Chapter 36
One. Fucking. Day.
That was all the time that had passed since I’d so much as glimpsed Sylaira.
And I was a male unmade. Crazed. All because of my Goddess-cursed mate.
Maelsar spit blood on the ground, his lower lip swelling. “Lighten up, Vaeron.”
I didn’t shirk what Iaoth had bid me to do and stalk to the training yard instead to play. So I aimed a kick at his thigh, connecting with an audible thud. He grunted, absorbing the blow, then used my backward retreat as an opportunity to land a heavy punch to my ribs.
Air whooshed out of me. But I welcomed the pain.
Anything to distract me from the chain lashing me like a thousand relentless whips, each crack a gust from the wrath of Sylaira’s hurricane.
My head snapped back as Maelsar landed a punch square to my cheek.
“Losing your focus now that I’ve gotten a couple good hits in?” he teased.
Anger, hotter than the outdoor training ring currently was, flared inside me. Sweat beaded and rolled across my skin, dripping onto the earth. It flew like a cascade as I threw my next strike.
Maelsar easily avoided it and circled out, his wry grin flashing. “She’s got you really fucked up, huh?”
I lunged again, chasing silence through violence.
The whole point of this training session was to take my mind off Sylaira. But no matter where I went, what I did, the scent of ghostflower still curled in my nose. I hadn’t told Iaoth about being mated. Honestly, I didn’t know what the fuck I was going to do.
I ducked a harsh right hook from Maelsar, forcing myself back to the present. “You swing like your mother taught you to fight,” I taunted. Not that it was entirely an insult. The late Kissta Caerelith had whooped us both as younglings on more than one occasion.
Maelsar frowned. “Says the male with a budding black eye.”
He wasn’t wrong. My vision was blurring as his earlier strike took hold. I jabbed up the middle, predicting he would step left. When he did, I followed it up with a kick to his ribs.
“Fuck you,” he swore, clutching the spot and half-stumbling.
I bounced on my toes while he wheezed. “Do you need a minute?”
He swiped sweat from his brow, straightening with a grimace. “I need you to work out your shit.”
“I am,” I replied, gesturing around us.
“With your words rather than on me,” he huffed, rolling out his neck and shoulders. But he dropped into a fighting stance again anyway.
“Maybe later,” I growled, launching a flurry of attacks.
Maelsar met my intensity and—finally—my mind hushed. Block, strike, kick. That became my storm. Duck, punch, parry. Those became my tide.
For a few stolen moments, I didn’t crave her—I craved blood. The battlefield in my chest went quiet where rage once burned.
By the time we surrendered to our begging lungs, my mind was clearer than it had been in weeks. Ever since I caught a glimpse of Sylaira.
Hobbling to the side, I found a waterskin and drained its contents.
Maelsar joined me, wiping his face with a rough cloth.
I snatched one for myself and dried my skin.
Not that it helped much. The sheer amount of humidity in the cloud forest brought fresh dew to my flesh simply by standing among the lush.
Is Sylaira in the Seer garden now?
The thought gripped me and wouldn’t let me go. If she was, I could slip through the palms and corner her. Make her listen to reason. Make her understand me.
“I need you to distract the Sightkeepers,” I told my friend once I’d caught my breath.
Maelsar lifted a brow. “So you can sneak into their private space and speak to Sylaira without Iaoth knowing?”
This was why he was the only person in all the worlds I trusted. He knew me better than anyone else. And I him. So before I’d even opened my mouth to speak, he was rolling his eyes.
“Exactly,” I said.
“That’s a stupid plan,” he sighed, throwing his arms across the bench and letting his head fall back.
“Do you have a better one?” I growled. Now that I wasn’t fighting, the bond had awakened in my chest, tightening in an attempt to drag me to Sylaira.
A sick, twisted part of me wanted her to hurt too—if only so we were on an even field again.
Why couldn’t she have listened to me for one fucking minute? I would have explained everything.
“Well, she’s injured right? At some point she’ll have to see the healers.
They’re in a different feather of the palace.
And they’re much easier to pay off than those sentries and Seers who would do anything to win further favor with Iaoth,” he grumbled, looking up at the sky like he could ask the Goddess to put reason back into my skull.
There was no peace, no sanity left, not when the walls closed in on me from all sides. Not when Sylaira wouldn’t lower the barricade around her mind.
And her heart.
“I’ll go to the Sightkeepers and tell them I’m there to escort her to the healers then.
” It would also double as my duty to her, as I was so compelled to do.
As her mate, I had to take care of her. Whether she wanted it or not.
“And if Iaoth gets suspicious of my motives, I’ll come up with some explanation. ”
Maelsar snorted. We both knew how prickly she could be. “Goddess save you if that happens, brother. You could just tell her.”
A snarl rumbled in my chest. “Not until I gauge Iaoth’s headspace more.
There’s no telling how she will react since she’s already so on edge about Ishim’s failure to penetrate the Paks Desert.
And I am not putting Sylaira in further danger.
For all I know, Iaoth would use it against me, to force me into more things I do not want to do. ”
I gathered the mess of my hair and rearranged the knot at the back of my head.
“Or maybe she’d be ecstatic and I’d be relieved of my duties.”
That pulled a belly-shaking laugh from my second-in-command. He finally lifted his gaze, aquamarine irises dancing with amusement. “The Demons will beat us before that happens.”
“Aye,” I deadpanned because there was no world where my sister would wish me all the best for discovering a mate she didn’t design. Our father was likely fighting his way back to this world in sheer protest of how it had ruined all his plans for us.
Maelsar leaned in and took a long sniff. “Better wash up first, though. You smell like you were left in the woods for months, rolling around in rotten fruit, before someone took you to civilization again.”
I threw my towel in his face and walked away, the sound of his laughter assaulting my backside. Let him stay outside and sweat. I had half a mind to challenge him to another round.
Instead, I glared at the marble exterior of Thalvireth like I could crumble each wall with my mind alone. A Telekinetic could, but they’d be stopped before one slab fell.
Our ancestors had built the palace to reflect the wings gifted to us by our Radiant Mother.
Each hall—or feather, as the nobles termed them for an extra dose of pretentiousness—arced away from a central circle in the center.
With three levels, the seat of power held every room imaginable to contribute to the functioning of the Angel Realm.
Residences for each noble house, extensive servants quarters, offices for advisors, a ballroom for entertaining…
It was so expansive, it had taken me nearly a month to memorize routes to common places once Iaoth and I moved from the countryside.
I entered the first floor of the military feather, passing royal sentinels and off-duty Sightkeepers on their way to their barracks in the trees or for training. Some warriors—male and female—dipped their heads to me as I passed.
I ignored every single one.
Blood still thrummed in my veins as I reached the feather that held my chamber, adjacent to the largest one where Iaoth and Stadiel resided. Because their loyal hound, their finest weapon, couldn’t be far. Not when he was needed to hunt or to strike at any time.
Bitterness coated my tongue as I pressed my palm to the door, my magic unsealing the entry.
The entire time I bathed, I mulled over exactly how I was going to continue to see my mate without my sister uncovering my true intentions.
Servants stood on scaffolding to polish the twisting metal vines around the columns in the foyer as I passed through it on the way to the Seer’s feather.
Unfortunately, it was in a remote part of the palace, by Iaoth’s design, because she believed it allowed them the space and peace to connect with the Goddess and hear Her prophecies.
Everyone I passed went about their day as if it were any other. As if their worlds were normal and the very foundation of their lives didn’t shift beneath their feet.
I resisted the urge to tug on my dark tunic. While the other nobles and advisors I passed wore finery, I opted for a mix between battle-ready leather and silver-threaded linen clothing while at Thalvireth.
Like anyone could forget who I was. Even draped in regal attire, a monster still lurked beneath.
Rushing water from the indoor wall greeted me as I rounded the final corner and found the doors secreting the Seers away. Two males stood watch, one outside each entry.
“I need Sylaira for the healers,” I barked at them.
The Sightkeepers glanced at each other, then one shifted his weight. “Issaraeth, she is not here.”
My heart dropped. “What do you mean she isn’t here?”
“Someone already came to fetch her to see them,” he explained slowly.
Fuck.
“Why wasn’t I informed?” I pressed, stomping closer. Light leaked from my palms, the radiance revealing the unraveling inside me. But I didn’t banish it. Better for these bastards to think I meant them harm than I was losing control.
The second eyed my power with a healthy amount of wariness. “No one told us you were in charge of her care. After all, Her Radiance sent a messenger–”