Chapter 25
Chapter
Twenty-Five
I t doesn’t come as much of a surprise to Ayc that he and Peregrin don’t find Xylie at the tavern; they find her at the library.
The buildings of the Silvae public library live within the branches of six towering trees. Within the buildings, bookshelves spiral around the tree trunks, each level containing a different genre. Walkways pass between the trees, some mere rope bridges, but two are enclosed with walls and a roof. These passageways contain rows of tables and chairs. Ayc finds Xylie and Tavish in the passageway between nonfiction and accessible books.
Xylie bends over a heavy tome, while Tavish sits across the table, his fingers tracing over the embedded letters of the book. Saga sleeps beneath the table but perks his head up when he hears Ayc and Peregrin’s approach. A pack sits next to Saga, between Xylie’s feet—Ayc’s pack, and within it, the dragon egg.
“Learning any dark secrets?” Ayc asks, slipping into one of the unoccupied chairs .
Xylie doesn’t look up as she signs, “ Oh, you’re not dead. That’s good.”
“What are you reading?”
Xylie halfway closes the book—not so far that she can’t keep reading, but enough he can see the title: An Exploration of Dragons. Ayc should have known.
“Who’s with you, Ayc?” Tavish asks. He’s not holding Saga’s leash.
“Just me,” Peregrin states. “Tempest went back for Bronwen and Lora, but we should still have a couple of hours before they arrive. It’s a long flight.” They settle into a chair with a groan. Tempest left them both with gryphon feathers, and Ayc and Peregrin guzzled them down at the tavern. But the grey sheen of Peregrin’s sweat reveals that today it is not enough. The feather gave Ayc a much-needed relief, though the remnants of pain feel like distant screams lodged in his muscles.
Xylie snaps her fingers to get Ayc’s attention and then says, “ Your lover is here.”
“Which lover?” Ayc teases with a grin. “I have so many.”
Xylie snorts. “ The one with the blond hair and ugly scowl.”
“I have no idea who you’re talking about.” Ayc looks to the other side of the table. “Tavish, who’s here that I know?”
“Sterling and their Five,” he replies.
Oh. Wren . The blond hair and ugly scowl. Got it.
Xylie’s assessment is rude, but fair, and certainly not the worst thing that Xylie has said about one of the people that Ayc has taken to his bed. She’s never liked any of them. Someone who didn’t know Xylie might think her jealous, but Ayc knows better. Xylie has admitted that she doesn’t feel sexual attraction toward anyone, lest of all him. It’s simply the way she naturally is, the way Ayc is naturally attracted to any and every expression of gender or lack thereof. She desires romance and companionship, but believes she’ll never find someone else willing to have one without also wanting sex, no matter how Ayc has tried to encourage her otherwise.
But no one ever passes Xylie’s scrutiny when it comes to Ayc. He’s never actually had a sister, but he imagines Xylie and he are quite like that.
“They’re here in the library,” Tavish continues to explain. “I think they’re looking for something, but I’m not sure what. They’re staying at the tavern, too, and I worked up the nerve to talk to a couple of them, but they’re a lot harder to get information out of than drunk pirates. I think they’re in a foul mood because Sterling hasn’t completed any quests since we last saw them. Xylie tried to give me truth weed to slip into their drinks.”
Ayc arches an eyebrow. “You carry truth weed on you?”
Not taking her eyes from the book, Xylie riffles through the bag hanging from her hip. She pulls out a small, drawstring pouch and tosses it to Ayc. He opens it and looks to see the rare plant. It looks almost exactly like the common weed, green foxtail, but it’s the smell that sets it apart. He inhales. It is both sweet and sour. Like dill and honey.
Oh .
The moment comes back to him. The strange taste on Wren’s tongue when she first pulled him into the storage room back on the ship leaving Bromalis. The way, when he resisted answering her questions, she fucked him so sweetly, buying time for the truth weed to work its way into his bloodstream. And then, after, how he couldn’t stop the truth from pouring from his mouth, even though he tried.
Fuck .
His hand fists around the pouch, and he hands it back to Xylie before he crushes the precious ingredient inside. She tucks it back into her bag.
“Where did you say Wren is?” Ayc asks.
Peregrin shakes their head. “You don’t listen to a thing I say, do you, boy?”
“I’m a notoriously foolish boy,” Ayc says. Because he is. He is so fucking foolish. But he needs to see Wren. They have a conversation that is now overdue.
Peregrin narrows their eyes at Ayc, but Tavish responds, “Last I knew she was in the mythology section.”
Ayc starts to stand, but he settles back down. No, this conversation could end poorly, and he doesn’t think having it in the middle of a public library will go well. He suspects that Wren is far more volatile than he’s given her credit for.
“I’ll wait until we’re back at the tavern,” he says.
Peregrin opens their mouth, like there’s a lot they would like to say. But they snap it closed again and make a flicking gesture with their hands as though washing themselves of the situation. Xylie taps Ayc’s shoulder and signs for him to translate.
“Did you know that dragon eggs incubate for an entire decade?” Ayc says. “Tavish, when did you first start sensing the egg on Somnia Ignis?”
Tavish leans back in his chair, rubbing a hand over his jaw. “I don’t know. Right before the Maiden’s Tears . So maybe nine or ten years ago.”
So, the egg could be preparing to hatch at any moment.
Peregrin snaps up straight. “Why do you ask, Xylie?”
Shit. Xylie should definitely not have brought it up in Peregrin’s presence, but it’s far too late now.
“No reason,” Ayc says, quickly. “She was just curious. ”
“Ayc,” Peregrin says, in a familiar tone. One that Ayc recognizes as calm—but only because they are trying very, very hard to remain calm. “Did you take the dragon egg?”
Ayc springs to his feet, grabs his pack from beneath the table and swings it over his shoulders. “Who is up for a drink? Or food? I am starving. Tavish, I know Xylie has probably kept you here for hours. Want to get some lunch from the venders near town central? I think I can smell it from here.”
“Actually, I am starving.” Tavish grabs Saga’s guide handle and stands. The dog sneaks out from beneath the table and leads Tavish toward where Ayc is slowly backing toward the door. Saga takes long strides, stretching out each leg as he goes.
Peregrin’s cheeks flush with red. “Ayc, if I open that pack, am I going to find a dragon egg?”
Ayc turns around and hurries toward the door. “What are you in the mood for?” he asks Tavish.
“Anything,” Tavish says. Then he grins, leans close, and whispers, “You know I can sense the dragon egg, right? I knew you never left it in that cave.”
“Don’t tell, Lora,” Ayc warns, flinging the door open.
“Of course not, but if she finds out, I’m going to deny ever knowing. I’ll help Xylie throw you a beautiful funeral, friend.”
Ayc laughs. “Fair enough.”
“Ayc!” Peregrin hisses, trying to keep their voice at library volume. They are halfway out of their chair, but Xylie hasn’t budged from the table, and Ayc knows Peregrin won’t leave her alone.
Once Tavish is through the door, Ayc turns around to toss Peregrin and Xylie a wave. “See you at the tavern. I’ll get you something from the vendors.”
He lets the door slam shut, far louder than any library should allow. He’s immediately shushed by at least three people, and then more as Tavish and Ayc barely contain their laughter like two teenage boys getting away with something foolish.
Ayc’s stomach is filled with meat pie and fried cheese by the time he and Tavish make their way back to the tavern, both carrying food wrapped in cloth for their companions. The center of town buzzed with crowds of people shopping at the carts and stalls set between the trees. Ayc imagined, as he often does when he comes across such places, what it might be like to have a stall of his own, where he’d spend every morning baking new and extravagant creations. But he shook the thoughts away as quickly as the thoughts came. Such dreams aren’t meant for him.
When Tavish and Ayc enter the tavern, people crowd every table. He spots Peregrin in the corner, their feet on one seat and a cane on the other, saving places. They wear a deep scowl. Xylie isn’t anywhere to be seen, and Ayc suspects she is in one of the rooms on the floor above them. The laughter and talking of the Totus Omni who fill the place shakes the walls, and a feminine-presenting fae is on a makeshift stage in the corner, drunkenly crooning the lyrics to a love ballad. Sitting on a barstool nearby, their clearly-smitten lover, a sweet looking faun, giggles behind their hand and sways their petite hooves. A nearby table of friends cheer for them. It is absolutely adorable .
“I brought you food,” Ayc says to Peregrin as a peace offering, setting one of the bundles before them. “Lamb and sweet potato pie. Your favorite. This other one is for Xylie. What room is she in?”
The scowl on Peregrin’s face doesn’t budge. They move their cane for Tavish to sit but keep their feet on the other remaining chair. “She’s in room 3. If you think I’ve forgotten, you’re greatly mistaken. What’s in your pack?”
Just then, the love ballad ends, and the lovers entangle with each other so hard they tumble off the stage and back into their chairs.
“You know what?” Ayc says, pointing his thumb over his shoulder at the stage. “I think I’m going to sing.”
Ayc ignores the choice words Peregrin heaves at his back as he approaches the stage. Applause breaks out as Ayc jumps over the two steps and lands on the platform. His blood thrums with excitement. A few recorders sit at a thin table at the back of the stage, marked with the titles of songs. He spots a title he recognizes on one shaped like a unicorn. He taps to play it.
The music fills the cramped space, and the crowd begins to cheer. It’s a popular song, played at all the festivals hosted by the Totus Omni. He’s danced to it at several parties. There’s a strong beat, and a traditional dance and clapping that pairs with the rhythm. Several fae jump up to make the motions. Others still sit and beat their goblets and fists on the table, three beats and then two claps.
Ayc lifts the rose-shaped amplifier left on the stage and brings it to his lips to belt the lyrics. Ayc suspects most of the crowd can’t hear him, because they are belting the familiar lyrics, too. Instead, he works the crowd. He dances in a way that he knows he’ll feel in his muscles later, but he’s too engrossed to feel it now. He tilts the amplifier in his hand to one audience member and then another to pick up their voices. The goblets on the tables tremble with the delight of the crowd.
“I’ll be brave enough to fight dragons for you.
I’ll be daring enough to sail seas for you.
I’ll be whatever you need to be,
For you to see me.”
He’s through the first verse and chorus when the door opens, and he misses the next line as Lora enters the tavern. Bronwen is right behind her. Ayc lifts his hand to wave. Lora backs away like she might bolt from the tavern, but Bronwen beams, grabs Lora’s arm, and hauls her into the crowd. Ayc brings the amplifier to his mouth and sings the next lines even louder.
Bronwen abandons Lora in the center of the crowd and flings herself across the room to Tavish, who she pulls from the table to dance with her. Tavish can't see the standard moves to the song, so Bronwen doesn’t even try. Instead, she leads him to twirl and spin her beneath his arm. Lora slowly weaves through the crowd toward the stage, where she stops, her arms crossed over her chest. The wound on her face is now scabbed; the blood has been washed from her face. The furrow in her brow speaks of disapproval, but when he croons a line especially off-key, her lips spasm like they might betray her with a smile.
He works for that smile: acting even more ridiculous, dancing so badly it should be embarrassing. When her smile forms, it’s worth it. She shakes her head at him, but that smile awakens her face, making it glow all the way to her violet eyes that glimmer like the stars on a clear night. Like the tapestry that hangs in his bedroom.
He’s so distracted by her that he doesn’t realize how close he’s come to the edge of stage, until he does a playful leap and tumbles right off. He lands flat on his stomach as the crowd roars the last line of the song.
“And in the end, I learned that
What you really wanted was me.”
As the song and the crowd fades, he hears it. A sound like wind chimes and bird song, the fairest melody he’s ever heard. He tips his head back to look up, certain he’s hallucinating. But Lora is there, laughing.
After all these years, he finally made her laugh.
Victory. It is sweet, sweet victory.
She bites her lip to silence the sound, then reaches down to offer her hand. He takes it and lets her help him to his feet. “By the divine, you are utterly ridiculous.”
“I’ll gladly be ridiculous, if it means I keep getting to hear you laugh.”
Fuck, did he say that out loud?
He must have, because her smile wanes. Her face transforms, and she’s looking at him again, like she did in her grandmother’s house, tracing the lines of his face and then following them down to linger on his lips. The moment is intoxicating. It’s the sweetest of cinnamon rolls and the lightning of her villainy and every melody that has ever made him feel free. His breath shudders from his lungs, because he’s quite certain that this moment will end in him going up in flames.
Good. He wants to burn .
He’s already burning. He’s been burning for so fucking long.
She tugs at his hand, and he takes a step. Millimeters, not miles, separate them now.
“Hi, Ayc," says a different voice. Wren.
Ayc's heart plummets into his stomach. Dammit. Not now.
He longs to seize hold of the moment and refuse to let it go, but Lora whips away from him. The absence of her touch scalds.
He represses the urge to bare his teeth at Wren and works his expression into a smile instead. Wren wears her cloak clasped down the front, covering her all the way to her ankles. She carries two goblets and a bottle of wine. Her hair is free of her braid, spilling around her shoulders in ringlets. She’s certainly not dressed like she’s looking for a fight. Ayc searches the room, but Sterling and the rest of the Five aren't here.
“Hello to you too, Lora,” Wren says.
Lora fixes her with a glare that could have peeled the skin off a lesser person. She says nothing in return.
“Ayc, can we talk in private?” Wren asks.
“Sure,” Ayc says, perhaps too quickly.
Wren nods toward the staircase and steps in that direction. Ayc follows, but Lora snags his sleeve. “Ayc.”
Ayc turns around. He hopes she’s about to say something like Stay with me or I don’t want you to go.
Instead, she lowers her voice and hisses, “Do you not have even a single ounce of sense left in your brainless head? If you would stop thinking with your dick for two seconds, you’d realize that she could kill you the moment you’re alone. ”
Those words are as effective of a slap across his face, a reminder of how Lora truly thinks of him. A foolish ass whose only brain exists between his legs. He pulls away from her, the heat in his skin morphing from desire to anger.
Thanks for the reminder , he almost says. I needed it.
He forces an easy, playful smile. “She’s not a preying mantis. She’s not going to fuck me and then bite off my head. If she was going to, she would have done it on the ship from Bromalis.”
“What?” Lora‘s eyes darken with some emotion that Ayc can’t place. Anger? Jealousy? That dark, monstrous thing that lives deep inside of him hopes it’s jealousy. It is a vengeful, petty thing.
“Fine,” she growls, “do whatever the fuck you want. But we’re taking a ship out of here first thing in the morning. If you’re not here, I’ll leave you behind.”
She storms toward where Bronwen and Tavish stand. Bronwen fixes her eyes on Ayc and shakes her head. But Ayc ignores whatever message she’s trying to send and marches to where Wren waits at the bottom of the stairs
“She really doesn’t like that you’re with me, does she?” Wren asks. She grins, like the fact amuses her.
Ayc shrugs. “Let’s just go.”
“I’m glad I ran into you, Ayc,” Wren murmurs as she leads him up the stairs. “I missed you.”
“Did you?” he muses back, playing the part. When they reach the landing, he says, “Give me a minute. I just want to drop off my pack.”
Room 3 is locked. He knocks. “Xylie, it’s Ayc.”
When Xylie appears at the door, she frowns at the sight of Wren down the hall, but opens the door wide enough for Ayc to slide in. Ayc kicks the door shut behind him, slips off his pack, and hands it to her.
“What are you doing, Ayc?” Xylie says with a sigh, taking the pack and cradling it against his chest. “Neither Lora or Peregrin trust Wren, so I don’t either.”
“Good, neither do I.” Ayc signs the words, in case Wren has wandered too close to the door. “I’m going to try to get information from her. I’ll explain everything later. Don’t say anything to Lora, please.” He wants to be able to explain everything to Lora himself.
Xylie’s hands hover in the air, as though unsure what to say. Finally, she only signs, “ Be careful, all right?”
Ayc nods and steps back into the hallway. Wren unlocks the last door in the hallway, and Ayc follows her inside.
There’s only one bed, made up like no one has slept here. Only one pack sits in the corner, but perhaps, Sterling has rented multiple rooms for their Five and this belongs to Wren alone. Wren sets the wine and goblets down on the stool sitting beside the bed and then unbuckles her cloak. She tosses it on the bed. Beneath, she’s wearing a loose tunic that glides off one shoulder and stops just below her hips.
She really is beautiful. His body remembers the tightness and warmth of being inside her, and he almost desires to give in as she saunters toward him, letting her hips sway with her intentions. He longs to fuck just so he can banish the ache beneath his sternum and extinguish the fire in his blood. Or, at least, damper it back to a simmer. He's an expert at burying pain behind pleasure and sex. Only this time, it’s not the pain of his physical body he desires to hide from.
He won’t, though. Right now, he’s not able to lie to himself. It’s not Wren he wants. Maybe, it never has been. It’s never been anyone else. Every person—every fling, he’s fooled himself into thinking he might be falling for—is just a poor substitute for the person he knows he has no business wanting.
When Wren steps into his space and stands on her toes to kiss him, he presses a finger to her lips. She grins, and he brings himself close, so she’ll feel his words.
“You—” he growls “—are a manipulative, vindictive bitch .”
She reels back. “Excuse me!”
He retreats a few steps and crosses his arms over his chest. “You’re going to have to swallow the truth weed in your mouth. I’m not falling for it this time.”
Fury crackles over her face. He thinks she might deny it, but then she rolls her eyes. “I don’t understand why you’re so angry.”
She returns to the goblets and wine. He watches her carefully as she pours the wine into each goblet—a gold and silver. She shifts to obscure his view of the silver goblet. All the while, she talks. “You don’t seem to understand that this is a game. You could have chosen to give me information willingly, but you proved to me the night before the Trials that you weren’t going to do that.”
The night before the Trials? That was the night she showed up in his kitchen and told him she wanted him. It was a game, even then. Maybe it was before that, on the very first night. She certainly came with questions about Yris and the Trials. Ayc has been nothing more than a pawn in Wren’s game this entire time. It shouldn’t hurt, but it does. All the things she whispered in his ear, the way she laid against his chest, the way she made him hope that he could be something important to someone—it was all just pretty lies.
Wren turns with a goblet in each of her hands. “You know I gave you plenty of chances to make a choice. Me or Loraphne? You profess to hating her, and yet, you always chose her.”
She sips from the gold goblet, licks the wine off her lips, and then offers him the silver one. Does she truly think him unintelligent enough to fall for that? He ignores the silver goblet and pries the gold from her fingertips. She frowns but lets it go.
“If I hadn’t chosen Lora, she’d be dead right now,” Ayc says. “You gave me midnight, thinking I wouldn't recognize it, let alone know what it could do. You lied to me.”
“I didn’t lie,” Wren corrects, setting the goblet back on the nightstand untouched, confirming his suspicion that she was trying to poison him. “I couldn’t. I’d ingested truth weed, too, after all. Technically, it would have weakened her, before it killed her.”
Her words are cold and unfeeling, as vicious as Yris. Ayc thought he knew a lot about who the villains were in his life’s story. He so adamantly kept Lora in her role of villain while he easily cast Wren to be something good. As it turns out, he’s just a terrible judge of character.
“And I would have had to live with the guilt of her death forever,” Ayc says. “And you didn’t give a fuck.”
“Don’t act so perfect. It’s not like you’ve never lied to me. Do you think I didn’t recognize that it was Loraphne’s tapestry on your bedroom wall?”
Ayc nearly drops the goblet.
“It must have cost you a fortune,” she sneers. “Yris can’t pay you that well. How many months of wages did you pay just to have a piece of Loraphne?”
An entire year’s worth.
That was what it cost him.
How many festivals did he wander over to Lora’s booth to stare at that tapestry, transfixed by it? It was like he could see a piece of Lora—something beautiful and good, sunlight gleaming off the iron blade that she is. Ayc suspects now that Hellevi refused to sell it to anyone else after noticing his admiration, even though he told her the first time he saw it that he’d never be able to afford it. Fair after fair, the tapestry remained. In the end, he scrounged up enough to offer half of what the tapestry was worth. Its destiny was to be hung in some wealthy merchant’s home, but it hangs in his broom closet of a room.
At least now, Ayc knows that the money went to a valiant cause. Whose freedom did he buy?
“Tell me,” Wren taunts. “Were you thinking about Loraphne while you were fucking me ?” He doesn’t answer, and Wren laughs cruelly. “You’re so desperately in love with her. It’s pathetic .”
I’m not, Ayc wants to say, but the words hover in his throat, choking him. It’s like he’s swallowed down truth weed, after all.
I hate her has only ever been a poor coping skill to protect him from the truth he’s too cowardly to face. The truth that will destroy him. Love is the type of pain that magic and tonics can’t touch. He will shatter for her, one of these days. It is only a matter of time.
He gulps down a few mouthfuls of wine, craving the numbness he knows it’ll provide.
“Do you know what I really don’t understand, Wren?” he says, pointedly changing the subject to why he actually came here. “Is why you would work with Marcellus?”
Again, he expects her to deny it. She only glares at him, a silent admittance.
“You told him we were going to Somnia Ignis. And you told him about Tavish and Xylie, because I was foolish enough to trust you.”
Wren shrugs. “The enemy of my enemy, Ayc.”
It’s the confirmation that he needed. Wren gave every bit of information she gathered from Ayc to Marcellus. And it was all Ayc’s fault. He betrayed Lora. He has to walk out of this room and admit that to her and hope she doesn’t wring his neck the way he deserves. Or worse, expel him from her Five.
“And you really think Marcellus is better than Lora?” Ayc demands. “He would make it so that your sibling cannot exist as themselves.”
“I have a plan.”
“I hope for the sake of all of Everadyn that you do, because if you help him win, I swear I’ll make you pay for it.” Red flashes before his vision, fueled by the rage erupting through his veins. He closes his eyes just as quickly, and the room tilts and sways. He stumbles to the side and flings his eyes open.
What the fuck was that?
His head steadies as he focuses on Wren. She’s grinning at him. Not the reaction he wanted from his threat.
Fear trails up his spine like a ghostly touch. He needs to leave this room. Now. “I hope you drink that other goblet and get a taste of your own poison,” he snarls, taking a step past her. The room tilts again, and he careens sideways, crashing into the wall. The goblet tumbles from his hand, wine splashing across the floor.
She faces him, still smiling. “I didn’t poison the goblet of wine, Ayc. I poisoned the bottle . I've built up tolerance to my own methods. A taste can’t hurt me.”
Fuck! Fuck!
Ayc sprints toward the door, but he only makes it a step before Wren seizes his leathers and heaves him backward. He timbers like a tree, landing hard on the floor. The ceiling above him spins.
Wren sighs and mutters, “I wish it hadn’t come to this.”
And then everything goes black.