Chapter 6 #2
He was the only one who turned me onto my back and told me to close my eyes.
All the others had hurt me from behind, shoving my face into the flower beds that were soaked with my blood. But Saer Davrin had turned me over, spoke softly to me, his hands gentle as they ruined me.
It was more unbearable than the others’ cruelty.
“Vasten. The captain’s son. Dead.”
The one who came back again and again. My own kin. He was finally gone.
“The One In Black,” I said next.
I never saw his face, or heard his voice. But I felt his knife carving into my back under Gravyn’s command. A final cruelty before Gravyn took over.
“And Gravyn,” I finished. "The Moonstone captain."
The worst one of them all. The one who made sure no one ever knew what they did but that I never forgot it. I couldn’t. He’d carved their sins into my back.
I looked away from Verince’s corpse and down at my hands, slick with blood. Two of them were dead now. They would never touch me again. Or anyone, for that matter. But as the darkness drained out of me, nausea crept in.
I had helped to kill someone.
In my heart, I knew he deserved it. They all did. But that didn’t stop the tremble in my hands. What frightened me more was the flutter in my stomach at the thought of killing the rest of them.
I felt… alive, in a way I knew was wrong.
Several of the king’s warriors had gathered around us—just as bloodied and battle-worn as he was.
Emerias stood among them, bruised but grinning when our eyes met.
He stepped forward with the king’s cloak black fur cloak.
As he draped it across his shoulders, the fabric caught the light like onyx poured from the sky.
The king nodded and then shook his hand. It didn’t feel like a ruler greeting his soldier. More like two brothers greeting blood.
I still didn’t understand. Why had the Moonstone King risked so much just to kill me? Gravyn had always hunted me, but King Ultherion? What was I to him?
The warriors fell silent as their king touched the tree’s roots. He closed his eyes and whispered something I couldn’t understand. A white light bloomed from his palm and sank into the blackened roots. It spread upward like water, healing as it rose.
When the final blossom unfurled, the warriors erupted into cheer.
In all the years the Justice Tree had served as a public whipping post, it had never once blossomed. It was incredible to see even though I’d hated the tree.
The Bloodstone King stepped back. A smile played at his mouth as he looked up at the flowering branches. Even the welts carved into the trunk were gone. The tree hadn't just been healed. It had been reborn.
For some reason, my throat tightened and my eyes burned.
The king’s focus fell back on me then, trailing over me.
What was left of me. His eyes narrowed at my ruined dress, at all the bruises and the blood on me.
Without a word, he unfastened his black cloak and draped it over my shoulders.
The weight of it nearly made me stumble, but it was so warm.
So… safe. And it smelled just like him— iron and smoke and the echo of something wild, like rain falling over scorched trees.
He didn’t speak to me. He just slid his thumb and forefinger into his mouth and called something.
The sound of his whistle echoed through the trees where something stirred in the shadows.
A great war-beast emerged slowly from the mist between the trees, its coat shimmering like liquid obsidian threaded with starlight.
Sparks flared beneath its hooves with every step, and Bloodstone runes pulsed down its chest, burning silver as bright as its eyes.
Its red, shadowy mane flicked around it as though caught under water.
Looking at it made me think of the old stories.
The tales of the fallen Sun Sister and the Oldest Moon Brother who fell in love and defied the will of their kin to create the Bloodstone kingdom. Something about the beast felt like a relic of their bond, like it had just crawled out from their grave.
“Shadowmane,” the king said, nodding to the creature who lowered its head for him to touch. He pressed his palm to its forehead like he’d done it a thousand times before. “The last of the Nothyr.”
I knew little of the Nothyr, who were said to be living echoes of the Bloodstone Gods, able to slip between realms through the shadows themselves.
In one smooth movement, the Bloodstone King lifted me up onto the Nothyr’s saddle. I glanced around, half-expecting to see the black carriage waiting among his men, but it wasn’t there. And the look on the king's face told me I’d be riding with him with or without my approval.
He swung up effortlessly behind me. The saddle gleamed with crimson runes. My satchel was attached to the side. The king brushed his hand along the beast’s neck. His other hand slid around my waist. I wanted to pull away from him, to protest, but he did just save my life. Twice now.
“Take us home,” he said, and the beast moved forward.
Home…
The word struck something inside me. All the grief I’d held back since the courtyard threatened to tear through my chest. My father’s face as the Lùnraith pinned him, my sisters’ cries from beneath the trap door, the silence that followed.
I wanted to turn back. I wanted to tear through the wreckage until I found them.
But I couldn’t. I swallowed, forcing the words past the lump in my throat.
“My family. Are they safe?”
He pulled me against him, his chest hard and powerful behind me.
“Yes.” Something in the way he said it made me want to believe him. Then, louder to his warriors: “To the Bridge. May the road rise in our favor and our enemies bleed upon it!”
The warriors mounted eagerly and followed him down the road.
It suddenly struck me that I knew the name of the king's horse but not the king himself. My supposed fated mate.
“I don’t even know your name,” I breathed, as we passed through the empty village.
The streets were silent, but I felt the eyes lurking behind every shuttered window.
Fear hung thick in the air like blood that refused to be washed.
They had reason to be afraid. Something warned me that the Bloodstone King would have no issue annihilating them too if provoked.
He leaned closer, his breath a whisper against my ear. “Daigen.”
The name echoed in my mind. Die-gen. Of course it would hold death.
He was the Bloodstone King, after all. The most feared ruler in the realm.
And from what I’d seen so far, the rumours hadn’t lied.
We turned down the path to the farm I once called home. My chest squeezed tight as I scanned the front porch. All the lights were out except from a single candle at the kitchen window. They were so close and so yet utterly out of my reach.
Tears welled in my eyes. I never even got to say goodbye to them all. Never got to tell Blayren how much I loved him, or how grateful I’d always be for what he did for me.
Daigen leaned closer, his breath touching my ear.
“Your father lives,” he said quietly. “He was wounded, but my men bound his injuries and moved him and your sisters to one of the safe houses beyond the hills. They’re being watched over.”
The words brought me relief, not enough to ease the ache behind my ribs, but enough to help me breathe again. Yet it hurt to look at my home. I knew in my heart I would never survive what would come next if I didn’t start looking forward.
The past needed to stay in the past until I could find my way back to it.
I fixed my eyes on the road and focused on the Nothyr’s iron hooves striking sparks from the ground as it carried me beyond the village gates, to a life I never chose. The gods had drawn their line, but for once, I was ready to bleed over it.