Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
We wait until it’s night, and we spent the day making sure the heirs suspect nothing.
Zyran says it’s the best opportunity we have to break in and get Elizabeth out without anyone seeing us.
Zyran worked out the guard rotation long before now because he suspected it would come to this—exactly at midnight there’s a swap.
It’ll be a good window to sneak in, and then we can fight our way out before going through a shadow portal he’s prepared and hidden for us.
We only have to run for it and get Elizabeth to safety in Void City.
I just hope Orion will understand in time and not hate me forever for this choice.
I said I would be his friend…and so much more than that.
Yet he won’t listen to his sister, and I’m not sure he’d believe her even if he did hear what she has to say. I have no choice but to betray him.
I want to tell Blackfire and Reed. I want their help.
But the truth is, I don’t know if they would side with Orion on this.
They might. I spent the day with them coming in and out, checking things over, and once again, they have no idea who attacked me.
There was no marker of fire magic, nothing left but ash.
Blackfire looked more pissed than before.
All three of them are still out there and will be all night, searching the grounds for the attacker.
They trust Zyran to watch over me…and they shouldn’t have.
Someone has tried to kill me twice now in this court.
Maybe it’s because I’ve sided with Elizabeth and they know the secret of this court too.
Zyran cups my cheek before taking my hands in his, and I feel a chain placed in my palm.
When he pulls his hand away, a delicate necklace rests there.
It’s all gold, with a locket. I open the pendant and freeze.
Inside is a resin-covered flower with drake hair wrapped around the stem…
a flower from where we buried Tannith. On the other side is a black flower with gold hair wrapped around the stem.
“In your culture, we take hair from our dead loved ones and wind it around a flower that meant something. I asked your brother to give me the locket for your mother and father, which he had made. It was your mother’s pendant she often wore.
I had Tannith’s added so all you have lost is close by.
I know you don’t remember much of your home, but this would have been given to you when your mother died and then your sister. ”
Tears fall down my cheeks silently as I touch the pendant.
A connection to my mother, father, and Tannith.
I read the inscription on the back: The lost never truly leave.
My eyes drift up to Zyran, my patient lover.
“I love you. You have protected me my whole life, and your love is patient and kind. You’ve always stood by me, and I would like to do the same for you. Would you take mate marks with me?”
He stills in shock. “Yes. I love you too. It would be my greatest honour, Meredith Duskmore.” He crashes into me, kissing me deeply, and I smile into the kiss, happiness flooding me. Eventually we part, and he kisses me once more. “We need to leave.”
Zyran helps me put the necklace on, and I hide it under my top for now before I pull my dark cloak around my shoulders and look at Zyran, waiting for him to give me the signal.
He looks back and nods once. We both slip out through the path.
His shadows of oblivion rise from the walls, hiding us.
Oblivion whispers in my ear. I try not to listen, because it echoes and echoes, but it’s impossible not to.
“The keys will open, and all will fall. You will be torn apart, Princess of Shadows. Turn back.”
I gulp, wondering if Zyran is hearing the crazy voices of oblivion too.
I push the sound of their warnings aside and focus.
Zyran’s right—the guards barely even look our way as they walk out, tired from their long shift.
They don’t sense the shadows hiding us or even look our way.
The minute they’re gone, Zyran uses shadows to push through the wall of dirt, making a gap just big enough for us.
We both climb through before walking down towards the green light side by side.
Elizabeth is not alone. A guard in red armour stands outside, his head slightly drooped, and he snores once. He’s asleep. Elizabeth is curled up in her bed.
“Should we kill him?” Zyran leans against the wall. “He might alert the others.”
I look closer. Red armour. From the Crone Pack. “No. Blackfire must have brought him here, and he can likely be trusted if Blackfire trusts him.”
Zyran reaches out—shadows slithering like snakes—and shakes him, and the guard stills as he jolts awake.
The helmet falls off his head, slamming onto the ground, and when he lifts his head, I pause.
I know this guard well; I ended up in a Crone prison because of the attention he brought Illyia.
Then he abandoned her anyway. I thought he was in love with her. How is he here? “Bane.”
“Meredith. Fuck, it’s really you. I heard rumours, but…
” He blinks. “You’re alive. That’s good.
” He looks past me and then back. “Tell me Illyia is alive too. I’ve searched this entire court, and I could swear I can smell her here.
I sent word to the human district, but everyone said she was gone when the Folkland happened.
” I frown. Illyia couldn’t have been anywhere but the human district during the Folkland.
Where could she have gone? He shakes his head.
“I know that she was at the Crone Palace, and now she was here once, as I scented her, but—”
“She’s alive. She’s somewhere complicated to explain right now, but she’s alive.” I stop him. “Do you really care about her? She said that you abandoned her after the pub and my capture.”
His whole body seems to sag in relief. He pulls a letter from inside his jacket and hands it to me.
“When you see her next, please give her this. I’m going to stay at Blackfire’s side, no matter what, but please give her this.
She has to understand. I never wanted to abandon her. I never gave up on us. Please.”
Elizabeth has finally woken, hearing the voices, and she walks to the locked cage doors. “What are you doing here at night?”
I take the letter, slipping it into my cloak. “Okay, but you have to go, Bane.”
“Hey, lover boy.” Zyran looks at him flatly. “Nice to meet you.” He punches him hard in the face. Bane grunts before passing straight out onto the floor.
Elizabeth’s eyes go wide as she stares at me and then Bane on the ground. “What are you doing?”
“I spoke to the cook that you wanted me to. He told me vaguely what happened, and I don’t need to know any more to be certain you ridded the world of an evil.
I need to get you out. Gaia’s never going to give you a fair trial, is she?
Not with what you know.” I wrap my hands around hers that are clinging to the bars. “It’s never going to be a fair fight.”
Zyran steps forward. “You shouldn’t be punished for doing the right thing, Elizabeth. Take it from someone who knows what that is like.”
Elizabeth gives him a shaky nod. “No, she won’t let me walk out of here.
She was forced by the priests to give me to the Folkland, but she never thought anyone would be foolish enough to choose me anyway,” Elizabeth whispers with a soft look at me.
“My wolf didn’t want to kill the alpha. But as a bastard, I’m not bound to the royal laws about not killing royals or attacking the alpha.
Orion is, and I knew if I told him everything, he would try to do it and only fail.
The only way I could convince my wolf to do it was to make a vow—to betray Orion, whom we both dearly love and always have done.
Orion is my brother and my best friend. He was the only one who was ever kind to me.
I never wanted to hurt him, and I knew this would.
He loved his father. But I couldn’t let him carry on.
” She swallows. “I made a vow with my wolf to kill him and to only speak the truth to Orion. It was foolish, knowing my stubborn brother would never even hear me out. But it was the only way to get my wolf to agree and let me shift.” She meets my eyes.
“I deserve to stay here and face it. I don’t want to run. ”
“Good. Because you won’t be leaving.”
The earth crashes up and swallows Zyran in one go. I rush forward to where he disappears, but a vine lashes around me, pinning me to the wall with a slam.
“Princess.” Orion’s voice echoes in the green-lit dark as he steps out of the darkness. “Now who’s breaking all the rules?”
“Orion, don’t—” I manage to whisper before vines wrap around my mouth, rendering me silent.
I shake my head at him, struggling against the vines.
My shadows lash out, but he pulls vines around my fingers, pinning them to the wall and effectively stopping anything I can do.
He doesn’t hurt me, but it’s clear he doesn’t want to hear from me right now. His attention is on Elizabeth.
He is finally here, finally in front of her. I hope to every god and goddess out there that he will listen. “If taking my father wasn’t bad enough, you turned my woman into a traitor to my pack. Sister, do you really hate me all this much?”
His words cut deep, as does the one look he gives me. Hate. Betrayal.
“I never wanted to betray you, Orion.” He turns back to Elizabeth. “I just couldn’t let him live. Not with what he did. Please. Give me five minutes to explain it. For her. For Meredith. She will never forgive you if you don’t.”