Chapter 29
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
THE COMMANDER
T he sun had teeth this morning.
It bit into my forehead and the back of my neck with a vengeance despite the chill, as if Solkar himself was trying to punish me for leaving his Reach and coming here .
The place I’d sworn I’d never step foot in again.
A sickly mist clung to the rocks flanking the passage into the mountains, as if warning us away.
Nothing other than corpse moss–grey, stringy, like a ghost’s hand reaching out from the beyond–had dared grow around these forsaken parts ever since I’d first been forced to come here as a youngling heir, to learn the art of negotiation.
Now, I would pass on that burdening skill.
“This wasn’t what I imagined the Sky Summit would be like,” Geryll whispered as we ascended the stone stairs which had seen so many pass over them, their middles had sunken in throughout the eons.
“We’re not there yet.” I kept my voice low, the same way I’d instructed everyone to. I knew how the world around here latched onto the barest sign of life. “So enjoy the trek while it lasts.”
“This is supposed to be enjoyable?” Nadya muttered, sounding more apprehensive than I’d ever heard her since she’d begun talking. She kept a steady hand on Francisca’s handle, distrusting eyes narrowed at the mist coming up to our waists as if she wanted to fight it.
It wasn’t hard to know why Nadya and The Huntress had taken a begrudging liking to each other.
“Better than what’s up ahead.” I stared as the clouds began to darken and swirl right before us, an icy vortex of doom and gloom that heralded only one thing.
The Northern Clans were gathering for parley, as our ancestors had done so many eons before their ships had reached this forgotten part of Malhaven after they’d tormented the seas for generations.
The Brinewall Clan still controlled the icy shore, their ships sinking whoever was foolish enough to breach the spiky wall they’d erected in the ocean, around which now lay a cemetery of vessels.
The Dustmarks had taken the green plains, ripped them apart with their greed and skirmishes, and now survived on violence, bitterness, and tales of the good ol’ days.
The Ashrifts, which preferred to still be called the Mountain Clan, though…
they were crafty. They’d climbed the tallest peak they’d seen, which had looked grey, jagged, and barren.
But underneath those unforgiving cliffs which had claimed so many of their first ancestors lay treasures which had granted them supreme power in the region.
Then there was my former Clan. The Starhollows.
Those unwilling or unworthy to fight for the barest resources had ventured further inland in search of their fortune.
And they’d found it inside the crater, which had already been claimed by a small group of outcasts fleeing from the rupture of the old kingdoms. How they’d gotten along peacefully and thrived had been lost to the ages, as were many other secrets from Solkar’s Reach.
But here we were now, going to face our so-called relatives.
Behind Nadya, Gerryl, and I was a garrison of my best men, led by Vylkor, a man who’d somehow managed to grow taller than me and had a gaze mean enough to intimidate the burliest of them.
Not even the mist dared to follow up to the top of the stairs, retreating just at the stony rim supporting the cavernous entry toward the Sky Summit, an arch carved out of dragon bones from the massive creatures which had once roamed these lands. It held only darkness within it.
Geryll looked up as the vortex of clouds picked up pace and lowered. “Are we–are we sure a storm isn’t coming?”
One was, but very few needed to know.
“Clouds,” Nadya kept repeating, her jaw locked in a tight grip. “Just clouds.”
Clouds which had been magicked to hide the words spoken underneath them.
I turned to Vylkor, whose frown had intensified. “If I don’t return in one hour, march back to Solkar’s Reach and kill anyone who dares enter.”
Geryll and Nadya’s frightened gazes snapped to me.
“Your word is our command,” he said and pressed his closed fist above his heart. Metal clanks surrounded us as all the other warriors followed suit.
“We might die?” Nadya whisper-hissed.
“Not you.” The Northern Clans couldn’t be trusted, but I needed them to know how to command Sky Summit if anything ever happened to me. With no heirs and the marriage contract not yet signed, the two of them were the closest to the Solkar’s Reach throne.
They needed to know.
“Today, you only watch and listen,” I said, for their ears alone. “Pay attention to each leader, the cadence of their words, what they wear, when they interject and who they dare talk over. Xamor, even the direction they point their toes in.”
They nodded, twin looks of apprehensive determination on their faces.
“You stick to the edge of the circle, near the exit,” I went on, gaze not letting them go. “At the first hint of trouble or once the full hour passes, whichever might come first, you run back to Vylkor. And don’t stop running until you reach the fortress. Is that clear?”
They nodded, Geryll with another gulp, Nadya tilting her chin up. Perhaps she’d been spending too much time around The Huntress.
“One more thing,” I said as I steeled my spine and turned. “Whatever you hear today stays between us.”
“Obviously.” Nadya grimaced. “But try telling Mrs. Thornbrew nothing.”
Honestly, I was more concerned about The Huntress asking too many questions. It was hard to refuse those green eyes. “Leave Mrs. Thornbrew to me. And pay attention.”
I faced the entrance with all the courage which had been trained into me. Even now, after all the battles and enemies I’d faced, more than twenty years since I’d walked through it, a spike of fear still slashed through me.
I remember clinging to my mother’s soft hand while trying to keep my face as stoic as any five-year-old could. The journey had tired me, the clouds had unnerved me, but nothing– absolutely nothing–had compared with the creature which had slid forward from the arch.
That same rattle of bones beat against me now, clinking from the darkness and coming closer.
“Do not react,” I said as the rattle drew nearer. “He will not harm you.”
As long as I was alive, nothing would.
From the darkness, a bony hand rose, wisps of shadows curling around it. But that wasn’t the worst part.
Chimes made out of bones had been sewn onto his dark robe, each note a whisper of the dead, announcing his arrival.
Us mortals only knew him as the Warden of the Silence.
His other hand breached the shadows, grasping the arch as if trying to crawl out of the underworld. His long nails scratched the bone, leaving behind red marks that vanished as soon as they appeared, as he emerged in all his upsetting might.
“Are those children bones?” Geryll whispered, horrified.
In front of the Warden, I still felt like that five year-old youngling not understanding what monster he was facing.
Only the gods knew where this creature had come from or if he’d ever been human. He stood over seven feet tall, face hidden behind a bone mask with dark slits for eyes.
“Mortals,” he greeted us with that voice that hissed and sang at the same time, an eternity hidden within its depths. It made my skin crawl. “No. Children are innocent. My bones belong only to those who have wronged, now forced to sit with me in the shadows for eternity.”
Geryll yelped, but said nothing more.
“No weapons,” the Warden commanded.
My baldric had been empty since the day I’d returned home after Sanctua Sirena and would stay the same until Calyx uncovered the dagger’s secrets.
Plus, I didn’t need one with the gifts my mother’s blood had allowed me to claim.
Geryll dropped his shield and daggers, the metal clinking horribly in the eerie silence.
Nadya parted with Francisca much slower, not taking her narrowed eyes off the Guardian as she placed it gingerly on the ground.
“You may pass,” the Warden said.
“One request before we do.” I forced my legs to step toward the creature which had haunted too many of my nightmares. “If anything happens in the Sky Summit, you will allow the two of them to leave without incident.”
The Warden tilted his humongous head. Nothing but voids for eyes, but I felt his stare sinking into me and latching onto parts of me nobody should have seen.
“Every mercy carries a sacrifice.”
Of course it did–and I knew what sacrifice this creature wanted.
I raised my hand and opened my palm, fighting the instinct to fist it and fight. Violence was rarely the answer and the Warden hadn’t done anything to me.
Yet.
His head bowed toward my palm. Putrid air emanated from behind his mask, skimming across my skin as he sniffed me. I wanted to recoil so badly, but held still.
The Warden hummed low in his throat–if he even had one hidden underneath those robes–and drew one long, painful line with his nail across my palm. I grit my teeth and tensed my stomach.
Blood flowed instantly to the surface. I fisted my hand and let the drops flow into the Warden’s cupped hands. With each drop, he vibrated with hunger.
Once his fingers had been coated and I felt more lightheaded, he whirled around and hunched over, guzzling my blood.
The few drops that escaped his beastly hunger dripped onto the bone chimes. For a moment, their song sounded mournful.
Geryll made a retching sound. I couldn’t afford the luxury of weakness, though my own insides wanted to spill so badly, right onto these sacred stones.
“Sweet.” The Warden hissed in reverie. “Old.”
He licked his palms with sickening slurps. Nadya and Geryll drew closer to me.
My power surged through my veins, stitching the wound quickly. But the revulsion and nausea remained, coiling low in my stomach.
The creature arched his back, mask to the sky, and howled. An awful, bone-crushing sound that shook the ground. The mist was right for not drawing closer.
“Very well, son of Mireya,” the Warden rumbled and turned. “The outsiders shall be spared if needed. You can enter.”
I placed one hand on each of their shoulders, warm and encouraging. Because I godsdamn well knew I didn’t want to draw closer to the creature, so Nadya and Geryll must have been petrified.
“Does he want our blood, too?” Nadya asked, worried.
“You will not be harmed. Let’s go.”
I gently pushed them forward, keeping my chest and arms wide, so they’d feel more covered and protected alongside me.
I was afraid, but nobody–especially the two of them–could see that.
“No, daughter of despair, I have no need for your blood,” The Warden said as we passed him. Geryll began to tremble and even Nadya flinched underneath my steady hand.
We quickened our steps, putting as much distance between us and the creature as possible.
I half wanted the Northern Clans to start a brawl so I wouldn’t have to walk past him again.
But just as we passed through the arch and the darkness engulfed us, the Warden’s voice hunted me down. “Careful, son of Mireya. The trap is about to snap shut.”