Chapter 5
KAELERON
Wind drove rain and sea spray into my eyes, stinging them as I stalked along the rugged, exposed strip of coastline.
Waves crashed against the rocks to my left, battering them before spraying high into the air to be caught by the gale.
The grass beneath my boots had been flattened by the storm, every blade bent into submission as it ravaged the coastline of my court.
Lightning struck the mountain at my back, echoing around the range as if seeking an escape from me.
My cold gaze remained fixed on the tower spearing the sky before me, a jagged shard of onyx that would have most in this world walking in the other direction. But not me. My prize was housed in that tower, and I wanted to play with it.
Another great wave lurched into the sky, a wall of water that tried to crash over me. It struck the shadows that swirled to meet it, forming a barrier it could not pass, not even to drag me down to a watery grave as it wished.
When my left boot met the grass, the sodden earth beneath it cracked, and I clenched my fists and drew down a breath, attempting to pull back enough control over my mood that I did not end up falling into a crevasse.
Ahead of me, beyond the tower, a small vessel limped towards the safety of the harbour, the males upon it shouting to each other as they fought the wind, struggling to retain control over the sails as they hauled them up, stowing them to decrease their speed.
Two Shadow Court ships had been damaged attempting to reach the docks, one badly enough that it had sunk in the bay.
My sister had let me know exactly what she thought about that.
I lifted a hand to clear my soaked hair from my eyes as the wind struck me again, so fierce that I staggered a step to my right before I managed to brace myself against it.
Just as she had regularly let me know exactly what she thought about this weather and the cause of it.
I was trying.
I was trying to control my mood, but it was impossible.
Exhaustion rode me, a relentless beast that had my temper short and my control slipping. I heaved a breath and it misted before me for a heartbeat before the wind erased it. I swiped at my eyes again, a half-hearted attempt to keep my vision clear.
I needed sleep.
But how could I sleep?
I could not. Not while Saphira was in the hands of my enemy. Not while she was beyond the sphere of my protection. Not while I did not know whether the seelie had spoken true about her. I could not sleep. I could not function without her.
She was constantly on my mind. Ever present, together with my fear that I would lose her.
Lightning struck the cliff before me, spraying chunks of stone and earth into the sea, filling the air with the strange scent of the power it contained together with that of the earth.
I wiped a hand down my face.
I had taken a sleeping draught at my sister’s insistence, but sleep had refused to come, as if it feared me as my court did, and now it was even harder to control my emotions.
And my court was paying for it.
The storm had grown worse in the last hour, raging and wild, battering the town and the castle. I did not have the heart to stop it.
Let it storm. Let it rage.
Let it be the embodiment of my pain.
My anguish.
I craved the violence of it. The raw fury of it. The power of it that flowed through me, rousing my shadows to make them restless. They snapped and lashed at everything in my path, and I grinned as they did so, revelling in the darkness that surged through me, that whispered temptation in my ear.
Words about the alpha wolf.
About his wretched soul that now belonged to me.
I needed an outlet for this fury burning within me, for this rage I could not quell, and this storm that unleashed around me, terrorising my court.
And that was what I was walking towards.
The tower of the royal necromancers loomed in the rain-mist, beckoning all that was dark, that was unholy in me.
Tan’ith had told me to go away yesterday when I had brought Lucas’s corpse to him, the lich finding the nerve to stand up to me and ignore all the threats I had thrown at him as my mood had blackened.
Even my threat to have him removed from his position unless we proceeded immediately with questioning the alpha wolf had gone ignored.
The lich had merely responded to that by reminding me that preparing a soul for questioning required time and was a delicate process, one that could be easily pushed off course by rogue magic or restless shadows. One that might fail if interfered with in such a manner.
Remaining had meant risking losing Lucas’s soul, and failing to keep that promise I had made to Saphira—that the wolf would suffer for eternity for the things he had done to her—and so I had forced myself to leave. To rest. To regain my strength and my sanity.
It had not worked.
So I had gone to the Forgotten Wastes, to the tower of bone that ancient lich we had fought to retrieve An’sidwain had called home, and I had stolen every book and artefact it contained, every bottle and jar of questionable ingredients, because if I was to keep my promise, I needed a way to ensure Lucas’s soul remained in my possession.
My royal necromancers were skilled, and powerful, but the longest they had managed to hold a soul was a lunar cycle.
The ancient lich had controlled piles of bleached bones as his army, meaning he had known how to tether a soul to this plane for a long time, long enough that if I could do the same with Lucas’s soul, I would be satisfied.
Tan’ith had almost bitten my head off when I had returned, but when he had seen the books, trinkets, and vile things I had brought to him, he had been most welcoming.
And had assured me that two of his liches would immediately begin searching through the hoard to find a method of keeping Lucas’s soul trapped here for longer.
Vyr had of course noticed I had been absent, the sudden lack of storm alerting her to the fact I had left the court, and had been ready to berate me about scaring her.
And then she had forced that sleeping draught down my throat, together with several flagons of mead.
I had drifted in watching the fire, trying to find my peace in the flames, brooding over my little wolf’s absence, as morose as she had been at Beltane when drinking the brew.
Great Mother, I missed her.
Craved the scent of her, the feel of her in my arms. Ached to have her smile at me, those blue eyes flashing with fire.
She would be with me again.
In time.
Nothing could keep us apart.
Not even her blood.
I growled as I pushed the worn, salt-stained wooden door of the tower open, the smell of the rain and the disturbed earth not enough to cover the acrid tang of the herbs and liquids used in the work done in this building.
I paused with my hand on the door, thrown back to another time I had been here, what had only been weeks ago but felt like an eternity right now. The time I had brought Saphira here.
I would keep my promise to her.
The ashy black tips of my fingers curled, my onyx inch-long claws digging into the rough wood.
Her fated one would suffer for what he had done to her.
My fangs flashed between my darkened lips as I sneered and stepped into the shelter of the tower, slamming the door behind me, the force of it closing rattling several of the colourful jars that occupied the shelves in the circular room ahead of me.
Warmth curled around me, chasing away the chill of the storm, and I flexed my fingers, gaze darting to the silver ring that encircled one of them, causing a break in the ancient fae that tracked down the underside of my fingers, from the black tips to my palm.
I turned my hand palm downwards, glaring at that ring.
“Show me where she is,” I snarled, voice thick with the command.
The round stone shifted from white to sapphire.
Still beyond my reach.
But I took comfort that she still wore it and willed her to keep hold of it, even if they tried to take it from her, so I could always know where she was.
I stalked into the gloom of the workshop of the necromancers, glaring at the naked male on the slab in the centre of it. Lucas. He wore the pallor of death too well. It had not changed how handsome he was. Too handsome.
You’re stupidly beautiful.
Saphira’s teasing voice echoed in my ears, dancing in my heart, driving back the darkness for a moment as I saw her before me, laughter in her eyes, and a smile on her lips that had claimed all of me.
I had no reason to be jealous of a dead man.
Saphira loved me.
The fenryr curled up on the mat in front of the stone fireplace to my right lazily lifted its head to peer at me, blue eyes flickering as brightly as the azure flames that bathed the room in their warmth.
The hairless wolf-like beast yawned, flashing a mouthful of fangs that would make fast work of me if it wanted to eat me, and settled again, tucking its sleek head on its forepaws as the small spines that rose from its smooth dark skin in places twitched.
Apparently, it was not only Tan’ith who did not view me as a threat.
I stepped deeper into the room, my boots loud on the worn stone floor.
The three liches on the other side of the table continued their work, nimble fingers deftly plucking jars and vials from the shelves that followed the curve of the room, each glass bottle a different colour.
The silver adornments and threads of moss that hung from their antlers glinted in the blue firelight whenever they moved their deer-skull heads, the colour of that fire matching the glow of their eyes.
Tan’ith materialised between me and them, his tattered black robes taking form in the air, thorny vines wrapping around his slender body to hold them in place and rising to form a webbed collar behind his deer-skull head.
Fine silver chains and charms swayed between his antlers, threaded with pale moss, and an unearthly azure glow burned in his dark eye sockets as he angled his head to gaze down at the corpse resting between us.
Bony fingers extended from beneath his robe and stroked a line down the centre of Lucas’s bare chest, stopping above his heart.
The motes of magical light that illuminated the room shifted above me, slowly condensing in a point above the corpse to brightly illuminate it while plunging the rest of the room into shadows that called to me.
They grew restless at my feet, snaking through the cracks between the flagstones and curling up my boots.
I let them wander, savouring the comforting embrace of them.
“Is he ready?” I growled, voice a rumble of thunder that rolled across the clouds outside as lightning struck nearby.
Tan’ith lifted his head to meet my gaze, his finger lingering on the wolf’s chest. “The hold on his soul is fragile. Susceptible. I warn you to be… gentle… my king.”
Gentle.
I was not sure I had ever been gentle.
My heart called me a liar. I had been gentle with Saphira. With my sister. With others in my court at times.
I had never been gentle with an enemy though.
I was not sure it was possible for me to be gentle with this prick of an alpha either.
My black claws flexed at my sides as I glared at the corpse, eager to rip into this male who was responsible for what had happened to Saphira.
My little wolf might be suffering at that wretched court, the fiends sinking their own claws into her, whether to harm her body or poison her mind against me.
I could not bear the former. I could not bear the latter.
The thought of her in danger twisted my insides into something jagged, with thorns as sharp as those on Tan’ith’s robe.
They pricked and pierced my heart—my soul—spilling vile poison into it that darkened my mind, clouding it with images of her at the mercy of the seelie.
Lucas was the reason she was in danger, in a court far beyond the reach of my shadows. Lucas had caused our separation, and Lucas would pay for it. The bastard was responsible for all her pain.
He had rejected her, shattering her soul.
He had murdered her parents, breaking her heart.
He had led the seelie to her, wrenching her from me and thrusting her into danger.
I stepped closer to the slab on which he lay and pressed my hands to it as I leaned over him, snarling down at his face as my black claws scraped over the surface, gouging it.
Tan’ith watched me closely. Cautiously.
I somehow found the strength to push back from the body rather than cleaving it with my claws to rip it to pieces, and pulled down a hard breath to steady myself, expelling it as I straightened.
The lich seemed pleased I was able to control myself, that I did not destroy the result of the work he must have carried out all throughout the night to prepare Lucas’s soul, making it strong enough to withstand what was coming.
We had known each other long enough that I could recognise when he was tired, and Tan’ith looked as exhausted as I felt.
I appreciated his hard work.
The long hours he had toiled over Lucas’s soul.
But I was too impatient to tell the lich that.
“Begin.” The coldness of my voice echoed that hollow within me, that void that bled darkness and demanded I unleash my rage on this world.
I aimed it at the wolf instead.