Chapter Twenty-Three
Over the past three days, I have been doing nothing but training and going through incantor files.
I reached the bottom of the pile this morning.
Each morning, I wake in Draven’s bed with no nightmares haunting me while I sleep. My energy levels are greater than ever, and my mind is clear.
When I train, one of my guards spars with me at the end of each session. I am getting quicker each time I practice. Learning someone else’s footwork and habits has been good for me, but I miss Draven’s.
He comes home tomorrow, meaning that the ball is also tomorrow. Something I have been choosing to ignore, but it is coming up quick to the point where it cannot be ignored any longer.
The anticipation of seeing Draven making me forget about everything else.
I have been thinking a lot about us, with plans to apologize to him for the way I acted that night. I cannot help but think how different everything would be right now if I would have just shut up and kissed him. But you cannot change what has already happened.
A fact that haunts me every day.
Even though being alone has been uncomfortable, I needed this time alone. Needed it in order to sit within my own thoughts and this time, change them.
And I am far from healed, but it is a start.
I have come to some form of fragile acceptance. Coming to terms slowly that this is my new life. This is how it is going to be, no matter how hard I try to fight it.
It is up to me to choose what I do with it now.
I lean back into the couch in Draven’s sitting room, draining my cup of blood empty. Who would have known that eating regularly would help me feel normal again.
Each night I have been going for a walk in the gardens to get some air and think. Tonight is no different.
I stand up from the couch and walk over to the door, slipping my flats on and skipping grabbing my cloak. It has been warm outside every night as summer slowly approaches.
As I make my way out of the prince’s wing toward the garden, my guards follow reluctantly behind me. I have made acquaintances with some of them during our time together, which has surprised me the most. Although the ones with me tonight are not my favorite.
When I step out into the garden, I breathe in the air greedily. I will never grow tired of the smell out here.
A few minutes into my walk, I follow a familiar path and approach the wall where I first met Draven.
Oh, how much has changed since then.
I eye it warily and then turn behind me. The guards watch me, as I watch them.
“I am going to climb up this wall. I am not trying to escape. I just want to look over the other side. Okay? Do not freak out and call anyone else over here.”
One of them pinches the bridge of their nose between their fingers, shaking their head. Thankfully, the guards who are assigned to me at night are used to my actions at this point.
Although they never do speak to me. Almost like they are too scared to talk to me at all. Choosing to discuss with one another about what I do, instead of directly to me.
I start to grab the vines, pulling myself up. “Oh, and also, if start to fall backwards, please catch me.”
They move in a little closer after that.
I move up the wall, eyeing each vine before I grab it, my gown grazing my ankles as I pull upwards. Being a lot stronger now compared to the first time I climbed this, I get the top faster.
When I reach the ledge, I grab it and pull myself up just enough so I am lying on my chest. I peer over the edge, seeing nothing but a pitch-black endless bottom. The vines grow over the side, but not by much.
If I would have went over this, I would have died.
“Hope you aren’t planning on going anywhere. It would take a lot of magic for you to get through the wards of this castle,” one of them yells up at me.
They start to laugh beneath me.
I roll my eyes and quickly scootch myself back, grabbing the vines and lowering myself down inch by inch. No fall this time.
I smooth down my dress, seeing there are smudges of green and brown across the white.
“Whoops,” I say, with a shrug.
Undeciding if that discovery made me feel worse or better, I start to walk again, changing my thoughts to ones of Lilith Silver as I pass her flowers. I cannot imagine all of the hard work it took in designing this place. Every now and again, a gardener strolls past us, scanning each section.
A row of bright pink flowers in the shape of stars catches my eye. I watch as they open and close ever so slightly.
Starburners, is what Draven called them.
The vivid pink color tugs on a memory in my head. The flowers pulling me back to the passage I read in the fae book about the oleander flowers. I completely forgot to mention it to Draven.
Draven said every type of flower that can grow in Vryko is in this garden, his mother made sure of it. So, if there was a chance oleanders could grow in Vryko, they would be here.
But a flower that needs the sun cannot live in a place without it.
I pause, pulling my hand to my chest. What if the flowers came from Faeria because the kidnapper is not in Vryko.
“It would take a lot of magic to get through the wards of this castle,” I say out loud.
The guard clears his throat. “What was that, my lady?”
I turn around quickly. “Oh nothing, just mumbling to myself.”
If people are already saying I’m manic, then what does it matter if I talk to myself every now and again.
I continue walking, deep in thought.
It may be impossible, but what if our suspect after each kidnapping, is going back to Faeria. Maybe we have been looking in the wrong place the entire time.
But it still does not explain how they got over to Faeria to begin with.
I stop abruptly in the pathway once more, the guards behind me almost slamming into my back.
“Holy shit,” I say out loud.
I need to get back to Draven’s study.
I turn around, pushing myself between the guards as I run through the garden doors and into the castle. When I reach the spiral staircase, I take two steps at a time.
I keep running and I do not stop until I reach Draven’s study.
When I get there, I rip the door open and slam it shut.
My back presses against the door as I frantically look around the room to make sure nobody is in here.
Confirming that I am alone, I run over to Draven’s desk and quickly open each filing cabinet drawer.
I skim through each drawer quickly, in hopes of finding what I am looking for.
Draven told me a while ago that his father does not like to kill his own people, that he would rather ban them to a life in the Etherkeep. The only way an incantor would be able to get into Faeria to begin with, is if they were a prisoner transported to the Etherkeep.
A place Draven said no one can ever get out. But what if someone did.
I learned from Elora over the past couple days that incantor magic is strong.
But as she said a while back, there are limitations placed against them by Vryko itself.
They have caps on how deep their magic goes here.
I wonder how deep magic can go for an incantor who does not live in Vryko.
One who has no limits. If one can figure out a way to tap into an endless magic source, they could potentially do anything.
Anything like breaking out of a prison, crossing a magical line between two worlds, and getting into a heavily warded castle.
But the amount of motivation that someone would need in order to go through all that trouble. I think being kicked out of a kingdom and sentenced to a life in prison is enough leverage to start kidnapping people.
The question is, why and what are the people being used for?
I frantically continue to pull open each drawer of Draven’s filing cabinets. I need to find documentation of those the king has banished to the Etherkeep throughout his reign. If I can find that, I can look and see if he has ever banned an incantor. If he has, then that might just be our suspect.
I move to a smaller cabinet beneath one of the tables next to Draven’s desk. I pull on the drawer. It is locked. Shit.
I walk over to Draven’s desk and start pulling open its drawers, looking for any type of key. I shuffle through the papers inside, but see nothing. I pull out the middle drawer and reach all the way to the back, sliding my hand around until I hit something metal.
I pull my hand out of the drawer grinning as I see a key between my fingers.
Turning towards the small cabinet, I push the key into the keyhole. It turns easily with a click.
“What a hiding spot, Draven.”
The top drawer opens easily. I skim past the labeled files, looking for any information on the Etherkeep. When the next drawer opens, I pause. A squeal of excitement slips out. Throwing my hand over my mouth, I muffle it as it turns into a laugh.
I have found exactly what I am looking for.
I pull the file out of the drawer and run over to the table, laying it on top and opening it. It seems there are quite the number of people that have been banished over the past five hundred years. Who would have guessed.
I look up at the clock, it is almost ten o’clock at night. One night without sleep will not hurt. I have done it before.
As I flip through each file, I find that most have been banished to the Etherkeep for crimes like murder, works against the crown, forbidden magic wielding, and necromancy. I shiver. I focus in on what kind of creature each person is and move along quickly.
After a while, my vision starts to get blurry.
I lean back into the chair, rubbing my eyes.
It is already an hour past midnight, and I have only found a few incantors that have been banished.
Most of them were sentenced for necromancy.
As unsettling as that is, I do not think it is enough leverage to kidnap people.
Also, some of these incantors could possibly have passed on already.
Everything feels like a dead end.
Maybe I was wrong, and I got worked up for nothing. My idea is borderline impossible. Probably just something I made up in my head to give myself false hope.
I spread the remaining files in front of me so I can read each name. I turn my head. The letter O labeled on the file at the end catches my eye.
I pick it up, then immediately drop it.
My heart falls into a pit in my stomach, making me have the urge to vomit. Every bit of prior amusement and sense of fulfillment quickly drains out of my body.
I pick the file back up and read the name printed at the top.
“Oleander Linx.”
The name stings my tongue like poison.
What are the odds that Oleander Linx is an incantor whose magic smells like burning oleander flowers.
“It can’t be,” I whisper.
I slowly open the file up and pull out the page sitting within.
His mugshot sits up in the right corner. His skin is pink and mottled, as his eyes glow yellow. A yellow similar to the incantor we found in the Whispering Woods that night. Straw colored hair falls from his head, hitting his shoulders.
I skim the words on the page.
Oleander Linx is an incantor who was banished to the Etherkeep from the Kingdom of Vryko at the beginning of King Vespers rein, over five hundred years ago.
Oleander Linx was charged with treason against the king and is responsible for the gathering of a possible uprising.
The writing goes further into descriptions of each charge against him.
The page ends.
I flip it over but the other side is blank. I pause and skim over it again. It never states the reasoning for the uprising against the king.
Looking up at the corner of the page, I see that the second page has been torn off. Like someone came in and took it, not wanting anyone to see, but made sure to leave the first page.
I sit up.
Almost like he wanted to be found. My eyes widen.
He wanted me to figure it out. He wanted me to find him. The answer was dangling right in front of my face the entire time, taunting me.
It only took me this long to realize.
I clear off the table, sticking everything back into the filing cabinet and re-hiding the key in the drawer.
I turn around, eyeing the room warily as a feeling forms deep in my stomach that I am once again being watched.
I look down at the first page of the file in my hand and fold it up tightly, sticking it deep in my pocket.
Draven must know about this as soon as possible. Not only has someone found a way out of the Etherkeep and is now a serial kidnapper, the division between the two worlds has been compromised.
The Etherealm is in danger and so am I.