable in battle,” I said at the same time Ryker asked, “What could we even do with it?”
We exchanged a quick glance, broken by Dax’s groan.
“You two are disgustingly similar.” He rolled his eyes, before slashing them toward Ryker. “I’m sure that friend of yours with the wounded leg can come up with some dangerous contraptions to throw on top of the Serpents. In battle, they won’t be looking at the skies.”
“What do you know about my friend?” Ryker bit out.
“That you care about him.” Dax smiled. “You’re lucky I’m on this side of the war. Those monstrous snakes you saw during the skirmish? That’s only the beginning. The Serpents have gotten hold of hundreds of forbidden magicked eggs. It’s only a matter of time before most of them hatch.”
“How long?” I asked in an unyielding voice I barely recognized.
“Months.” He paused. “If we’re lucky.”
A current of understanding passed between the three of us.
“We need to win the war before that happens,” I said. A Serpent army was bad enough without a legion of gigantic snakes to confront.
“Yes. Anything can help, no matter how ridiculous it looks.” He shrugged his wings again.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Is that why you brought them here? To test them?”
“Why, Allie, you know I came because I missed you.” He winked. “Now let’s get this over with before we end up as icicles.”
He let go of the tree. Instantly, the wind tugged on the wings, throwing Dax off balance. Both Ryker and I flinched forward to steady him.
He regained his footing only a second later, but it was enough for my heart to jump against my ribcage.
A grim determination sharpened Dax’s features. He was lost to protests and logic.
He was doing this.
“If you die, I’ll kill you,” I said, voice tight with things I still couldn’t say.
“If anyone were to fight Xamor for my soul, I know it would be you.”
His back tense, Dax slid forward, his new boots–which Mrs. Thornbrew had insisted on–leaving deep marks in the snow under the weight of the machinery.
“Don’t go past the lake,” Ryker warned. “The currents will pull you toward the cliffs.”
“That almost sounded like encouragement,” Dax yelled back.
Ryker only grunted as a reply.
“Be careful,” I said.
“I always am.” Dax smirked over his shoulder. “If anything happens, Dara gets everything.”
“Don’t even joke about that,” I called after him as Dax began to run toward the edge.
The wind paused for a moment, as if it was curious how this would go, before a great big gust barreled into us, bowing me forward.
Instantly, Ryker settled his large palm on my waist, as if wanting to protect me from the entire world. I couldn’t even enjoy the small gesture as my heart trembled.
Helped by the wind, Dax picked up speed and jumped off the rocky lip. The wings unfurled and stayed true, carrying him higher toward the hazy moon.
“He’s doing it,” I whispered, mesmerized.
“Xamor’s hounds, he is,” Ryker said, sounding just as surprised. He tightened his hold on me as we both watched the impossible right in front of us.
Each time the wind changed directions, Dax got dragged along with it, making my power stir with worry.
Old Protectorate powers could call upon the winds, but not fight them.
“He’s got courage, I’ll give him that,” Ryker muttered. “The machinery might work, but it’s too unstable to use in war.”
“I was thinking the same.” Still too fickle, too risky. Maybe with improvements, they could turn dangerous. But time wasn’t on our side. “Pity.”
Quite a pity.
Those Serpents deserved to have explosives dropped on their heads.
“It still doesn’t explain how he got into the crater,” he went on, voice dropping. “Solkar’s Reach should have spit him out.”
“He said he cut his hand in one of the rim’s shards,” I said. This was more important than the feelings threatening to spill from the tip of my tongue. “You mentioned a blood ritual.”
A secret one only he–and apparently I–knew about. How could he reveal so much of him and his land, but still hold on to that suspicion? He’d shown me Solkar’s Heart, the crater’s cradle of power, yet he somehow thought Dax’s arrival was one big conspiracy.
“It shouldn’t have been enough for an outsider. My father was an awful, wandering man,” Ryker said dryly. “But I’m fairly sure Dax and I are not related so the crater could sense a connection between my blood and his.”
Related–
I yanked my gaze off Dax for the barest moment, to look up at Ryker. “But he’s related to me.”
Only the wings and the wind dared to break the beat of silence that passed.
“You are indeed. Though you were a stranger mere weeks ago–” His jaw clenched tighter as he finally looked at me, sending tremors down my spine. His ice eyes swept over my face, looking for something I didn’t know how to reveal. “–you were a stranger who could see Solkar’s Rays and hear its Song.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
My power had connected with the crater’s during the attack, and the purple lights and hum had accompanied me more than I would have liked; they’d even tried to warn me about Orion.
“I don’t know,” he admitted with an edge, frustrated that he didn’t. “But we’ll find out. Together.”
The knot of worry in my stomach loosened, but not enough.
I ripped my gaze from his, turning it back to Dax, heart the size of the snowflakes swirling around as he soared through the air.
The tension between us lingered, forcing the words past my lips. “Didn’t seem like you were thinking about together during the meal.”
There.
I’d said it.
It wasn’t the right time for it, but the uncertainty would have gnawed at my mind until I would have set it loose.
Ryker’s sigh warmed the soft hairs on the nape of my neck. “Your cousin is difficult, but I should have handled that better.”
“I can’t handle you going at each other all the time. We have bigger issues to deal with than pride,” I muttered.
A corner of Ryker’s lips quirked, as he watched Dax’s ascent as carefully as I did. “Says The Huntress.”
“Yes, I do.” I gulped as a gust of wind carried Dax higher and higher. Every Protectorate member knew the wind could be friend or foe, but I’d never witnessed it so plainly. “I really didn’t know he was coming.”
“I know,” Ryker said, sounding surprised I’d even considered that.
The tension on my shoulders eased. He…did?
“And I wasn’t keeping anything from you,” I went on.
“I know,” he said, this time slower, almost like a question. But a weird heaviness lingered in his air. He seemed more distant than usual. Not cold, just…removed.
In the distance, Dax began to descend toward the icy lake. My fists slowly unclenched.
“Then what’s going on?” I wanted to look back at Ryker so badly, but I couldn’t lose track of Dax. Each time one of his wings flapped, my chest trembled. “You were strange at the table and you’re being strange now.”
“Strange how?”
“It sounded like you thought I’d colluded with Dax to surprise you.”
“Then I apologize,” he said simply. “I don’t suspect you. I do suspect him.”
I huffed a sigh. “He’s harmless.”
At least in this particular context. He’d come here to help me, not weed out secrets.
“Orion was harmless, too.” His arm around my waist tightened. “And I almost lost you.”
“We can’t keep doing this.” I shook my head, ignoring the ghostly and ghastly memory of Orion’s hands on my neck. “Suspecting everyone. And you’ve gotten me beaten on that front.”
“You’re right,” he said gravely. “I’m a son of Solkar’s Reach, raised with the greedy shadows of the Northern Clans nipping at my heels. I’ve been taught to protect my own against the outside world–especially family that doesn’t deserve to be called that.”
So vastly different than my own Clan, where even the slightest marriage, thrice removed, was considered family and looked out for. “I’m from the outside world.”
“Not to me,” he said gently.
I tuned out the flutters in my stomach. “Perhaps not now. But a few weeks ago you were questioning why I was asking about you and your relatives.”
Who were, to put it mildly, bastards. The Northern Clans’ leaders had nothing to recommend them, apart from misplaced pride.
“A grave error on my part,” he said, his chest vibrating against my back and warming me.
I sniffed. “The worst.”
“Stubbornness runs in your blood, suspicion in mine. The events of the past months haven’t helped quench those predispositions, I’m afraid.”
“That doesn’t make them right.”
“It definitely does not,” he said. “That doesn’t change the fact that both of our uncles have been plotting against us. Yours just managed to do it quicker.”
Yet I still had the Protectorate crown and Ryker had his throne.
“I don’t trust my family and I don’t trust yours.” He shrugged, as if it was the normal thing in the world. “I’m very keen to change my opinion on the matter, but people keep betraying us. We don’t know who let the attackers through the passage and–”
“Yet,” I pressed. “And it had to be someone from inside. So not our relatives.”
“No, unfortunately. It would have been easier to point the finger at mine, I already despise them. I can’t think of a single soul in Solkar’s Reach who would want to hurt it. Though someone did and will probably do it again. Until we find out…”
“Trust nobody.” I sighed, regaining feeling in my feet as Dax slowly descended toward the frozen lake. “Is that all?”
“Suspecting everyone around us seems already like enough.”
“No. I mean yes. I mean you–” I licked my lips. There I went, exposing myself even more. Admitting it might make it real. I would have rather crawled out of my skin than be vulnerable, but I forced myself to go on. “–you feel…far away.”
In reply, Ryker’s hand began sliding up my spine.
I welcomed the touch, but it didn’t dissipate the tension rolling off him in waves.
“We have some things to discuss,” he said at last, palm settling between my shoulder blades.
I let out a stuttered breath. “What things?”
“What I have to say is only for your ears, when you’re not distracted by your cousin flying,” he murmured. “I can feel you worrying. Once we’re alone, we’ll talk.”
My worry only grew, when I recognized the words.
I’d said something similar to him right before we left for the entrance of the crater, after our first night together.
We’d never gotten a chance for that discussion. Truthfully, I wasn’t in a rush to emotionally torment myself with that conversation, which would inevitably bring to light all of my worst fears, the ones which had shamed and guilted me into silence so far.
But I’d promised him an explanation. It seemed the time had come for it.
“That night,” I began. “Something odd happened, but–”
Another powerful gust of wind yanked Dax lower.
He was approaching the ground fast.
Too fast.
I took a step forward, as if I could catch him in my arms. Beside me, Ryker tensed as well.
Before our very eyes, Dax’s feet connected with the lake’s ice for the briefest moment, stirring the layer of snow which had settled over it. In a scatter of snowflakes, Dax was dragged back up into the air, before he descended once more.
This time, he glided on the ice at a speed which bent the wings back. But the sky didn’t pull him back up again.
Ryker and I both relaxed as Dax’s figure hunched in the center of the lake.
Safe.
Probably freezing, but safe.
Dax raised his arms in the air, wings stirring with the motion. His roar of success was so loud, it fought the wind itself to reach us.
But just as I sighed in relief, the ice split open with a screech and the darkness swallowed Dax.