Chapter 30
Allie
“The stones.” Ryker heaved the wooden crate onto my doorstep with a grunt. The damn thing must have been heavy, because it thumped onto the floor with a thick thud, the wood creaking under the strain. The joints trembled, on the brink of splintering and flooding the hallway.
But the box held true–like everything else Dara did.
“Thanks,” I said.
I barely moved my lips and didn’t look his way.
He cleared his throat and lingered.
The same dance we’d been wrapped up in for the past weeks whenever we crossed paths. And we intersected way too often, like our bodies drifted together like magnets.
When Dax and I went to train behind the fortress, there was Ryker stomping along with his warriors, discussing war strategies.
I raced down to the kitchens to sneak some scones, Ryker was hurrying back from whatever crater business made him frown like he wanted to call a storm down upon us.
I went up to the roof at the crack of dawn to check for strange messages on the rim shards, he and Sylvester were already there, keeping watch.
Each time, we played the same game–this one uncomfortable, clumsy, and unfinished. My heart raced as I caught a glimpse of him, averted my gaze, and mumbled, “Hello” if anyone else was within listening distance.
A traitor traipsed among us, they didn’t need to know the Commander and Huntress weren’t speaking to each other.
Or I wasn’t speaking to him. Because he always tensed, worked his jaw, and approached me with the same muttered, almost pleading reply.
“We need to talk,” he’d say, only for me to hear.
I always said, “Later”, and hurried away.
Then later never came.
Ryker didn’t press, allowing me time I didn't know what to do with. I had no clue when later would end, but it wasn’t today.
“We need to talk,” he said once more as I kept staring at the crate.
As always, his voice slid into my mind, pulling me toward him. The current was so strong, I locked my knees. “Not now.”
Each time I felt close to caving in, I remembered Evie’s pain through the palaver, ignored the sweaty, burning dreams, and carried on as normal.
Only this didn’t feel normal. It felt like I was deceiving myself, too, disregarding the instinct to be closer to him.
Yet I did. Teeth gritted, palms fisted, gaze avoided.
“Right on time.” Dax appeared behind me, opening the door only a sliver more, and squinted Ryker’s way. “Boy, Allie wasn’t lying when she said you won’t like bringing in strange things into your crater. That vein on your forehead doesn’t look healthy.”
“Nothing stranger here than you.” Ryker’s cold gaze landed on him. “Any advantage for war.”
I stuttered a breath, and this one had nothing to do with avoiding Ryker.
War was coming, and the few Blood Brotherhood spies who’d survived talked of a sea of soldiers, larger than any of us could have anticipated.
I had no power over the Protectorate army–but I had powerful cousins.
Cousins who could carve secret protective runes into stones easy to hide in any environment. A grain of an advantage, but one nonetheless.
Dax’s eyes jumped between Ryker and I and sighed in the awkward stillness.
“I’m in no hurry for more inter-Clan relations after that sham of a wedding, but you two need to get it together before we leave for battle,” he grumbled and grabbed one side of the crate. “We’ll take it from here, Commander.”
“Yes, thank you,” I mumbled–then kicked myself, because I’d already said that, and I didn’t want him thinking this small gesture erased everything else that had happened.
“You’re welcome,” he muttered and I could feel his eyes burning against my forehead.
He waited a few more beats in the silence, and left with a weary sigh, strong steps drumming through me long after he’d vanished from view.
“Come on, Vegheara,” Dax said gently, nudging my shoulder. “We get this sorted and then you can mope around all you want.”
I curled my lip at him. “I do not mope.”
Not in front of witnesses, anyway.
He rolled his eyes as we settled on either side of the crate and moved it with great effort, bared teeth, curses, and a harsh scrape against the floor that scratched my mind in the worst way.
“Did he use magic to heave it up the stairs?” Dax groaned as he dragged and I pushed the crate into the room.
Never mind carrying it up the stairs, how had it gotten here halfway across the continent without breaking?
“His body is different,” was all I said. Dax had his secrets, Ryker had his, and the same principle stood.
Once we got it closer to the table, Dax righted himself, wiped the sweat off his brow and turned to the open palaver portal, where Dara, his twin sister, looked at us with an honestly dispassionate stare, even by her standards.
“You really didn’t skimp on the stones, did you?” he said.
She shrugged. “This is all I could get on such short notice.”
“There must be a riverbed worth of stones here.” I traced my fingers on the crate, but it remained stubbornly closed. No opening runes burned through the wood.
My chest constricted. The crown symbols had ignored me in the same way.
Was I–was I losing my powers? It would have been the final blow.
“You both need to open it,” Dara said. “Extra safety.”
My small relieved sigh melted with Dax’s reluctant one. I wondered if I’d ever live to see the day when he didn’t avoid his Protectorate powers like he did with so many other facts of his existence.
If we didn’t win this war, I wouldn’t.
Under our gliding fingers, the crate shook as blue symbols burned through the wood. Its top opened with a hiss, filling my room with the smell of sunny days running on the beach, salty waves, and a sweet, tangy scent I couldn’t identify.
Hundreds of perfectly round stones greeted us, all etched with the same precise symbol. Dara had carved and sealed, readying them to be enchanted.
“I’m just saying.” Dax rubbed his right shoulder, staring at the palaver portal. “Between the two of us, you were always the overzealous one.”
“Yes,” Dara said matter-of-factly, as she always did.
While their faces were almost mirrored, both carrying their father’s Vegheara jaw and their mother’s high cheekbones and bronze skin, Dax had always had a liveliness that Dara had refused.
She liked to let him be the center of attention so that people would leave her alone to study her runes–and Dax did not mind one bit.
“Where did you find so many pristine rocks?” I raised one to admire it in the light. Its grey exterior twinkled in the rays, but the rune inscribed in its center remained stubbornly dark and inert.
She shrugged, her grey eyes watching me closely. “Easy when you know where to look for them.”
“It’s easy for you and your delightful brother.” With their amazing abilities that we didn’t speak about.
“He’s getting on your nerves, isn’t he?” she asked.
“Hey!” Dax leaned closer to the palaver. “We shared the same womb, you’re supposed to be on my side.”
“You kicked me one too many times before we were born. Now I have to pay you back.”
I shook my head, smiling at them. Clara had spent most of her childhood in my parents’ care, but nothing could compare with the bond between the two of them–as creaky as it could be at times.
“Traitor from my own blood,” Dax grumbled, narrowing his eyes at the portal. “Where are you? I’m seeing mountains and no waves.”
“I left the island right after I sent the crate,” she said. “It got too sunny.”
“Too sunny?” He shook his head. “And you didn’t think to mention that?”
“I’m mentioning it now.”
“Dara.” He sighed. “Some lunatic is after all of us. I need to know where you are at all times.”
“I’m safe.” She shrugged. “Hidden. A bit hungry.”
Dax rolled his eyes. “Should’ve taken some of the cheese in the basement–”
“Ate it my first week there.”
“Then the jams–”
“Those too. Masked the burnt taste off the bread I baked.”
“That’s what happens when you don’t travel with supplies. Uncle Maksim always stressed how important that is.”
“No, that’s a direct result of me not learning how to cook,” she said simply. “He visited while I was there.”
“How is he?” I asked suddenly. He still hadn’t reached out to me–then again, the thought of sending even a carrier pigeon in Blood Brotherhood territory would have probably curdled Uncle Maksim’s blood.
“He pretended to like the bread.” The first hint of a smile pulled at her lips. “And made us a big salad.”
How perfectly normal. Like they weren’t in hiding because our Clan was crumbling.
“Left early about a week ago. Didn’t mention where he was off to,” she went on.
“Did you ask? You know, you could be tracking him as well,” Dax said. “He raised you, too.”
“Yeah, but you're his favorite,” she said without a hint of bitterness. Everything was fact for Dara and facts were only to be analyzed, not internalized, no matter how harsh.
He sighed and turned to me for support. “Can you believe this?”
“I am studying these stones and very much not getting involved in your twin bickering,” I said.
A lesson I’d heard the hard way. These two squabbled every other week for the most ridiculous things, and then came to me to vent.
Then they always made up the very next day, after wasting hours upon hours of my time and already shaky patience.
They just wanted someone to listen, and love them as I did, they needed to learn to listen to each other.
“These are really great, Dara.” I placed the stone back next to its siblings, which I had to enchant with my own spells to activate the runes. “Thanks for your help.”
“Sure, any time. Why are we helping the Blood Brotherhood again?”
“If you’d bother to talk to us more often, you’d be more in the loop.” Dax crossed his arms in front of him.
Dara rolled her eyes. Like sister, like brother. “I’m very much aware of the political and social implications of our unexpected truce with our former enemies, especially given all of our arranged marriages, but I struggle to understand it on a human level.”
“You don’t have to bring out the big words to make a point.”
She turned to me. “My brother keeps calling them Brotherhood bastards, so there is no love lost there and I doubt there will ever be.”
I kept quiet about Evie and the Dragon–and anyone else who might have sprung to mind, like the man who haunted my dreams.
“Is it simply a tactical decision or can we actually depend on them, is what I’m asking,” Dara said.
“In so, so, so many words,” Dax grumbled.
“Cut it out, you two,” I said. Whenever these two got together, they reverted back to being five, but with bigger egos. “It’s a mix of both. It makes tactical sense and we have to depend on them.”
That sounded logical enough. No emotions. Those had no place in a world with so much at risk.
Dara hummed. “Alright.”
“If you weren’t sure, why did you even bother with all of this?” Dax gestured at the stones.
“Because Allie asked me to,” she said. “And I trust her.”
He didn’t have a reply for that. He trusted me, too. Too much, perhaps.
For my part, I needed to be worthy of all the faith they placed in me–and I knew I couldn’t rise to their expectations. Not without the crown.
“If the runes are alright, I have to leave,” she said.
“Where?” Dax asked, and I heard the worry behind the annoyance.
“West, near the lakes.”
“Fine. And then?”
“We’ll see,” she said evenly, as if she was trying to give her brother the same forehead vein he’d spotted on Ryker.
“You let me know as soon as you arrive,” he said, already knowing he’d lost this battle.
They squabbled for a few more minutes about the proper way to hide while out on the road before they mercifully closed the palaver.
“She can be so impossible.” Dax groaned. “Can you believe her? Going off by herself without letting anyone know where she is?”
“Yes, that does get annoying, doesn’t it?” I said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You do the same thing,” I said. “You run off on your missions and leave us in the dark.”
“At least you know why I am gone.”
“Hardly.” I raised my brows at him. “And we know why Dara travels.”
“Because she hates standing still for even five minutes.”
“Because runes are her passion.” I stared at the crate. If placed just right, they could protect the entire Blood Brotherhood army camp. “A very, very powerful passion.”
“Not as powerful as something else we could use.” He gave me a pointed look, before shaking his head and busying himself with the mountains of pages we’d sifted through, only to find nothing important.
Again. “But these runes will have to do, I suppose. Best not tell your Commander where they come from.”
A tinge of anger burned at the edges of my vision. Everyone had secrets they wanted Ryker and I to keep, and we somehow ended up carrying the weight of them.
But I understood. Dax only wanted to protect his sister.
“Don’t worry, her secret’s safe with me.” Hopefully, this one wouldn’t lead to another fight. “He suspects you, though.”
Dax’s hand froze over the parchment he’d written this morning. “Does he know I’m–”
“No. No, no.” Dax’s skills might have slipped between the cracks of his mask, but nobody would ever suspect who he truly was. “But he knows you’re better than you want people to realize.”
“Did you tell him anything?”
“I didn’t have to. You’re too smart for your own good. Literally.” I bristled at the accusation. The deep breath I inhaled did nothing to abate it. “I’ve kept your secret all these years, don’t plan on changing that.”
Even though all of this concealing and hiding had torn whatever Ryker and I had managed to weave.
“Thank you,” Dax said so sincerely, it almost made the sacrifice worth it. I wondered if the precious Dragon showed the same appreciation to Ryker.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, but a tension lingered in the air.
I heard in the way Dax kept shuffling papers and huffing. Felt it in the way I grasped the stones.
“Here’s a wild idea,” he said, too casually. “We have to leave this crater to go to war.”
“Correct. By walking, not flying.” I gripped the rocks tighter. “And I am going to war. You can stay here or go to one of your hiding locations, but–”
“Sure. As if I’m going to leave you alone among the Blood Brotherhood.” He chuckled, but it lacked all of his warmth. “I haven’t found anything amiss so far. Solkar’s Reach functions on precision and superstition. No shadows to shed light on, as far as I can tell.”
“Keep looking.” I gulped, already sensing the storm brewing. “Those attackers didn’t invite themselves in.”
“No, they didn’t. But this shouldn’t be our problem.” He took a deep, determined breath. “What if we leave and don’t come back here?”