Chapter 16
Everly
The next several days passed in a strange delicate balance. Not calm—never calm—but quiet, in that brittle, strained way a frozen lake goes still just before it splits beneath your feet.
From what little I could see from the tower, and reports from Wynnie and Mirelda, the palace appeared steady enough.
Courtiers resumed their measured routines.
Servants moved through the halls with practiced composure.
The kingdom wore its serenity like armor, pretending it had not come terrifyingly close to shattering.
But the reports still kept coming. More attacks along the borders.
Shapes moving just beyond the wards at night…
close enough to feel, never close enough to strike.
Patrols spoke of eyes glinting between the trees, of tracks that vanished at the wardline as if whatever made them knew exactly how far it could go.
I felt it too, an awareness prickling at the back of my mind. Monsters circling. Waiting. Testing the edges of the wards like wolves pacing a firelit camp.
Whether or not they admitted it, everyone within the palace walls seemed to feel it. The tightening of the air as if we were collectively holding our breath, bracing for whatever horror chose to step forward next.
Another Elderborne? A coordinated assault of Tharnoks and Brakhounds and Wretches? The Shard Mother herself arriving with tea and our final damnation?
At this point, anything seemed possible.
So we tried to occupy ourselves, to at least change the things within reach while we waited for Draven’s messages to reach his spies in the Wilds, for the runners or the phoenixes to reach the Archmage.
For Nevara to wake up.
Every day we visited her in the infirmary, watching Soren sit at her side in uncharacteristic silence while the inky venom staining her nails and hair crept slowly, slowly upward. Amias said we still had plenty of options, but it didn’t feel that way.
It felt like just another way the Court was crumbling, but we had no choice other than to wait.
So while Draven oversaw the wards and rebuilding of the palace walls, largely from his study, I buried myself in research.
I sifted through treatises on mana theory, ancient texts on Unseelie lore, reread the book on dragons half a dozen times, and searched for anything I could find about the Elderborne that might randomly decide to reawaken to terrorize us more than the other monsters already were.
I even convinced Draven to bring me to the Hall of Stars, to feel the unique combination of the Shard Mother’s own power, the ley lines, and the palace itself that came together to ward out access to the only hope we had of ending the frostbeasts’ reign of terror.
No amount of mana could pierce through it.
So I researched that too, only to come up against a solid wall.
The only people who might be capable of breaking through the complex warding were the Sirens, who never ventured this far from the waterfront, and the Elders in the Thornhart Herds, who lived and died on their refusal to interfere in the affairs of the other courts and dominions.
All my efforts would have been tedious and frustrating under the best of circumstances, but it was far worse under the constant threat of my mana imploding.
There was no reason for it, no external factor, no time interval I could track.
Sometimes I could keep the two sides of myself from attacking each other through sheer force of my will for minutes or hours at a time.
Even then, it was usually only after Draven had siphoned a great deal of the mana from me, something that wore on him more each day.
Still, those times were rare. Mostly, the internal war my mana was waging on itself spilled over in increasingly dangerous ways no matter how tightly I tried to hold the reins.
My body felt too small to contain the power warring inside it.
I’d learned the warning signs, for all the good that had done me.
The prickle down my spine, the tightening beneath my ribs, the vibration under my skin.
But recognizing them did little to soften the impact when the surges inevitably arrived.
Draven’s concern grew with each passing day, as did the inescapable feeling that I was more of a burden now than ever before.
That feeling came to a head when word reached us about escalating monster attacks. The phoenixes came one after another at breakfast, each bearing news of frostbeasts and the wreckage they were leaving behind.
Draven crumpled the last letter in his fist, eyes going distant.
“You need to go,” I told him, ignoring the way Wynnie went deadly still at my words.
It was less of a question than a statement, but he shook his head.
“I’ll send Eryx out with a team and relocate some of the patrols nearby.” Even he didn’t sound confident in that plan.
The patrols had skilled warriors on them, but not for monsters on the scale the letters were reporting on.
“That won’t be enough,” I went ahead and stated the obvious, setting my tea mug down to prepare for the inevitable battle ahead.
He sat forward in his seat, eyebrows rising like he had heard my thought. “There is no decision to be made here. I cannot leave you, and you cannot go.”
Wynnie’s gaze flicked between us like she was following a sporting match, but she didn’t comment. Yet. Even if I could see the physical strain of staying silent in the deliberate way she chewed her frostberry scone.
“That isn’t just your decision,” I pushed back, but Wynnie finally lost her battle with holding her tongue.
Or abandoned it, rather, swallowing her mouthful of buttery scone in one bite and holding out her hand in protest.
“Evy, there’s bravery and then there’s common sense. It isn’t only you who would be in danger if you lost control of your mana,” she reminded me.
I bit back a curse, knowing she wasn’t wrong. If I lost control while Draven was fighting, we would both die. Draven, to his credit, did not emanate any smugness, just the same unyielding resolution he always had.
Still…
“We can’t just leave the villagers to be… slaughtered,” I stopped just short of saying eaten, but a shadow crossed my sister’s features all the same.
She clenched her fists around her mug of tea, drawing in a steadying breath. “It won’t be any better for them if we take out their only hope of getting rid of the beasts one day,” she said quietly.
“And I had no intention of leaving them to die,” Draven added, a hint of offense edging his sardonic tone.
“The estates already have warnings. They know the frostbeasts are hunting during the day now. They’ve been instructed to raise their walls and take in any villagers willing to seek refuge.
Others have been offered sanctuary here. ”
My eyes widened. Had he always planned to offer them safety, or had the idea only taken root after I’d done the same once before while he was still out fighting monsters?
He nodded, as if reading the question on my face. It was a small consolation. One quiet thing I’d managed to do right.
I wondered, then, if my father had received the warning as well. If it had reached him at all, or if it had been swallowed up with the others—lost among the unanswered letters my sister had sent, each one vanishing into silence. Should we try again? Or would that letter disappear too?
This wasn’t a solution. We all knew that.
But it was better than nothing. Marginally.
Now I needed to focus on what the hells we were up against.
On my mana. On whatever other ancient horrors might be stirring. On untangling every strand of this shards-forsaken mess before it finished unraveling us all.
The constant strain of keeping my mana at bay was so exhausting that the endless words and pictures blurred together in all the books I was trying to research, but I couldn’t stop trying.
Most days, I fell asleep with a book in my hand.
Days passed with the same routine—breakfast with Wynnie, visiting Nevara, burying myself in books, all around unpredictable bursts of mana.
Wynnie spent her afternoons overseeing the villagers who arrived since I still wasn’t risking the Court seeing my accidental mana, and, as she put it, she “had five years of experience running an estate before it got eaten.”
She reached out to her dead husband’s family and anyone who might know where my father was. Notably, his many favored whorehouses.
He had been a high ranking soldier before he retired after the death of Wynnie’s mother, but I doubted he was sober enough to use those skills most days.
It shouldn’t have mattered. I barely knew the male, aside from a few scattered drunken conversations over the years, and those provided nothing of note. But still… he was my father, and Wynnie’s, too. We had to at least try.
I, of course, was still unable to leave my rooms, so I spent most of my time researching—studying the palace tomes and comparing them to my compendium with an endless frenzy that bordered on mania.
All of it was putting me on edge, driving me to the brink of a stir-crazy meltdown. There was a time I had become accustomed to being isolated, alone with my books, but that person felt so far removed from who I was now.
Just when I’d forced a very restless Batty outside to fly and was seriously considering bringing the palace walls down on purpose rather than in another burst of unruly mana, Draven ice-walked us to a secluded valley tucked between two sheer cliffs
“Where are we?” I asked, taking in the unfamiliar surroundings.
“You need to try releasing your mana with some degree of intentionality. See if you can burn off the excess.”
I raised my eyebrows curiously. “Is that what you had to do?”
Draven had more power than any fae in known history. Had he been forced to burn it off to protect himself, too? The thought made me feel a little less alone, a little less hopeless.
Until he shook his head. “No. I was always able to channel it.”