Chapter 25
“Little fugitive, we need to get up,” Vaeron murmured in my ear.
I groaned, cracking one eye, then another. Darkness claimed the room, and sleep still had its claws in me. I yawned, raising my arms overhead in a full-body stretch. How I wished to steal an hour to twirl on the tips of my toes.
A dream of airstepping across the open fields washed through me, so pure, so light, so free.
Until a shout ripped through the hush. My heart gave a hard thump, and I bolted upright, sheets sliding down my body.
Vaeron was already racing to the window, peeling back the curtain by the barest inch. “Goddess damn them all,” he swore, letting it drop.
“What’s going on?” I asked, sliding to the floor. The wood was cold under my feet as I padded into the space beside him.
“The whole fucking city is out there,” he ground out, raking a hand through his sleep-mussed hair. In quick, precise movements, he gathered it and tied it back with a leather strip.
With shaking hands, I peered below. Torches flickered in the black, highlighting exalted faces.
The rise and fall of Seraelth was faster than my own breath.
“Save us!”
“The Goddess’s chosen daughter!”
I stepped back, stomach knotting. “We could always climb onto the roof and fly,” I said. More than anything I did not want them crowding me. Touching me again. Phantom fingers danced across my skin while bile crept up my throat.
A muscle feathered in Vaeron’s jaw, and I cursed my fear-addled mind. Of course, he couldn’t use his wings to flee with bronze still threaded into his skin.
He cradled my gaze with aching rage. “Breathe, little fugitive. I’ve got you. I am your shield. No one will get to you.”
My mate had proven that yesterday—nearly killing the one believer, intervening with others despite the risk it posed to us.
“One day, you won’t be powerless,” I whispered, reaching up to cup his face. I’d made that vow to myself already, and I hoped he heard the sincerity in my tone. Felt it through the crack I’d allowed into our bond.
“One day.” The velvet of his voice caressed me, like he spoke of regaining more than just his Command.
Like he believed that one day, I’d allow him close to my heart again.
“Get dressed. We’ll find a way out. And when we do,” he growled, capturing my arm before I could retreat and pressing a kiss to the inside of my wrist, “I will have words for Helene. She had better pray to me for my mercy.”
The mask of the Issaraeth slid in place, and I welcomed it. Because I was starting to realize that when Vaeron wielded his feared persona—even without access to his magic—people cowered. He controlled them through his reputation alone. And that, to him, to me, to us, was useful.
With a shivering breath, I stepped back, rushing to the pile of fresh clothes on the table that the innkeeper had brought us before bed the previous evening.
It had been incredible to bathe and wash away weeks of grime. It was even more so to be able to dress in clean pants and a long-sleeved tunic. I wrapped the new cloak around my shoulders and secured it at my throat.
My mate had already donned his leathers, tightening the straps around his chest until they were snug. At his thighs, daggers rested, waiting to be drawn and thrown. His sword belt went on next, sitting low on his hips.
He jerked his hood up, and I did the same.
“Ready?” he asked me.
I nodded, even though my heart crescendoed behind my ribs. I had no idea how we’d get out of this, but I was certain once we found Maelsar and Lyriasthe a level below, we’d be able to come up with a plan.
But when we reached the top of the stairs, ice encased me.
Splintering wood cracked through the narrow passage. The innkeeper shouted something, her words lost to the din of the crowd.
Vaeron pounded down the stairs two at a time, and I was right behind him.
But when we reached the landing for the floor below, those very villagers who had been desperate for my attention were looking up at us from the bottom.
The innkeeper had wedged herself between us and them, arms splayed on either side of the wood paneling like she could hold them back.
“It’s the Seraelth!” someone shouted.
And then they crashed forward like a tidal wave.
“Stay behind me,” Vaeron warned, shoving me toward the room where our friends slept. He shouted for Maelsar, and his second-in-command flung open the door, sword glinting in the low lantern light.
“So much for a surreptitious departure,” Maelsar groused.
“Get in the room,” Vaeron told me.
I bolted inside and joined Lyriasthe. Her creamy white hair was secured in a twist at the nape of her neck, and a fierceness flashed in her eyes.
“Take this.” She proffered a sheathed dagger.
I looked at it for only a moment before wrapping the long strap around my waist.
“Do you really think we’ll have to kill them?” I whispered, the words quaking in my throat. I’d been chased and hunted before, always believing that it was a fate worse than death—because my mate had been the one in pursuit of me.
My body buzzed like word of the royal hunters had shot through an Elessarum stronghold. But this was different. These people wanted to worship me, not capture me.
So why did the two feel like the same threat?
She didn’t answer me as the crowd roared below. Our attention snapped to the stairwell, where Maelsar wielded a wall of white to keep them at bay.
“What the fuck do we do?” he snapped at Vaeron.
A hole punctured his magic, and all air fled my lungs. The world spun, and I slumped into the doorframe, barely able to hold myself upright.
Vaeron crowded me, forcing me to look into his ice-blue eyes.
Shutting out everything but him. “Nothing will happen to you, or any of us. Your life is far more valuable to me than theirs. My demonstration yesterday should have been enough to show that. But if it wasn’t…
I won’t hesitate to slaughter everyone to get us out of here. ”
A strange warmth spread through my chest, much like after he’d killed the robbers. The intensity of his words, his stare, his devotion to me should have frightened me or at the very least made me recoil with disgust.
Instead, I savored how it calmed my racing heart. Steadied my nerves.
This was why I’d fallen in love with him. Why I still loved him. Even though his brand of adoration was a knife in my heart.
Something smashed through the window, and I screamed. We whirled, finding a brick among the shards of glass.
My title rang out louder and stronger than it had before.
“Someone is going to climb through that at any moment,” Lyriasthe noted, edging closer and peering down at the crowd.
The walls were closing in from all sides.
“We really need to fucking go,” Maelsar shouted from the hall. Sweat beaded his brow from how forcefully he held the believers back with his magic.
Vaeron growled, slamming his fist into the doorframe. “Fuck, Maelsar, I hate to ask this, but can you carry me off the roof?”
“I’ve got you,” he swore, even as his hands trembled.
“Lyriasthe…” my mate trailed off, muscles in his neck bulging. Down our bond, fury and self-loathing slithered. “Can you create an Illusion over us all…so no one sees I’m powerless.”
Sympathy danced in my heart. Being brought to his knees, hamstrung by bronze, was killing him inside. Now was the time when he needed his Command most, and he couldn’t access it.
I reached up and squeezed his shoulder, silent reassurance that I was here. Even though I was still furious with him, even though I hadn’t entirely forgiven him, I didn’t want him to believe I thought him a lesser male because of a collar that the Koron and Korona had placed on him.
“Of course,” she replied, white pooling in her palms.
“There’s a window in the stairwell we can break,” Vaeron said. “We’ll leave out of that and then rise into the sky. Lyriasthe, you can go first and prepare your magic.”
The three of us rushed toward it while Maelsar continued to hold off the crowd below.
“Seraelth! Seraelth!”
“Let us through. We need her blessing!”
My mate bundled his cloak around his hand and struck the window. Glass shattered, and he used his covered forearm to clear the remaining shards.
Lyriasthe wasted no time climbing onto the sill, scanning our surroundings.
“All clear. See you out there.” And then, she leaped, falling for the briefest of moments before her wings snapped from her back, catching a draft.
With a wave of her hands, light spread out, giving off the barest shimmer once her Illusion had solidified.
“Sylaira,” my mate said, my name a desperate order.
I dragged in a deep breath and hauled myself into the window. The area behind the inn was blissfully empty, the buildings preventing anyone from encircling the place. Diving into the well of my power, I prepared to call on my wings the second I was airborne.
Thankfully, I wasn’t afraid of heights. With all the grace that came with decades of dancing, I flung myself forward. White feathers spread behind me, flapping as I brought myself to a halt in front of Lyriasthe.
I spun, waiting for the males to jump next. But neither of them was looking at us—no, their focus was on the people below.
Rage roared down our bond, and my mate sprinted out of view.
“What the fuck are they doing?” Lyriasthe hissed. “If they’d just jump, we could be out of here!”
“Come on, let’s fly lower,” I said, already angling myself down toward the other end of the inn.
A detonation of white blinded me. Lyriasthe cursed, shielding her eyes. Blinking, I waited for my vision to return.
“Oh, fuck,” I swore, hand flying to my chest. Because there, in the stairwell, the villagers were breaking other windows. One male even climbed over another, impaling the first on the remaining shards.
“She has to be out here somewhere. She couldn’t have just disappeared like that!
” he called to the people behind him, scanning the sky, indifferent to the male dying beneath him.
Others clambered out of the first floor, joining him in searching for me.
The Illusion hid us from view—but for how long if there were Sensors among the crowd?
“Go.”
The strangled word slammed into my mind. Someone screamed. Blood sprayed over the glass.
I dropped all barriers between my mate and me. Racing down our bond, I peered through his eyes before I was conscious of what I was doing. Because I had to know what happened to make them pivot. I had to know if he would be okay.
Bronze-edged steel flashed, cutting through one male, then another. The stairwell squeezed him and Maelsar, forcing them to fight shoulder to shoulder.
“He’s her mate. Maybe a cut from him now will ensure our line continues!” someone called from below him.
“Issaraeth! Issaraeth!”
These people were desperate. And desperate people, warped by indoctrination, would do anything.
Vaeron didn’t stop his assault. Even the threat of death wasn’t enough to deter the believers.
He felt nothing. No remorse. No regret. To him, the blade was an extension of his arm, swinging it as natural as breathing. Yet coiling inside him was a red mist, like a dark fog that roiled through his otherwise pristine magic.
“Now, Sylaira. Go.”
I didn’t hesitate this time, even with the bond screaming at me to stay with him. The two of us were a liability to our well-trained warriors. Grabbing Lyriasthe’s arm, I hauled her away.