Chapter 5 #2
Her cousin, Emabelle, linked arms with her. “I swear, you've been distracted since you went for air.” Her voice was light and cheerful. “If I didn’t know better, I’d believe some mystery man got you hooked on him.”
Elariya grinned back at her, though her nerves were visible even in the moonlight. “I’m fine. Just looking around.”
“My Lady, I would urge you to call for me next time you want air,” the guard said gruffly, his thick western accent roughened by the night chill. “There’s always talk of strange folk abroad in these parts.”
“Yes, Borsai. I promise to call for you next time.” Elariya nodded, though her gaze flickered toward the alleyway.
She hesitated for a moment before continuing down the cobbled street with the others.
I followed. Silently. Unseen.
Elariya climbed into the carriage with her cousin and the guard, and the horses carried them away.
I moved swiftly, folding the Obscura around me like a fog of silk, threading myself from one darkened space to the next. Before long, the manor appeared, rising from the mist like a specter.
The intel I’d harvested from the residual echoes lingering within the walls of the manor told me Elariya lived here with her parents, grandmother, and cousin.
Her mother and grandmother were mages from the Ravenwood Realm. She was also engaged to marry a knight from Zyvaris.
Lord Jonathan Grayson, her father, was the Warden of the South. He’d served as an ambassador of realms for King Varis, ruler of the seven mortal kingdoms in Nelkaraad.
Lord Grayson wasn’t around, but I didn’t know why.
His absence had caused conflict with the councilor of Stormfell, who wanted his position.
The only other thing the resonant energy was able to tell me was that Elariya’s mother and grandmother hoped her marriage and moving away would protect her from the wraith.
Fools. They should have known better. They may have lived in the mortal realm for over twenty years, but magical rules hadn’t changed. Moving away had never protected anyone from a tracker wraith. The only thing that could do so was a master releasing the wraith from its task. Which I had.
I didn’t have time to dig deeper into the people around Elariya. And I didn’t care to. All that concerned me was ensuring they wouldn’t be a hindrance.
The carriage stopped, and I lingered between the weathered stone wall and the garden where night-blooming flowers released their heady scent into the cool air.
Elariya and the others got out of the carriage and made their way into the manor.
The gates closed and guards assumed their post to stop threats like me.
A menacing smile curved my lips. They were completely unaware that the threat they sought to repel had already breached their defenses.
“Poor things,” I whispered into the darkness, drifting past them like a ghost in the wind. “It's already too late. I'm here.”
I knew where Elariya’s chambers were, so I made my way there using the shadow of the trees. I waited for her outside on the balcony, surveying my surroundings.
Waiting until she fell asleep was my best option of taking her unnoticed, then I’d use the Obscura to return to the ship and head back to Galaythia.
I’d need to cross the Veil between realms to interrogate her properly. Once I’d done so, I’d know what to do next. Even if that meant heading back to the mortal realm to find the ring.
Through the glass-paned doors, I observed her bedroom. It was a space filled with books and personal treasures that spoke of a life half-lived between two worlds. The lattice of the leaded windows cast fractured patterns across the floor, soft and broken like the remnants of a dream.
I’d only come across a handful of beings like Elariya. Mixed blood wasn’t rare among the magical, but most who wished to live in the human realm had to surrender their magic to do so.
The one thing they all had in common was uncertainty. No one could ever predict what kind of magic a being like her might possess.
Sometimes, they’d take to one form more than the other or they had a perfect blend. But occasionally, the magic could be something no one had seen. And out of control.
Which one would Elariya be?
Her magic being something no one had ever seen, or even out of control, would certainly explain some of the anomalies about her. Though, I should have still been able to detect that power.
She entered moments later, dismissing a maid with gentle words. Alone, her shoulders slumped, and she leaned against the wooden door, the weight of the night pulling her under.
I had no doubt she was thinking of me. Just as I was thinking of her.
With a haggard sigh, she moved to a side door that led to her bathing chamber, disappearing from my view. Moments later, the sound of running water reached my ears despite the barrier between us.
She reemerged sometime later wearing a simple white nightgown that clung to her curves, the thin fabric illuminated by candlelight, revealing the silhouette of her sinful body beneath.
Damn me, at the sight of her, my cock stirred again in my pants and my breath caught in my throat. The longer I watched her, the more I knew my reaction had nothing to do with being celibate for close to a year.
Elariya Grayson was beautiful, and the lore of her body taunted me, unravelling the iron-clad control I normally held over my mind. And my cock.
She moved to the door, right to where I waited on the other side, and pressed a hand against the glass. Her fingers splayed over the latticework, a delicate contrast to the cold, unyielding surface. She gazed out at the forest, as if searching for answers hidden among the ancient trees.
For a moment, there was a shift in her eyes and I thought she might spot me again. She didn’t.
I remained perfectly still, the Obscura hiding my presence so completely, not even the world itself knew I was here.
It was strange to be standing so close to her, mindlessly staring into her rich hazel eyes and doing nothing.
If only I possessed the mind-reading gifts of dragons and others who could tear through mental walls like paper.
I would have given anything to crawl inside her thoughts to see what secrets lived behind her eyes.
She seemed like the kind of human who cared for others, her personality was temperate yet fierce at the same time.
I liked her response to that idiot, James, back at the tavern, although her cousin was more vocal and put him in his place.
Elariya appeared to be so ordinary, like an average young woman, with her family and…love interests. Nothing about her suggested deception or cunning.
But wasn’t that the way of the world? Lies often felt like truth, and truth could easily turn to lies.
Five fucking years I’d been searching for the ring and my father’s killer. I had no doubt that whoever it was would be someone powerful and deceptive.
For all I knew this girl could have been cloaked in innocence to screw with me. Innocence was the best form of manipulation.
Whatever dark forces were working against me may have seen that there were still remnants of my heart. The pieces that clung to goodness in my life before the curse. That was Mother’s fault—the heart thing.
She loved with her heart so fiercely not even death could take it from her.
My heart wouldn’t get in the way here. No matter what little of it was left.
Monsters came in all shapes and forms. Being one myself, I knew that better than anyone, so I’d have no qualms in taking the woman before me.
As if Elariya could sense my ill intentions, she backed away from the window.
Wariness filled her pretty face as she made her way over to her bed and blew out the candle, cloaking the room with darkness and broken streams of moonlight.
She slipped beneath the covers and lay flat on the pillows, her hair sprawled around her in waves of crimson fire.
Her eyes fluttered shut, and I listened to her breathing, to her heart, to her brain trying to quiet her troubled mind.
Restlessness became her, but then, eventually, she drifted into a deep sleep.
Good. It was time to make my move.
I slipped through the door, letting the shadows hollow me just enough to pass through solid wood—one of the many tricks I’d inherited as a Deathwalker. The shadows knew me, molded me, let me pass through solid matter like it wasn’t there at all.
The scent of her filled my senses as I entered. Lavender, wild honey, and something else. Something uniquely her own.
I moved over to her bed and stared down at the sleeping beauty, unaware of what danger lurked in her midst.
Standing over her, I studied the curve of her jaw, the sweep of her lashes against pale cheeks, the soft swells of her breasts, the pulse beating steadily at her throat.
Beautiful. But deadly.
With a flick of my fingers, I cast a basic Galdrlore spell meant to put her into a deeper sleep. But the magic bounced off something unseen, like stones skipping across the surface of a river.
I narrowed my eyes.
What the fuck was this?
I tried again, this time muttering the incantation under my breath to weave in more power.
Same result. Same shimmer. Same goddamn rejection.
Fuck.
I watched the sleeping girl, my gaze sweeping her bed in search of the threads of resistance that might betray a hidden ward.
There it was.
A fucking shield.
Cleverly hidden in the very air around her, woven with elemental wards and psychic barriers, barely visible unless you knew how to look. The threads shimmered softly in the moonlight, like veins of light embedded in the atmosphere.
It was twilight shielding.
Ancient warding magic, used by mages from the Ravenwood Realm to protect their kin during sleep, when the body rests but the soul is exposed.
Sleep. The most vulnerable state a being can enter.
I read the signature laced into the spell and tasted her grandmother’s essence in it.
Fucking mage. She was smart.
Twilight shielding was also subtle enough that it couldn’t be detected in the human realm. That’s why I hadn’t seen it until now.
The barrier wasn’t meant for me specifically, but it worked against me all the same. Because thanks to this fucking curse, I carried the stench of wraiths. And this ward had been designed to keep wraiths out.
The worst part was I could break it. I could shatter it into pieces. But the backlash it would cause with the rip through the magic and the sound of the shattering barrier would draw every guard in this place to her door. And worse, it would alert the sentinels at the Veil between realms.
Fuck. I was the fool. It was naive of me to think that the grandmother wouldn’t find a way to protect her granddaughter.
Damn it.
I couldn’t take her tonight.
She’d have to be awake for me to even try.
I watched the soft rise and fall of her chest, steady as the tide.
I needed another way in. One that didn’t require force.
Perhaps… trust.
It wasn’t just me who felt that pull back at the tavern. Elariya had felt it, too. The tension between us had been as real as the stone walls surrounding us.
She felt it the moment she first looked at me. And even when she knew what I was, she didn’t run. She came after me. That wasn’t solely from curiosity.
I gave her a hard look.
Lust. Attraction. I could work with that.
I couldn’t detect any other shield protecting her, so that opened another door for me to walk through. If I played this right, she might follow me. Willingly.
The shadows embraced me as I returned to them. Then I was gone, slipping back into the night, leaving nothing but the whisper of my promise in my wake.
Until next time, then, mage.
I couldn’t wait.