Chapter 35
KAELERON
The lush green grass gave way under my booted feet as I left the dirt road near the outskirts of the village I had avoided, brushing my calves as I adjusted the leather satchel on my shoulder and kept my head down, concealed by the hood of my heavy brown cloak.
My senses tracked every movement behind me as I picked up a narrow path that led towards the verdant forest hugging the side of a hill, ensuring no one followed me.
Jenavyr had not been pleased about my decision to enter the Summer Court via boat from the Winter Court, but Neve had braved leaving the safety of her home for the first time since taking my brand and had told everyone of the vision she had shared with me just an hour before that had shaken Falkyr and propelled me into leaving immediately.
That I needed to be here for Saphira’s sake.
If I did not reach her now, Saphira would die.
My sister had instantly stepped aside, no longer willing to block my path, but she had brought up the accord again, as if she felt compelled to keep mentioning it and could not let me leave without mentioning it one more time for good measure.
I had not dared to tell her that it was in my possession. She would be livid if she learned I had stolen it together with the agreement between myself and Elduin, and the letters that had been in his lockbox.
Every night when I rested, I studied that accord, and every time I failed to find something in it that would keep me safe if I were discovered.
It would not stop me trying. There had to be a way for me to be here without breaking the accord.
The only thing I had discovered was that there was nothing in the language that tied it specifically to me.
While this accord had been struck when I had been leading incursions into the Summer Court and had been written into our law to prevent me from doing so again without facing the wrath of my high king, it treated all courts the same.
I could be from any court on the unseelie side of Lucia and would still face the same long journey, my ability to teleport limited and the waygates unresponsive to me.
The tall grass brushing my tan trousers became sparse and then gave way entirely to leaf litter and patches of flowers as I strode deeper into the forest, the tension that had knotted my insides the moment I had been forced to leave the cover of the trees to cross open land and pass a village loosening as I breathed a little easier.
No one had so much as glanced twice at me so far.
To their eyes, I appeared to be a traveller, dressed as the commoners of this court often did, in earth toned cheap fabrics that were sturdy but irritatingly itchy too.
In case any of them looked too closely at me, I had cast a glamour upon myself, the most powerful one I could manage in this land, altering the colour of my eyes to blue and my hair to blond.
I hated it, but it was necessary if I was going to reach Saphira without being caught.
When I was out of sight, I teleported as far as I could, which was to say not very far at all, but it did not stop me. Most of my journey had been carried out on foot, but I teleported whenever I could risk it, all while conserving my strength in case I needed to fight.
It made the going far too slow for my liking.
I wanted to be with Saphira now.
I crested the hill and surveyed the lands that stretched around me beneath the bright turquoise sky, charting every rolling field and meadow, and orchard, and the hills that acted as markers to me. I needed to cross another two before I would see Evergreen Castle.
The shade of an old tree that resembled a mortal oak beckoned and I went to it, sitting beneath its broad canopy and resting my back against the thick trunk as I put my satchel down beside me.
I took out the letters I had been reading.
Letters that held my attention more than the accord with its infernal watertight language and the agreement that had revealed that I had been right, and I had asked only for vengeance against the one who had killed my parents and taken my brother.
Not for the Summer Court to bleed.
Which meant the one who was responsible for that dreadful night was still alive.
Still out there for Saphira to carry out my vengeance by ending them.
Which was not good. Another reason I needed to reach her.
I needed to stop her from fulfilling her destiny as seen by Neve.
I needed to convince her to wait until I had figured out a way out of my contract with the high king before she delivered the killing blow to the faceless one responsible for Belkarthen, and I knew it would not be easy.
She had sworn to help me with my vengeance, and I knew how that promise drove her.
Or perhaps it was more than the promise.
She was a healer, and it would be just like my beautiful little wolf to view this vengeance as a way of healing me. Ending my nightmares. Ceasing my pain. Freeing me from the chains that bound me to the weight of my past.
I opened the letter I had read before, the first one that had offered up something interesting.
It revealed that Elduin was seeking someone with Nightmare Court powers, and I suspected that person was Oberon since my friend had mentioned that Elduin watched him too.
Another document, this one a report from someone, mentioned that a boy escaped confinement by sowing discord.
There was no mention of where this boy was being held or a date, but the parchment had been yellowed by time and it seemed old.
Was it speaking of Oberon too? He possessed Nightmare Court powers.
If it was Oberon, who had been holding him? The high king?
I reached the letters I had not read yet, and settled back into the tree, forcing myself to rest for a while.
The letters were the excuse my frantic mind and heart needed to not keep walking and wear myself out with teleporting so I could reach Saphira sooner.
I would reach her just as quickly if I gave myself the time to recover my strength before I continued, because I would be able to walk more quickly.
Vyr had told me to take the elkyn, but his kind were not of this side of Lucia and he would have stood out to anyone who had seen him, drawing too many curious glances my way.
She had then offered her horse, but I had refused that too. She loved the beast dearly and I could not guarantee it would make it back to the Shadow Court.
It was safer for me to move through the Summer Court as if I were just a commoner, someone travelling on foot. The highborn of this court did not look twice at commoners.
The first letter was nothing of interest. The second mentioned the boy again and was smeared with what appeared to be dried blood, as if whoever had written it or delivered it had been killed.
I felt it might be the messenger’s blood when I read the contents, because it was a report that they had lost track of the boy and his whereabouts remained unknown.
Whoever the boy had been, he had certainly given Elduin the runaround.
I felt even more certain that it was Oberon now.
He did love his mischief, and taunting Elduin seemed to rank quite highly on the list of things he liked to do given he had shown up at the high king’s ball uninvited, knowing the male would want to meet Saphira.
I was sure that was the reason he had danced with her.
He had not done it purely to cheer her up.
He had had another agenda, one that had made him take advantage of the chance he had been given.
He had known Saphira was stubborn, liable to speak her mind when her back was against the wall, and he had sown the seeds of her confrontation with the king with expert precision.
Her revelation of his presence at the ball had been beautifully planned and flawlessly carried out.
I might have admired it if not for the fact it had been Saphira he had been manipulating and placing in danger.
I moved the letters I had read to the bottom of the pile and placed them back into my satchel, and rose to my feet, slinging it over my shoulder as I walked down the hill and teleported to a glade I could see.
The light began to fade as I walked and teleported, covering the distance to the next hill and then beyond it.
It had taken three days of travel, but as I crested the last hill, Evergreen Castle towered before me, beyond a sea of trees and the twinkling broad river that bordered it.
The bone-white towers speared the deep blue sky, the lights of the castle and the city that encircled it casting a warm glow over them.
I followed a trail down into the woods, heading towards my right, to the west side of the river where tributaries cut through the trees.
Golden motes danced in the air around me as I passed between the trees, the scent of their blooms hanging heavily in the air.
I would make camp somewhere in this forest, and from here I would scout the castle and try to find Saphira.
I teleported across the main river, deeper into the heart of the forest, and leaped over the crystalline streams that fractured it, letting the earth steeped in magic guide me towards a point where I would be able to rest and restore what I had used getting here.
The natural ley lines of this realm offered a chance to forge a connection to Lucia even here.
She did not care that I was unseelie. She only cared that I was born of her blood.
The Great Mother never denied one of her children access to her power, not even when they trod the earth of their enemy.
The motes illuminated the path for me, thickest where the ley line ran, and I could feel it beneath my boots and in my bones.
It led me into the heart of this ancient forest, where the blooms faintly glowed with magic, fed by the flow of it through this land.
I lifted my hand and grazed it over the seven-petalled flowers that were slowly opening on one of the trees.
I was here on time.
I leaped over another stream, heading towards the southern edge of the forest, aware of the castle beyond it. The temptation to head straight there was strong. It had taken me so long to reach here—to reach her.
But I was here now, and I needed to see her.
“Patience. Your wolf will come to you.” The feminine voice swirled around me as soft as moonlight.
I was smoke before she could move on my senses, appearing behind her with my dagger drawn and at her throat.
She was powerful.
I could sense it in her, feel it beating against me, but she did not fight me.
Her words were whisper soft as she said, “Patience is required, dear King of Wrath and Shadow.”
My fingers flexed around the grip of my dagger as I lifted it, forcing her head up. “How do you know me?”
She raised her hands to the flowers filling the trees above our heads, and light flickered there, threads of it that swirled and wove together to form a silver wolf and an onyx elkyn.
“I have met your little wolf.”
Her words had the blade I held against her throat lowering as they rang in my ears.
She turned towards me, her pale eyes glowing with azure flame as she revealed her identity to me with a broad grin and a handful of words.
“And I have seen your future.”