Chapter 25
SAPHIRA
It was a relief when the strange sucking sensation of the waygate I had stepped into outside the lower city of Evergreen Castle released me and I emerged in a busy square in the heart of the underground fae town near Whistler.
My hand instinctively went to the dagger sheathed at my hip as Sylvan stepped up beside me and the curious gazes of close to thirty people milling around the wooden stalls lining the square swung my way.
“I assure you, Saphira, no one here is a threat to you,” Sylvan drawled and I knew he would be smiling that viper’s smile if I looked at him.
As it was, his tone reeked of amusement.
“I’ve never been to a fae town. I don’t know if these people are or are not a threat to me… so excuse me for being a little twitchy.” I kept my hand on my dagger and pulled down a fortifying breath.
He chuckled and shifted on my senses. He must have gestured to the dozen men he had insisted we brought with us.
I thought about the one person we had left behind.
I had wanted Danica to come with us, but Sylvan had refused, stymying my attempt to get her away from the Summer Court. I had hoped I could perhaps accidentally lose her in this place and she could find her way home.
At least he had let me do one thing—ditch the ridiculous dresses the court expected to see me in and wear my training outfit instead.
When I had made that request, he had been all for it.
His reason for being open to me dressing in the teal trousers, riding boots and cream blouse?
Something about the freedom of movement it would give me combined with how it might help me blend in.
Which led me to believe this place was not as safe as he was making it out to be.
The fact he had settled on bringing a dozen guards with us, including one of his commanders, only strengthened that feeling that I was in danger here.
“Are they really necessary?” I glanced back at the stony-faced males in their turquoise tunics. “Because they don’t stand out at all.”
I did my best to sound sarcastic so he would get the message.
He arched a golden brow at the men and then me. “I assure you, they are necessary. It would not do to let the heir of the Summer Court travel with only one male as protection, even if that male is me.”
I wanted to mutter something about how confident he was in his abilities or prowess as a warrior, but bit down on my tongue instead.
I should be as confident as he was. My training was coming along nicely, even if I still struggled with solar magic.
I could hold my invisibility for several minutes now, and I had been able to teleport a short distance several times.
Meiryn had assured me it was fine progress, and that my magic would come in time as my confidence grew.
I wasn’t sure I had time for that to happen.
But then I hadn’t seen Lorien in the last two days, which was both a relief and a worry.
He was never present at breakfast, and he hadn’t come to dinner either.
The only time I had seen him was the morning after he had tried to kill me, when he had watched me leave with Meiryn for my first training session.
Maybe he was dead.
Oh, if I could only be so lucky.
“Is Lorien unwell? I haven’t seen him for some time.” I kept my tone casual and light, and not at all like someone who was hoping the person they were talking to would announce he was dead.
Sylvan’s tone was matter of fact as he said, “Lorien has been busy training with the commanders.”
Great. He had seen me making myself stronger and had decided to do the same. That was just what I needed.
“My scouts have already visited several of the witches, and many of the females pointed them in the direction of the same three witches.”
“Thank you. That’s really helpful.” My tone was bright and warm, the epitome of grateful, even as some part of me muttered that it was helpful, if he wasn’t lying and really had narrowed down the search to a few witches rather than picking three he knew would be dead ends.
Or three he had paid to lie to me.
Gods, I had trust issues.
At this rate, I wouldn’t believe any of them, even if they were speaking the truth.
I flexed my fingers around the grip of my dagger as I surveyed the square and the pretty grey stone buildings that surrounded it, and tamped down my nerves.
Along with my hope.
I might not find the answers I wanted here. The witch might be long gone. I might never find out how I had come to be the daughter of a fae king.
Sylvan’s steady azure gaze drifted down to my hand, narrowing subtly as he watched my fingers curling and unfurling as I breathed and repeated my mantra.
“If you are afraid, we could investigate without you,” Sylvan said and for once there was no malice or amusement in his tone.
He sounded genuinely concerned.
I released my dagger and shook out my hands. “I’m fine. Just getting my hopes down.”
“This is important to you.”
I shot him a look that called him stupid.
“Of course it is. You’ve only just realised that?
I can’t just accept what you’ve told me as fact.
My father… the man who raised me… he loved me.
My mother loved me. Not once was I made to feel I was different.
Not once did I feel they weren’t my real parents.
Then my bastard fated one kills them and I’ve lost my whole world…
and a heartbeat later along you come telling me my father…
my dad… wasn’t my dad and I’m some secret heir to a kingdom. Of course this is important to me.”
He calmly raised his hands and dipped his head. “Understood.”
“I’ve been through hell and back these last few months, so excuse me if I’m a little riled, and a lot twitchy.
” I hadn’t realised how being around so many people, having so many staring at me as they passed as if I was some spectacle, would set me on edge.
My wolf was right at the surface, itching with a need to run, and it was a struggle to deny it.
I wouldn’t run away. Not from this. I might not like what I might find out today, but I wasn’t going to run from it.
That resolve that flowed through me to bolster my courage didn’t stop my words from coming out short and snappish. “Can we get on with this now?”
Sylvan nodded and the guards closed rank with me, and maybe they were partly responsible for how on edge I felt.
Something about this place had me worked up.
Had my wolf side restless.
I wanted to take in the town as we moved through it, heading left from the square, under an old metal archway that marked the start of the witches’ district, but my mind was a riot of thoughts and fears, and my wolf side kept pushing, whatever instinct had gone haywire refusing to come to heel.
I glanced up at the dried herbs and flowers someone had threaded through the peeling white painted metal sign as we passed beneath it. They were old, but I still picked up the scent of lavender and bergamot, and rosemary.
The acrid tang of other things joined those warmer scents as we reached the main thoroughfare.
Several people bumped me before I could stop, pushing through the crowded avenue, and Sylvan stretched his arm out in front of my chest, acting as a barricade. Two guards closed in on my other side, shielding me.
“It was not this busy before,” Sylvan muttered as he towered over the crowd, eyeing them all with disgust written plainly across his handsome face. “We should find another way through.”
I nodded in agreement.
And my wolf side growled.
My eyes widened as I realised I had let that growl slip, the look Sylvan was giving me making me want to shrink away and apologise. Instead, I owned it.
“My wolf instincts went crazy from the moment we stepped out of that teleport. It’s probably just the crowd and being stared at.
I don’t like feeling like a spectacle. It sort of…
It takes me back to the cage.” I didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t even want to think about it, and Sylvan looked as if he knew that.
He just nodded and ushered me back the way we had come, away from the main street with the jewel-toned canopies that reached out from the small houses packed into it on both sides.
My wolf settled as we gained some distance from it, which was really annoying because I wanted to see it.
I wanted to be slipping through that crowd, nosing at the goods on sale in the stores that spilled out onto the street beneath those canopies.
I wanted to really experience my first visit to a fae town.
I settled for taking in the market in the square instead, and my stomach was the one that growled when I smelled the delicious aroma of roasted meats.
I groaned and pressed a hand to it as Sylvan marched me past several stalls selling soft white rolls filled with that meat, and a whole pig that was roasting on a spit.
“Are you unwell?” he said close to my ear.
“No. Just hungry.” I pointed to the roasting pig and then myself. “Meat. Wolf. Nature’s oldest combo. I’ve been kept on a heavily vegetable based diet for the past few weeks and it’s wreaking havoc on me. Maybe this is why my wolf side is so restless. I just want to shove my face in it all.”
“I have noted your desire that we add more meat to the dining table.” He tugged on my arm, shattering my hope that he might let me grab a quick bite.
Kaeleron would have let me.
He would have sat there on that raised walkway in the corner near the food stalls and smiled at me with amusement brightening his silver eyes while I devoured everything on offer.
I frowned as my wolf side settled, calming enough that I didn’t want to claw my clothes off and shift.