Chapter 14 #3
“We need sustenance,” Sorsha told her. “I’m taking Lyra up to the cliffs for a picnic rather than subjecting her to a hall full of soldiers who haven’t laid eyes on another female in far too long.”
The cook gave a knowing cackle and started piling food into a seagrass basket: salted meat, hard cheeses, dried fruit, and a flask of what looked like wine. Each item she rolled in a scrap of clean linen and packed with the sort of motherly care that made my throat burn with emotion.
“That should hold you over,” said the female once she’d finished.
“Thank you, Marge.”
“Anytime, Highness.”
Sliding the basket over her arm, the princess led me out of the kitchens and through an enormous set of arched doors into the bailey of the fortress. The relentless drizzle had finally abated, but the wind carried a cold bite, and a new swirl of angry black clouds was gathering in the distance.
“Does the sun ever come out here?” I grumbled as we exited the front gates and started up a rocky incline that overlooked the thrashing sea.
“Not really.” Sorsha laughed. “You get used to it. Kaden’s old enough to remember this place before it was . . . well, before the Ravaging. Apparently, it was a lush green island with more berries than you could eat in the warmer months and more game than you could hunt in the winter.”
“And the Ravaging changed all that?”
Sorsha nodded, her expression tight as we reached the top of the cliffs. The gravelly soil was mostly barren, except for a few creeping plants that grew between the rocks.
“Hardly anything grows here now. Most of what we eat has to be brought in by ship. Apart from the fish, of course.” She groaned, apparently lost in thought, and a look of intense longing swept across her face.
“I’d give my left tit for some fresh berries or a ripe green apple.
Everything here is either pickled, dried, or half rotten by the time it arrives. ”
“How long have you been here?”
“Since the Uprising.”
My stomach lurched. If my newfound knowledge of fae history was correct, that had been almost two hundred years ago.
I couldn't imagine being sequestered on this island for two centuries — never feeling the warm sun on my face or eating anything that hadn’t been brought in on a ship.
“It’s getting worse,” Sorsha murmured, staring out over the cliffside at the angry sea below.
“My magic grows weaker with each passing year. Without souls to replenish the land, all of us will see our power diminish until there’s nothing left.
That’s why nothing ever grows here anymore. The land itself is dying.”
I shuddered. “Have you ever thought of leaving?”
“Every day,” she said with a sad smile. “Alfrigg’s men would hunt me to the far reaches of our world. One day, perhaps I won’t care. But for now, I rather like living.”
“Surely there’s somewhere you could go.”
“Perhaps. I don’t think I’d mind gambling with my life if it weren’t for Kaden.”
“What does he have to do with it?” The demon prince might have been her brother, but that didn’t seem like a good enough reason for the princess to remain exiled on this godsforsaken island.
“I think I’m the only reason he didn’t end it centuries ago,” Sorsha murmured.
“I think if it weren’t for me, he would’ve fought Semphrys, consequences be damned.
But his father has always had this — had me — to hold over his head.
To force Kaden to do his bidding.” She shook her head.
“Maybe I should’ve left. Then, at least, Semphrys wouldn't know where to find me.”
My stomach clenched.
Suddenly, it made sense. Why Kaden continued to follow Semphrys’s orders after all these years. Why he fulfilled his dark role as the Taker of Souls despite seeing the effect it had on his homeland.
All this time, I’d chalked it up to cowardice or ill intent, but he’d done it all for her.
“I told you,” said the princess. “Kaden always has his reasons.”
Looking over, I saw Sorsha staring at me as though she knew what I’d been thinking.
“Yes,” I agreed. “I’m beginning to see that.”
After our afternoon training session, Sorsha breezed off to go find Kaden, leaving me to wash in peace.
The bathing chamber attached to her suite was even more luxurious than the one I’d used in Adraeis, with an enormous stone tub centered along a wall of windows that overlooked the raging sea.
Thunder cracked loudly overhead, and angry-looking waves surged over the rocks below. A heavy, thrashing rain beat against the fortress, but thanks to the enchantments at Cragsmuir, the bathing chamber remained warm and dry.
I groaned with pleasure as I sank into the bath, the heat of the water chasing away the lingering soreness from training. Normally, I would have relished having a few moments to myself, but I couldn’t stop thinking about my conversation with Sorsha.
All this time, I’d painted Kaden as the duplicitous villain — the demon prince who’d slithered into my life and gained my trust, only to rip off the gorgeous mask he wore and reveal the monster beneath.
The idea that Kaden had fulfilled his dark purpose to protect his sister did not fit with the image of the monster who’d killed my mother and taken me prisoner.
But was Kaden the prince who’d put me on my knees in the demon court and rifled through my memories, or was he the male who’d saved my life and fought by my side in the in-between?
I thought back to the rage I’d felt in his memory as he’d watched me die in Silas’s basement. I thought of the lust that pervaded my memory of our tryst at the House of Guile.
Was any of it real?
All this time, I’d assumed Kaden had only been using me. But maybe our time together had affected the demon prince more than I’d realized.
After a while, I grew tired of my own thoughts and climbed out of the tub. I dried myself with a soft linen towel that smelled like the sea and slipped into the attached bedchamber to dress.
Sorsha had left me some of her own clothes to change into: a pair of midnight blue pants that were cuffed at the ankles and a matching top. The shirt bared a huge panel of skin at my midriff, but it was comfortable enough.
Leaving my hair loose to dry, I padded out into the main room and was just about to raid our basket for any remaining biscuits when the sound of low, angry voices made me pause .
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” hissed Kaden.
“I think I know more than you realize.” It was Sorsha.
A tingle of nervous energy rolled through me as I stood there, frozen. Instinctively, I knew they wouldn’t want me overhearing this, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave.
“When are you going to tell her the truth?” Sorsha demanded.
“The truth would make no difference.”
Kaden’s voice was low and deadly, but the princess didn’t back down.
“That should be for Lyra to —”
“Enough!” Kaden snarled. “You’ve seen the way she looks at me. Do you think anything I tell her is going to change that?”
“I have seen the way she looks at you, brother, and I think you should let her decide if it changes anything for her or not.”
“Anvalyn is what matters.”
I could practically hear Sorsha throw up her hands in exasperation. “Anvalyn at any cost. Yes, I’m aware. But have you considered that the price may be too high this time?”
“I’m not discussing this with you,” Kaden growled, his voice growing fainter, as if he’d stalked into the dining room.
“Of course not. You prefer to keep those around you in the dark so when they finally get fed up with your bullshit, you can blame everyone but yourself.”
Moving in silence, I backed into Sorsha’s bedchamber and snicked the door shut.
Anger and frustration gnawed at my insides.
After all we’d been through, Kaden was still hiding things. And for what? If he truly wanted my help to defeat his father, I needed to know everything.
What was worse, Sorsha knew whatever it was he wasn’t telling me.
That hurt more than the prince’s deception. Though I’d only known Kaden’s sister a day, I felt as though we could be friends. Real friends.
But not if she was going to keep things from me the way her brother did. Not if they planned to send me to my death without all the facts.