Chapter 23
Allie
My hair whipped around my face as the first sunrays speared the night sky, hunting down the stars one by one.
Only one remained behind, still and stubborn.
The northern star I’d thought had guided me the night I’d escaped Solkar’s Reach. When I got attacked.
I should have known better than to trust it.
My gaze travelled all along the crater’s rim, jagged and terrifying even in the hazy darkness.
I stood on the narrow ridge on the fortress’ roof, like on that first day here, when I’d been so close to turning feral. Now I was fully clothed, had the thickest boots on, yet my heart still constricted at the sheer vastness of this crater.
This massive, frightening, relentless crater with a pulsing Heart and magical lights that had almost drowned Ryker and Dax.
Which didn’t murmur anymore.
Only the harsh wind hissed, merciless as always.
Shivers raced down my spine, but I ignored them.
It was impossible not to feel like a fleck in the immensity of Solkar’s Reach. Another being it would watch struggle and die, as all mortals who had traipsed across its frozen lands.
Yet the ice on the crater walls didn’t glow as harshly.
Even the snowflakes whirling around me seemed smaller.
“What’s hurting you?” I whispered, hoping the wind would carry my plea wherever it needed to land. My throat tightened. “Who?”
I got no reply.
I hadn’t really expected one, but I sighed all the same.
My eyes scanned the edge again, as the sun rose in the same position as yesterday.
No glimmer.
No glint.
No pulse.
If it had been a message instead of a mirage, it had already been delivered.
My only hope was that whoever was supposed to receive it had missed the glare.
Each day began to feel like an invisible noose was tightening around us, and nobody could find the knot to untangle it and save us all.
At least today would be joyous.
Evie would become Blood Brotherhood queen and she was happy for it.
The well of power inside of me stirred, lips moving of their own accord, “Winds above and winds below, guard and guide her wherever she’ll go.”
I exhaled the incantation, wrists flaring blue. The wind snatched my billowing breaths away as my chest burned.
I swayed on the ridge. Even after two decades of this existence, I still underestimated the toll protection spells took on me.
But if it would help Evie, even in the smallest way, it was worth it.
With a strange restlessness drumming through me, I turned.
The second I saw him in the tower’s rickety threshold, I startled so hard, my boot slipped on the icy surface.
Ryker lunged forward and grabbed my waist, steadying me before I got a chance to recover–or plummet to the ground.
Adrenaline pushed the air out of my chest as he slowly helped me back to my feet, his hand hot and reassuring on the small of my back. I stared back at him, caught in that strange, tense impasse we’d been dancing in.
It seemed he was caught in that same state, because he didn’t say anything, either. We just stood there, ensnared, lips parting with unspoken words.
Something flickered between us. Too risky to reject, too hard to accept.
Our faces leaned closer the longer we stared at each other, breaths melding.
I knew I should thank him or shove him away. Something.
But, like a coward, my eyes strayed from his, down to his crimson clothes. Gone were the leather uniform and pelts, replaced with an oxenblood ceremonial robe that ended in a cape billowing in the wind.
My lips tightened as I took him in.
Red suited him too well.
Made him look like he’d been born for power, unwavering.
Then my gaze caught on the leather baldric strapped to his chest. No longer empty, it was filled with the daggers he’d hid from me, all with the same purple jewel in the hilt.
My entire body tensed until it hurt to breathe.
I shook my back and his hand off me.
“You scared me,” I mumbled instead of a thank you.
He only nodded, arm falling to his side, as I sidestepped him and marched back to the creaking door.
“You could have scanned the rim from the safety of the tower,” he said, following me inside.
Not if I wanted my incantation to catch, no. “It seems I like living on the edge.”
Easier than admitting I actually cared about this frozen land. I rushed down the steps and put a safe distance between us before I looked back at him. “Did you see anything?”
He shook his head. “Maybe you were right. It was only a strange glimmer.”
We both heard the lie.
I should have hurried back down and not stopped until I reached my room. But I didn’t move.
He didn’t either.
“I have something for you,” he said after a few beats of silence.
From whatever secret pocket sewn in the back of his robe–always prepared, this one–he took out a small, dark leather journal which looked like it had been forgotten on a shelf since the last dynasty, and handed it to me.
I didn’t need to open it to know what it was.
A palaver portal. Of course. This is how Dax and I would watch Evie’s wedding, removed, from a distance, like we didn’t belong there.
He would stand in the Capital in his robes and weapons, while we’d been relegated to the outskirts of Clan life.
I gripped the journal tighter to keep from saying something I could never take back.
“Keep her safe,” I said.
His eyes sparked. “She will be safe.”
That only made me worry more.