Chapter 26 Siren
Siren
The Ten of Coins represents legacy, honor, and our ancestral values. Its reverse can foretell family conflicts, especially when a choice arises between the burden of expectations clashing with our own fate.
IF I COULD brEATHE FIRE, this palace would be nothing but ashes and rubble. The rest of dinner passes in a blur of me trying to suppress my rage, unable to focus on conversation.
Thankfully, we move on to the party quickly.
“What’s mine is yours.” King Eldarion leads us to a grand ballroom.
I find the beautiful scene revolting, the elves’ dancing grotesque, the ethereal voices blending into a din in my mind while flutes of elven wine are passed around like poison. Mortals are kept on leashes tightly tethered to their immortal masters.
The king smiles and chats away, Draven’s charming smile hiding his contempt, and his friends have casually filtered through the party. I want to ask someone what they’ve found out, but the only one lingering near us is Scorpius, scowling and shadowing Draven.
I tip back another drink, my hand clenching the flute hard enough to fracture glass.
The crowd swells around us, and Draven pulls me against him, swaying with me in his arms, eyes scanning every corner over my shoulder.
“I need out of here,” I whisper to Draven. I shut my eyes to block the world out.
“Say no more.” His jaw is clenched so tightly his bones flex beneath the skin. His eyes glow scarlet in the shuddering candlelight. Beside him Scorpius overhears, judgment obvious in his eyes. The scream bottled in my chest threatens to erupt.
Draven’s tattoo flashes and I notice a slight light near his hip.
His eyes close one moment, and the next his friends are all making their way toward us, summoned by the High Priestess card.
Malik sidles up to us, Zara so small in his shadow she could nearly fit under one of his wings, and Fable reappears, tossing her hair over a shoulder.
When he notices her, he asks, “Can you give us a bit of time?”
“Make it quick.” Her hand floats over her deck of cards, coaxing the Hanged Man, a golden web expanding so quickly it surprises me, enveloping the room.
Within a moment everything in the dancing hall is frozen in place except for us.
Elves and enslaved mortals alike stand still as statues, the notes of music and chatter mere reverberations in the air.
“I can give you two minutes,” Fable says, those hazel-green eyes glowing ever so slightly as she holds her card steady, temple beginning to sweat.
“That’s more than enough.” Draven turns to Malik and Fable. “What did you find?”
Malik raises his eyebrows. “Who are these mortals to you anyway? Do they owe you a debt or something?”
“I gathered the list of the Kingbreaker participants,” Fable cuts in, handing Draven a list of names, her temple sweating as she keeps concentrating on her power.
I snatch it from his hand, scanning quickly. There are hundreds, and … I don’t see Remus’s name, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t changed at some point.
“I was able to turn an illusion just now for the king,” Malik adds quickly, jokes set aside at the serious look on Draven’s face.
“He thought he was telling an advisor where that enslaved woman he’d mentioned was being kept, reminiscing about his time with her.
” Malik smiles brightly and I hang on his words.
“She’s in Illithial. I’ve heard rumors of the lord there, both good and bad, but nothing about the condition of his mortals. ”
“What’s the importance of this mortal?” Scorpius growls.
“It could be my mother,” I reply shortly.
Draven’s friends share glances.
“The mortals here are put under binding spells to this realm.” Malik spares a sorrowful glance my way. “If she was here, then that means King Eldarion likely was the one who placed it. I don’t foresee him releasing that spell for free.”
A thunderbolt of frustration slices through me. Why can nothing be simple?
“Eldarion’s vices and skeletons seem well-known by his wife, and anyone they could be leveraged against,” Scorpius says with a shrug. “His wife doesn’t appear to have any dirt.”
“But his heir shows some promise in the blackmail department. I’ll need more time to verify the rumors,” Zara jumps in.
“Right. Well then, we just need to find a cost. Everyone has a price.” Draven’s tone is matter-of-fact, gaze red as rubies.
He turns to Zara and orders, “Find out anything on his heir for us to barter with.” He tucks the list of names into his jacket pocket, adding one last task for the others.
“And find out what year the other participants of the Kingbreaker Trials were Selected. We need to narrow this list.”
The others nod, and Zara hands a rolled parchment to Draven, who pulls it open, looking it over with cunning, cold eyes. “I also made a copy of the map where the zenith is located.”
It’s both a map of Alfheim and the neighboring immortal realms, the handwriting tightly scrawled, as if it was transcribed in haste.
Draven draws a line with his finger between the capital and a nearby canyon. “So, this is where the zenith is?”
Zara nods.
His voice turns inward, caressing my mental shields until they invite him inside. The vein is ancient, untouched, and near a derelict, deserted forge. We cannot guarantee the Wand would be here, but—
But there’s a chance, I agree. This was our deal, but my mind is too full of everything Malik and Fable just told me.
And the Ring sounds like it could’ve been the prize for the Kingbreaker Trials.
Which means it’s with Eldarion’s heir, too far and guarded for us to reach right now.
But if your brother survived, he likely attends the same school as the prince—he’s the right age—so it’s possible our search could turn up both.
But we can only try for your mother until we narrow the list.
I give him a tight nod.
Draven loses no time turning to Scorpius and demands, “I need you to mimic me. Do whatever you do to make people think I’m more charming than I am. See if you can get me into Eldarion’s good graces. Make note of everyone he talks to. Every person he shows remote attraction to.”
“Got it.” Scorpius transforms into Draven with all the grace Morgan’s poor performance lacked. It’s as if he’s shed his skin completely, wearing Draven’s well-earned confidence and charm, even his haughty smile. But his eyes steep in indigo, never changing, unlike the real version.
Draven turns to Malik.
“I know how to earn my keep,” Malik says.
“I’ll report anything I hear and keep an illusion of Rune, Scorpius, and Zara walking around.
” Malik’s Devil Arcana springs forth, and copies of me and the others are drawn out of nothing, moving to replace where we’d all been standing.
“I’ll add a little flare to cover anyone sensing the magic we’re using. ”
Fireworks burst out of his hand, rising and halting midair when they hit Fable’s power.
“Got maybe a minute left, Draven,” Fable hisses back at us.
“Come with me.” Draven draws me from the grand ballroom.
We move quickly down a side hall, toward a balcony that juts from the castle over the expansive citadel below, nestled within the vast cavern.
Moonlight shines down on this part of the city, dappling the buildings and homes below us in swaths of silver blue.
Warm candlelight flickers in near every window below us.
“Illithial,” I say to Draven immediately. “We need to get to Illithial.”
“Patience, Wraith.” He summons Death’s shadows, and a vortex of night opens, but it’s out beyond the open air.
He turns to me. “I cannot guarantee the woman Eldarion spoke of is your mother, but I’m willing to risk pissing him off to see.
” He points to the spiraling black vortex.
“Technically this castle is warded, so creating a portal within its walls would leave holes in their defenses that would set off alarms. But just outside its walls….”
“How about we use some stairs, Draven?” I snap, blood rushing out of me at the devastating drop.
“We don’t have time. Fable won’t be able to pause that ballroom for much longer, and if we get caught leaving …
well … I’d rather not think about it.” Draven steps onto the railing, leaning back to me with his hand out.
His lilting voice teases me, the sweep of his eyes sending chills down my spine as he says, “Don’t worry. I won’t drop you, love.”
“Why do you have to say that like you’re planning to?” My eyes narrow but he just takes my hesitant hand and pulls me up onto the ledge as if I weigh as much as a paper doll. I wrap my arm around his neck, and he scoops me up. “Listen, Draven, I can’t thank you enough—”
His wings flare wide, and he throws us off the ledge, flapping once, twice, until those wings tuck tight, and we go spinning through the open portal.
Floating in the open air like that, it must barely evade the magical defenses of the castle.
The dark winds scream, like wolves howling in the night, and there’s a scent of decay in the air that’s new as we fly through it.
Then all at once the pressure of the space is gone and we’re at a large estate set into a canyon, windows and doors slanted into the side of the face like little scars.
I don’t know where exactly we are on the map, only that my mother might possibly be inside. I’m so close.
Draven turns to me. “We can’t be seen. I need you to summon your Hermit card.
I can cloak us with shadows, but it’ll help if you have your own protection in case we need to separate.
Remember, elves can sense magic. It sort of smells like fire in the air I guess, so although we’ll be invisible … we aren’t undetectable.”
“Wouldn’t they have sensed all the magic we just used to leave?” I point behind us, where the portal and castle were moments ago.