Chapter Forty-Two
We rode east, toward Atlantia, under a sky that was a canvas of blues.
The men who’d traveled with Alastir were with us, even though the wolven hadn’t made the trip back to Spessa’s End.
They were missing a few, more than just the wolven Dante, but our group had tripled, if not more, in size.
We’d gained Jasper and several other wolven, who were returning to Atlantia.
Vonetta had remained back in Spessa’s End, but she had promised that she would see me soon as she planned to return for her mother’s birthday and the upcoming birth of her little brother or sister.
The barren, flatlands on either side of the heavily wooded area gave way to fields of tall reeds with tiny, white flowers.
Beckett ran beside us in his wolven form, seeming to pull from an endless reserve of energy I found enviable.
He would race ahead, disappearing among the wispy plants, only to pop up a few seconds later beside us once more.
He never strayed too far from our side—or rather from Casteel’s side.
I figured Beckett’s closeness had to do with his Prince’s presence, and I was glad I picked up no fear from him—from any of those who traveled with us.
But the group was quiet, even Casteel, and there were so many reasons for the silence. There wasn’t a single person here who hadn’t lost someone in the battle or at New Haven.
I couldn’t think of Elijah, of Magda and her unborn child, of any of them. I couldn’t think of who would now add the names to the walls underground.
But I knew Casteel did. I knew that was why he’d fallen silent several times the night before, and I figured it had very little to do with what we’d talked about. He missed Elijah. Mourned him and all the others, and I knew he believed he’d failed them.
My thoughts were heavy, and it wore me down.
The lack of sleep didn’t help. Nightmares of the night of the Craven attack found me once more, and even though Casteel had been there when I woke, gasping for air with a scream burning through my throat, the horrors of the night found me again as soon as I fell back asleep.
I wasn’t looking forward to tonight.
The sun was high above us when I realized the horizon I’d been staring at wasn’t where the clouds met the land.
I sat straighter, gripping the saddle as patches of dark green started to appear in the gray ahead.
This mist. It was the mist obscuring the mountains, so thick that for however many miles we’d traveled, I’d believed it to be the sky.
“You see it now?” Casteel asked. “The Skotos?”
Heart stammering, I nodded. “The mist is so thick. If it’s like this during the day, how much worse is it at night?”
“It’ll thin out a bit once we get into the foothills.” Casteel’s arm remained secure around me as I stretched forward. “But at night—well, the mist is all around you.”
I shivered as more of the mountains began to peek through the mist. A rocky cropping here, a cluster of trees there. “How did the armies get through the mist then?” I looked at Kieran. “How did you get here so quickly.”
“The gods allowed it,” he replied, and my brows rose. “The mist did not come for us. It thinned out at night, enough for us to continue forward.”
I sat back against Casteel, hoping the gods would allow us the same.
Casteel burst the bubble of hope the next second. “The mist is never as bad leaving Atlantia as it is entering.”
“Great,” I murmured.
“We’re lucky that the Skotos Mountains are nowhere near as large as the range beyond,” Naill said from where he rode on Jasper’s other side.
“There are larger ones?” The Skotos Mountains were the largest in Solis, that I knew of anyway.
The Atlantian nodded. “It takes less than a day to cross where we’re passing through.
However, some peaks would take days.” He shifted on his saddle.
“But there are mountains in Atlantia that stretch so high into the sky, you see nothing else. Peaks so high that it would take weeks just to reach the top. And once there, even an Atlantian would find it difficult to breathe.”
Tendrils of mist began to creep between the bushy reeds, forming little clouds above them.
Beckett dashed ahead, and within a heartbeat, was swallowed up by the mist. I sucked in a sharp breath, straining forward as I reached for my dagger—
“He’s okay.” Casteel’s hand closed over mine. He squeezed gently. “See? There he is.”
My heart didn’t slow as the dark, furry head appeared above the mist, tongue lolling as he panted with excitement. “Are you sure there’re no Craven here?”
Riding slightly ahead, Emil said, “There hasn’t been a Craven this far east since the war.”
I still remained alert as we neared a blanket of mist where only shadows of shapes existed behind it.
Muscles tensed as every instinct in me wanted to grab the reins and pull Setti to a stop.
We couldn’t possibly pass through this. Who knew what waited on the other side?
And what if they were wrong about the Craven?
Goosebumps broke out across my skin as Jasper and Emil disappeared through the wall of mist. A shout built in my throat, lodging there when Delano vanished into the thick, grayish-white haze.
I started to press back against Casteel—
He slowed Setti. “The first time I saw the wall of mist from the other side, I refused to pass through. It wasn’t because of the Craven.
I hadn’t learned yet that they travel in the mist. It was that I feared we’d reached the very end of the kingdom, and that there was nothing beyond it,” Casteel told me, his arm a band of steel around me.
“I know that sounds silly, but I was young, less than a year from the Culling, and Kieran also feared passing through it.”
I looked to our right, where Kieran kept pace with us. After everything I’d learned, I still found it hard to picture either of them afraid of anything.
“It was Malik who went through first,” Casteel continued, dragging his hand around my waist in a slow, comforting circle.
I looked down, my gaze snagging on the golden band he wore.
“For a moment, I thought that was the last I saw of my brother, but then he came back. Told us there was nothing but weeds and sky on the other side.”
“That wasn’t what he told us at first,” Kieran chimed in. “Malik claimed there were giants with three heads on the other side.”
“He said what?”
Casteel laughed. “Yeah, he did. We believed him until he started laughing. Bastard doubled over with it.” There was a fondness in his tone, and it was so rare to hear him speak of his brother without sadness and anger. “It will only take a few seconds to pass through. I promise.”
As Naill entered the mist, I nodded jerkily. “If there are three-headed giants on the other side, I’m going to be very angry with both of you.”
“If there are three-headed giants awaiting us, your anger will be the least of my concerns,” Casteel replied, tone light with amusement. “Ready?”
Not really, but I said, “Yes.”
Fighting the urge to close my eyes, I jerked as thin vapors stretched out from the rapidly approaching mass, a cool caress against my cheeks.
Setti made a soft whinny as the tendrils curled around his legs, and then the mist enveloped us.
I could see nothing. Nothing but the thick, choking, milky-white air. Panic bubbled up in me—
Casteel shifted behind me, pressing his lips to the space behind my ear as he whispered, “Think of all the things I could do to you.” The hand at my hip glided over my thigh, and then up it, moving with predatory grace toward my very center. “That no one would ever be able to see. Not even you.”
My breath snagged for a wholly different reason as his fingers danced over me. I tensed as muscles low in my stomach clenched in response and my head snapped to the side. I opened my mouth, but whatever I was about to say was forgotten when Casteel caught my lower lip between his teeth.
He slowly let go of my lip, but his mouth was still there, warm and solid against mine. “I have so many ideas.”
My heart stuttered as a wave of shivers exploded over me. I could imagine what some of his ideas involved, and for a brief moment, I wasn’t thinking about anything . A breathy sound left me, lost to the mist—
“You can open your eyes now,” he murmured against my lips.
I hadn’t even realized I’d closed them until he spoke, but now I knew why he’d done and said what he did. He’d sought to distract me, and it had worked, bringing a quick end to the rising panic.
“Thank you,” I whispered, and his hand, which had made its way back to my hip, squeezed. I opened my eyes as he straightened behind me to see…
To see that the mist had thinned out to wispy coils around moss-shrouded rocks and the legs of the waiting horses.
I blinked as I saw Beckett sitting before us, his tail swaying along the ground, stirring the mist as he craned his head back, looking up.
I followed his gaze, lips parting on a sharp inhale as I saw what he looked upon.
Gold.
Glittering, luminous gold leaves soaked in the rays of sunlight that penetrated the mist.
“Beautiful, aren’t they?” Delano asked, looking up.
“Yes.” Awed, my gaze crept over the golden trees. “I’ve never seen anything like them.” Even when the leaves changed colors in Masadonia with the weather, the yellows were muted and muddied. These leaves were pure, spun gold. “What kind of trees are they?”
“Trees of Aios,” Casteel answered, referring to the Goddess of Love, Fertility, and Beauty. I couldn’t think of a better namesake. “They grew in the foothills and throughout the Skotos range after she went to sleep here, deep underground.”
I glanced back at Casteel. “She sleeps here?”
His eyes, which were only a shade darker than the leaves, met mine. “She does.”