Chapter 12
Three days passed, and I saw very little of Gareth.
Whenever I felt the sting of guilt about my behavior in the training yard, I reminded myself that I had done us both a great favor. I kept thinking of Crellin—her lifeless eyes, the pool of blood beneath her head, the long nights I’d spent crying over a broken heart.
No, life in the Order was not suitable for romance. I had learned that the hard way, as had so many Roses before me.
Gareth Fontaine was my partner in war, nothing more. Someday he would realize what I’d done and thank me.
I was pulling on my boots, preparing for an evening patrol, when Danesh burst into my room wearing a dark gray tunic and brown trousers, her ash-blond hair pulled back into a sweaty bun. Clearly she had just returned from an afternoon patrol.
“The Warden wants us in her office immediately,” she said, her gray eyes alight with excitement. “Your fae friend brought us something useful for once.”
I let the dig at Posey slide and followed Danesh upstairs to the Warden’s office, where Gareth and two of his colleagues—Fiacra and Geddings—were already waiting.
Gareth glanced up at me as we entered. The weight of his gaze made me hot all over, but I resisted the urge to meet it and instead focused on Posey, who stood before the Warden’s desk in dusty travel clothes.
I hadn’t seen her since our confrontation in the stables, and I was glad she didn’t look at me now.
If she did, I might see in her eyes the same judgment I’d seen that day. I heard about the mission to Sablemire.
You’re not who I thought you were.
I pushed past the memory and looked beyond Posey to where one of my fellow squadron captains stood—Lorna, thirty years old, her brown skin riddled with scars, one eye missing. A sentinel like me. She gave me a brief nod, which I returned.
The Warden sat at her desk, hands folded atop it. “Speak, Lorna.”
“Per your orders, Posey accompanied us on our intelligence mission to the northeast territories.” Lorna paused, then glanced at Gareth and his colleagues.
“An Olden region with ore and precious gems, constantly fought over by fae clans, who want the treasure, and titans, who often disagree about land rights.”
Gareth nodded. “I’m familiar. The Emerald Fields, the Iron Mountains. Very near the westernmost border of fae country.”
Lorna raised an eyebrow, impressed. “We stayed for a few days in the village of Oriak, near Brightfell, and used that as a base for scouting and surveillance.” She glanced once more at Gareth.
“The geography of these lands is constantly changing, especially over the past few weeks. We have to keep our maps as current as possible.”
“Especially since the area is so rich in resources,” Gareth added.
“Which we trade for when we can.”
Geddings, one of the younger librarians on Gareth’s team, cleared his throat. “And steal when you can’t?”
Lorna blinked at him. “If necessary. Some of these substances are too dangerous to allow Oldens to claim.”
“Starstone, for example,” Gareth added. “If harvested and processed properly, it can be forged into weapons that absorb whatever magic is nearby. And the northeast territories are flush with it.”
Before I could think better of it, I chimed in to add, “And better for us to have control over such a resource than, say, fae sympathetic to Kilraith’s cause.”
Again I felt Gareth’s eyes on me. Again I stared stonily ahead, cursing myself for jumping in on the tail of his words like that, as if we were partners used to finishing each other’s sentences.
Danesh blew out a scornful breath. “Kilraith’s cause. The cause of human extermination, you mean.”
Posey didn’t take the bait, ignoring Danesh’s pointed glare.
“On a surveillance mission,” Lorna continued, “Posey met one of her contacts and obtained intelligence I believe is worth pursuing.”
Lorna looked to Posey, and she stepped forward.
Her long silver braids fell to her hips, and even though I had grown used to her presence, her beauty still sometimes struck me anew, as it did now.
She was so obviously not human—too beautiful for it, and too strange, with her green skin and pointed ears, her lissome grace.
“My contact is a young knight from the Cirrinoc clan,” she began.
“They are distant cousins of my own clan, the Frinthians. He said there have been whispers about a powerful object held in Cirrinoc. A great prize belonging to Lady Ifanna, Queen of the Veil, from a city where the only light is that of the moon.”
At once my eyes flew to Gareth, who had gone very still.
“Cirrinoc,” murmured Geddings. “Isn’t that the Court of Shadows?”
Posey nodded solemnly.
“A city with only moonlight,” Fiacra said. She glanced at Gareth. “Mhorghast, presumably.”
His face was closed, but I knew what to look for: the shadows of Mhorghast turning in his eyes.
I felt the dark touch of those memories myself.
Though I hadn’t been a prisoner in Kilraith’s moonlit city, I had played one of his sinister games.
I had stood with Nesset on the shores of the black lake—an illusion of Kilraith’s design conjured from my memories.
But it had been real enough. I’d heard his jeering voice as I’d endured trial after trial.
Just as they had in reality, each one had ended with Petra’s death.
No matter how hard I had tried to change her fate, Kilraith hadn’t allowed it.
Every choice I’d made had led me down the same road with the same bloody end.
Gareth, when he spoke, sounded admirably calm. “If Lady Ifanna has a relic of Mhorghast, it could very well be one of Kilraith’s anchors. Did your contact tell you anything else, Posey?”
She answered at once in a language that was obviously fae and too obscure for most of us to understand, which was certainly the point.
Danesh scowled, but before she could protest, Gareth spoke quietly.
“A bridge between nowhere and everywhere,” he translated. “An unlocked door that no one can open. A tree that never sleeps.”
Posey gave him a grudging nod. “So he told me. But I do not see the significance, and neither did he.”
“It sounds like nonsense to me,” Danesh remarked.
I looked to Gareth just as he looked at me. A thrill passed between us, lighting up his eyes.
“An unlocked door,” I said. “That could refer to the key anchor.”
“And a bridge between nowhere and everywhere,” he said. “Perhaps that’s Kilraith’s ability to travel between the worlds and work his magic in either realm?”
“And a tree that never sleeps?” Fiacra asked, wide-eyed.
“Perhaps that’s where the key is held,” I suggested.
“Or it’s something that guards the key,” Gareth said. “This is a start, at least.”
Geddings was scribbling furiously in his notebook. “I’ll instruct our research teams to cross-reference these phrases against our project archives.”
The Warden steepled her fingers at her lips. “So,” she murmured, as if to herself, “one of the anchors of Kilraith’s ytheliad curse is in the hands of the fae.”
“Perhaps,” Gareth cautioned. “This is simply a possible lead.”
“The most solid lead we’ve had in ages,” I added.
Danesh pushed off the wall she had been leaning on and straightened her tunic with a sharp tug. “Wonderful. Let’s go get it.”
Posey laughed. “Did you not hear the librarian? This is the Court of Shadows. You cannot simply go get anything that belongs to them, especially something this valuable.”
“And if Lady Ifanna does have the key,” I said, “or any valuable object from Mhorghast, she either stole it from Kilraith…”
“…or she is his ally,” Gareth finished.
Posey’s eyes flashed. The room rippled with a sudden heat, as if a gust of desert wind had swept over us.
With the Old Country so fresh on her skin and in her mind, she was forgetting to tamp down on her fae instincts, which was one of the conditions of her stay at Rosewarren.
I glanced at the Warden, ready to defend Posey’s lapse, but she seemed strangely calm, her gaze distant.
“My cousins would not ally with that creature,” Posey declared. “Other clans, yes. Weak ones, frightened ones. But the Cirrinoc-Frinthian bloodline would never agree to subservience.”
“You did,” the Warden pointed out quietly. “You serve us here at Rosewarren.”
Posey’s hands were in fists. “Because I do not wish to see Kilraith reign supreme over both our worlds. And I am not confident that such a thing won’t happen without considerable help, given your apparent inability to truly defeat him yourselves.”
“Say that again, Pointy Ears,” Danesh snapped, “and I’ll turn that green skin of yours black and blue.”
I raised a hand to ward off Danesh. “She has a point. We haven’t been able to defeat him, not permanently. But every anchor we dismantle further weakens his influence both here and in the Old Country.”
Gareth rubbed his chin, his brow furrowed. “We have to retrieve it,” he murmured. “This key, if it is the key. Or at least try to, no matter how difficult it may be. The Court of Shadows is aptly named.”
“We’ve tried to track the Cirrinoc clan dozens of times,” Danesh admitted. “It would be advantageous to have them as allies. But every path we’ve tried leads to a dead end.”
Gareth’s gaze flicked to Posey. “Could you get us there?”
“I am uncertain,” Posey said carefully. “It has been a long time since I set foot in the veiled court.”
“But you could,” I prodded.
Posey hesitated and then finally looked at me, a flash of defiance in her eyes. She raised her chin. It was as if she was saying with only her expression, You’re not who I thought you were, and yet here I am, deigning to help you even so.
“I could,” she said slowly. “I think I could.”
“But will you?” Danesh demanded.
Posey glanced at Danesh, a small smile playing at her lips. “If you promise me greater liberties upon our return.”
“You are in no position to bargain, fae.”
“Actually, I very much am.”