Chapter 34
“Please, Vera, calm down,” I begged, palms pressing down on my bed. “I-I—”
“I can’t be calm, Rhoswen!” Vera exclaimed, stealing one of my gowns from the wardrobe. She threw it upon the bed, the skirt like a flag in a raid. The skirt hid her for a moment. At the other side, Vera was covered in lines of unbreakable tension—eyes tight, nostrils aflare, and neck veins near bursting.
“Our brothers and sisters are trapped in the king’s prisons, I don’t know where Taison is, the guild was destroyed, and I am as useless here as I was in Sariem.”
“No, you’re not, Vera. You’re not useless.”
I took back the gown, but Vera snagged it from my hand, twisted the fabric into a tight ball, and crammed it into my travel bag.
“Rhoswen, I can’t stay here,” she said with downturned lips.
“Not as our people are spread throughout the realm. I need to be with them. I need to be a part of the gods’ work.”
“But you’re here with me. Is that not enough?”
I reached for her, but she recoiled her hand, not making my eyes.
“It was,” she said.
“When I thought you had aims to kill the lord. But, this—what you’re doing—I can’t stand around waiting for you to justify his life. I know you are not a killer. You’ve always leaned on other guildmembers to end the lords, but—” Vera bit her lip, finding me through glassy eyes.
“Sands, Rhoswen, we have no one else. It’s only you and me, and you… You aren’t capable of what you need to be capable of.”
“I learned Lucien is supplying the poison. That he killed Eadric, and—”
“I have told you, information is not enough. If you’re not willing to lift a blade, we can’t finish the work of the gods.”
“Vera, please.” I reached for her again, faster, taking her hand before she could pull back.
“Don’t leave. I need you.”
She shook her head, a tear stringing down her cheek.
“And I need to hold onto my faith. The gods chose me as a means to end the Dark Era, but so long as I’m here, I am useless.”
“But where would you go?”
“To find Taison—someone who can stand beside me against the darkness of this age.”
“Not him,” I begged again, my heart in knots.
“Please, don’t go to him.”
Vera’s lips strained, brows knit, fists locked.
“Is he so much worse than your lord?”
“Vera—”
“You have been here before, Rhoswen. Remember Percival?”
“This is different, it—”
She threw up her hands.
“You’re right, it is different. That Calhourn was not marked by Shadow. Alistair, however—” Vera gave a disgusted noise, stole another gown, and plunged it into the bag.
“You worry about the company I keep: Taison—a Bloodletter, chosen by, not one, but two gods. Meanwhile, you’re being held in the arms of one with cursed blood. One of the very men damning Andrael into eternal darkness. What will be left of your heart when the sun no longer rises? When the Shadow that has marked you stakes claim in your blood?”
Deceit and I tensed in unison.
“That will not happen.”
I will not let it, the god voiced.
“Rhoswen, come with me,” Vera pleaded with doleful eyes.
“We’ll find others. We’ll find people who can help you.”
“I…” My troubles boiled in my stomach and came out in a groan.
There was no one out there who could help me. Even the god in my mind was without. The only one I thought might be able to help me was the lord of this house.
Vera’s lips lopsided.
“You won’t leave,” she said, words caught between a question and a statement.
“I can’t. Not yet. The elves took Cindermoor, an advisor is poisoning others, and there is so much talk of the Amulet of Light.” My words nearly came faster than my mind could construct.
“Evandor believes the elves will come further into Andrael—this could become a haven for elves and god servers. I—Gods, Vera, I can’t leave. Not yet. Not while there are still so many questions without answers.”
She sat upon the bed, staring at her feet, tears cradling her juniper eyes.
“You never really needed me, did you?” She sniffled, crinkling the soft, freckled bud of her nose.
“But you loved being the one I need.”
“Vera, no, that isn’t true,” I said, my own tears imminent.
“I do need you.”
I fell to my knees before her, forcing her to look at me. To see me.
Her smile suffered grief. I hated seeing her like this—this raw emotion was not of fire. This was a fire nearly snuffed out. A path of waters fell down her round cheeks and puddled upon my lap. I wanted to wipe each one away, but I didn’t. I don’t think she wanted me to.
“When Gwendolyne told us you’d come here alone, my heart broke,” she said with a cracking, tight throat.
“But, you didn’t seem to care.”
“I did care.” I cried my words, my gown wetted by both our tears.
“I was so tired, Vera, but I did care. We have always stood together. Braved houses together. We are sisters.”
Vera, she…
She shook her head.
All air died in my lungs. The tears hid, unwilling to come to light, and my entire being stung with bitter heartache. Vera was my sister. She was all I had.
Standing to her feet, Vera began to buckle the travel bag. She stifled whatever emotions stirred and spoke in a controlled voice.
“When I kissed Lucien, I saw the roots of the crown. King Paden’s emblem. In its roots was a roll of parchment wrapped in crimson ribbon. A fire burned the ribbon, and the parchment unrolled. Raven was written, but it burned away and revealed Brine.”
I rose to my feet and stood beside her.
“When the ribbon turned to ash,” she continued, fidgeting with the travel bag’s final buckle.
“There was a golden ring around the parchment that melted away.”
“But, what does it mean?” I ask.
“What does this have to do with me?”
A tenderness broke through Vera’s anguish. She played with the ends of my hair, her ruby lips puckered in a pout.
“Rhoswen, Lucien believes you are in the way of him taking the estate. Yes, he could kill the lord, but one option requires a less obvious misdeed.”
“What is it, Vera?”
Vera’s shoulders slouched with a loose breath.
“Killing you.”
“But…” My words fell from my tongue because I was beginning to understand.
“Alistair annulled the courtship with Lucien’s daughter when you arrived.”
“And if I were dead,” I said.
“Lucien believes Alistair might still marry Freya.”
“Then, Lucien would inherit the estate. His blood would bleed into its foundation without him having to kill the lord.” Vera gave me that look of pleading, for me to heed her desires. To leave.
“If you do not fear death by the lord’s hand, think of Lucien’s. The blade in his mind was sharp. He was not afraid to kill, and he will come after you.”
“Vera, I can’t leave yet, and I need you with me. We will take down Lucien together.”
She breathed in to counter, but I was quick to persist—
“Let me try to convince you,” I said in my final attempt. The readied bag was upon my bed, and the sight of it made me sick.
“There are still so many questions. I’m not sure how to find the answers yet, but Alistair keeps a journal. It has information about the Andraelian houses and the Amulet of Light. If I could find this, if it could prove useful, will you stay? Will you help me?”
“And when we know what there is to know, Rhoswen, can you put a blade to his neck?” I did not answer, and she showed no surprise.
“Right,” she muttered and whisked her hand at me.
“Go find it. If nothing else, we—you and me—can take it to the other guildmembers. Perhaps use the information to help us.”
“So you won’t leave?”
“Not yet, Rhoswen, but—” Lips surrendering a frown, her eyes remained woeful.
“Don’t think I’ll stay.”
This sliver of hope—however small, however brittle—I held onto it.
I took her hand in mine.
“Vera Loyvn, you are my sister. Until death and in the afterlife of the Everlaides. You will always be my sister.”
She fought the tears, bit down on her lips, and gave the weakest, smallest nod.
For me, it was enough.
…
The god devoured the space in the dark within, laden upon me. His eyes scraped behind mine. Each step through the estate was another raucous tap, his whetted nails burrowing into my mind on repeat. His horns scraped beneath the hairs on my scalp. His tail coiled around my spine.
Child, we are far past parchment and ink in this time of the war, he said, not holding back the disgust in his tone. The guild has fallen, and the people are scattered. You cannot expect a journal to be man’s downfall. Deceit twisted his spine, causing me to stumble a step down the hall—gods, he was heavy. Force Lucien to drink the poison. End this tonight.
I could not tell if the god’s company was a blessing or a curse this night. With my vow to the gods, I knew I should be content, but I wasn’t. Deceit’s ancient breath swayed the rows of my veins and poured out my nostrils, and it only made me distraught.
I cradled my head and tried to massage the headache this god was inflicting.
You’ve seen Alistair’s journal. My voice echoed in a babel. It could help us.
Who is ‘us’, darling?
I continued threading through the estate, my footfall silent and my thoughts insufferably strident. I could barely keep my mind straight as I considered the lord, the prince, the amulet, the Shadow, the god, and Vera. It did not help that Deceit lingered more heavily than lead upon my shoulders.
But my plan was simple—exit the estate through the kitchen’s outlet, sneak into Alistair’s study in the secondary building, take his journal, and learn more of the houses and where the Amulet of Light was hiding.
Be wary of the amulet. The god snatched my thoughts as he always did.
I called back, Earlier, you tensed when hearing Alistair and Evandor speak of it. What do you know? You said a god is playing games.
All truths are revealed in time.
I struck him with a chord of anger, prodding for more, Where did the amulet come from?
A dreadful day. A light was torn, fragmented, into starved pieces. His timbre was sickening, reverberating in my skull to the edge of nausea. But the greatest of these fell from our eyes, unknown, we cannot find. Only a shard of the purity is what lies. This light is one of many, but it was not intended to be possessed by man.
But—
Hush, Deceit grated. Look ahead, child.
Andrael had fallen into night. Torches simmered at the hall’s corner, though the passageway was barely touched by light. I squinted to find Lucien stepping beneath a doorframe. He fought a yawn and held his head. Pain was written on his face—as though someone had been digging through his mind.
The tail of his jacket whipped around the corner, and he fell from sight.
Just as I had in Tharen Crest, I followed Lucien with the god’s talons curled at the cusp of my sight. Hinges creaked around the corner, so I hid at the corner’s edge. Voices seethed.
Lucien’s throat strained his words.
“You and I need to talk.”
“I am growing rather weary of your voice.”
“Do not blame me for your qualms, daughter,” he gnashed.
“It is not I who has tarnished your future. It is not I who has torn the contract.”
Freya clapped.
“Enough of the contract. I do not care anymore!”
Lucien did not acknowledge Freya’s annoyance. The darkness of man was at play in his words.
“Alistair would continue the courtship if—”
“Father, that is enough.” Freya’s whisper did not stifle her behest. Heels stabbed against the ground. The door locked with a loud clack.
“Lord Alistair annulled the contract. It is done.”
“So you would give in? You would lie down on the bed of defeat while I try to secure your lineage?”
“Oh, please, Father, you do not care for my lineage. You only care for your claim to this estate.”
Something hammered against the wall. My shoulders tensed.
Lucien nearly cried.
“Of course I care for the estate! Lord Eadric promised it to me. Do you not understand what this would mean for you? Security, protection, and children of birthright to continue my work. It is for our lineage, Freya!”
Marching again, the heels speared at the floorboards.
“Your work of hiring mercenaries and tarnishing good names? Any children I bear will never concern themselves with the heinous acts you will.”
“I do not tarnish good names, because there are no good names in this age. Do not forget this. Even your name is corrupt, my daughter, your virtue lost. You should be grateful for the sweat I have poured, the hours I have labored, the men I have consorted with. These heinous acts are for the betterment of this family!”
Calmly, sternly, Freya said.
“This is your battle, Father. Not mine.”
Lucien’s throat tensed through his bitter promise.
“I will not give in. Not now.”
“Do not trouble me with your schemes. I will have no part in your plans. Please, leave me.”
I slipped beyond the corner before the hinges hinted at a door opening. Mere seconds later, the door was slammed shut. As I charted the estate, Lucien and his daughter became but molded memories for Deceit to pluck and twist.
Well, I began. Would you argue that Lucien is to fall first?
What distractions you might find, justified or no, do not alter what must be done.
I tried to swat him away, but Deceit was too heavy, too willful.
Remember why I chose you, child. Remember the wrath of your father, the wrath of Shadows, and remember their plans to unleash perpetual darkness into this realm. Perpetual death. And remember the child that bled in the roses. She is owed vengeance.
I swung the dining hall door open. A gust instantly idled in the dead air.
The dining hall had been abandoned.
It was eerie, the vacant void of this room, caressed by dying candlelight that splashed like blood against the crimson tapestries. Emptied armors lining the wall looked like they were dancing their final dance, their shadows faded and meek.
Like a shadow of myself, I walked through the kitchen and into the night.
Storm clouds loomed overhead, denser in the distance.
Taste of the storm tossed my hair, tangled and wind struck, and the laurel wood cracked and moaned between spells of unnerving silence. I stood upon the blades of grass, blackened in nightfall, surrounded by all-consuming shadows that stretched beyond what my eyes could see.
I approached Alistair’s private study, ignoring the stone fountain and praying the final remnants of my blood would be washed from the path during the storm.
Beside the snarls of wind, a screech shot my gaze high. Looming at the edge of great heights, a crow perched with black feathers slick from the rain. Its talons curled around the shingles, and the head cocked towards me, its empty eyes riveted by me alone.
Cautious on the path, I reached for the front door’s handle, though it did not twist. I then made for the thistles and thickets, navigating in the dark with my hands ahead of my head, searching for an inlet.
No light or shadows danced through the windows’ murk. At one of the larger windows, I pinched the sill and jerked up, but it did not budge. I tried another, smaller—locked. Then another, and again. With all the information and contracts stored inside, and with the Potion of Disguise somewhere out in the realm, I could not blame Alistair for his caution.
But, dammit, I needed those secrets. For Vera. To keep her with me.
At the edge of the hill, beside the vale leading towards the seas, I resumed my search. My gown was suffering a hundred thorns. My feet scratched against brambles, and my hairs were wetted in the trickle of rain. I meddled with anything that looked like a potential opening in this dim, moonless night.
Then, a windowsill creaked. Old grime split along the edges.
I had found it—the outlier, the redeemer, my savior in glass armor. Only, this window stood no taller or wider than a five-year-old child.
I thought of another.
Molding myself into Ewan, I attempted to squeeze into the window, but he was too large, his shoulders hitting the edges. I tried one last time, stifling my groans and heaving breaths, but I failed to wiggle my way into the window. My skin snapped.
I had another idea, feeble and rich with fears. Dread.
Deceit’s cackle was hot oil in my ears.
I sighed.
It was a haggard sigh, twisting through my heart and scraping at the wall that divided me from Davina. I let a piece of it crumble, winding past the god’s snagging roots.
I reached down, and I dragged out memories of her.
While my skin burned, bones and flesh sculpting, I yearned for peaceful days. Painless. Days where I’d sit with my mother on the castle balcony, weaving florals into a crown, and watching the sunlight skim across the sky—sunset painting beautiful portraits of pastel. Days when the gods looked at man in kindness and Shadows never tormented Andrael. Days when light caught the joy of the people.
But those days had vanished.
Stapling young Princess Davina to my skin, my sleeves grew, and my dress lengthened. Or rather, when my little feet could no longer touch the ground, and two little hands held the windowsill, I knew it was simply that I had become small.
A tear, drawn up from the deepest most loathsome place of myself, crawled up the stairwell of my throat and pierced through my eye. The god laughed. Moonlight finally shone through the rainclouds, as though to shine upon my head and catch my tear in mockery.
Heaving little bones, flexing little muscles, I flung myself upward and crawled through the window. Alistair’s study swept me in and swallowed me whole. I tumbled to the ground. My cheek smacked the floor.
As I raised my gaze, my eyes were immediately pulled to another person in the chamber.
Another little girl.
Her cheek was reddened, and her body was shaking in the dark corner. I nearly wept as I looked at her—the white roses at her feet, the blood on her hands. As I lifted my hand to my face, she did the same. As a tear fell from my eyes, a tear fell from hers as well. I could see it in her gaze—the years of abandonment and betrayal. The pain she endured.
Tap, tap, tap. The god strung out in the little girl’s mind. Do you not see, child, what place I have stolen you from? I have salvaged you from the wreckage and arisen you as a servant.
The girl and I stared at each other for an unwavering moment.
I wished she had seen lighter days and stood beside love, not hatred. I wished I could have been a savior to her. But, as I looked into her little, brown eyes, I knew I had failed.
I took the greatest breath I could with these small lungs, steeling myself before unbinding Deceit’s magic. Unable to endure my reflection, I shut my eyes, and, in an instant, each part of myself snapped and stretched. Bones lengthened, skin sculpted, and Deceit was my potter. As I became a woman again, I only sat there for a second to stare at those same, abandon-ridden eyes.
Deceit smothered my mind, combing my thoughts, twisting the pain in his fingers.
You broke oath with yourself, Rhoswen, he uttered with a risen voice. Years have passed since you swore to yourself that you would never manipulate your skin in such ways.
I swallowed the final tear. I need to find Alistair’s journal. I need Vera to stay. I…
I couldn’t be abandoned again.
Then your self-disobedience is without purpose. She will not stay.
You do not know that, I shouted at the dark as he tapped a chaotic rhythm.
Repulse poured from her eyes, loathing from her lips. I know it well. Your friend sees the truth of man, and she has grown weary of it. She will not stay.
I crossed paths with many things as I walked through Alistair’s study—weapons, tomes, potions, ingredients. My fingers grazed along the couch where he had healed me.
It should have been a harrowing sensation—this place was to be my deathbed.
But, as my fingertips counted the threading, as smells of him caught in the still air, I felt something that was becoming common—an ache, sore and deep, lingering in the places where my blood burned like fire. It was an ache left by thoughts of his eyes. His touch.
Scaly skin ground within a low hiss.
I stuffed my memories and the ache, resuming my search for Alistair’s journal.
Wincing in the dark, trying my best to navigate in sparse moonlight, I came to the table with the pyramid of scrolls. A wave of white light slipped through the window. Searching for a leather cover, I instead found a wax, cerulean seal. The document was addressed to Jarl Thranen of Shalimier, the northeastern stronghold raised up by Vikings of old. Another bore Hollow Spire’s seal.
One document to the next, house upon house, these reports or accounts or contracts were stacked tall, bestowing information of lords throughout the lands.
I found a contract between Percy’s father and the tyrants that bartered elves when my father first enforced the slavery decrees. I held a handwritten letter from the king himself, addressed to Douglas—the lord who took Morrigan’s estate after the family’s death.
But why would Alistair have this? Why would he have any of this?
Gods, the information was here, calling to me. Just like the dark of this age, I wanted to consume. To consume each word. The guild would have given anything to be handed this mound of parchment, as precious as jewels.
I did not know the correlation between documents, but I did know one thing—
Lord Alistair Raven was scheming.
My hands stayed still. One piece of parchment chained my interest.
A wax seal, snapped in two, shimmered in brilliant silver. It was as though the seal itself radiated dazzling light. A dove was imprinted on the stamp with two curling vines framing its wings.
This seal scratched at familiarity, but it belonged to no house I knew.
Upon the parchment, there were no words. Faint etches showed where a dry quill attempted to write, but I noticed nothing legible in the scratches. It was odd to me—this seal displayed far too significant a mark and was stamped upon a parchment of wealthy animal skin, but only for the text to be absent.
The paper fell from my hands.
I carried on, searching for the journal.
I climbed the shelves of a bookcase, wood groaning beneath my feet. Lifting some books at the top, I sucked in a cloud of dust, fought a coughing fit—lost the fight—and fell over, arse to the floor.
Fool. Deceit lay in my mind, flicking his teeth, bored by my pillaging.
I stood, massaged the ache, and continued.
The shelving groaned again, begging me to step down, but I refused. I climbed one shelf higher, holding my breath to not stir old dust. Nothing. From the height, I looked out at the study—bouquets of scrolls, the stacks of parchment, the couch, an empty nightstand, another door with a bed at the other side, and—I gasped. There, on a lone table beside the front door, sat the weathered leather of his journal, stacked beneath other tomes.
I ran to it.
Pages bent, ink splattered, writing frantic—the mess, the madness—this was what made this journal worth stealing.
Will you leave through the window? Deceit jeered.
A tear threatened my eyes. Never again.
Setting the journal between my arm and side, hidden beneath my cloak, I paced the study. To my dismay, all the windows had been permanently barred. Contemplating the child-sized window for a mere second, the tear fell, and I decided to let little Davina rest somewhere in my locked-away memories.
Never again, I affirmed to both myself and the god.
I walked to the front entrance. There was no way to lock the door behind me, but I did not care. Should Alistair wonder, he’d never know it was me. And, I was quite good at lying. Only, somehow, I believed he could tell when I lied. This was a gamble, but I had lived this long through worse circumstances. And, for this day, I only needed to convince Vera to stay.
My heels knocked against the ground as I pulled my hood over my face. Reaching out my hand, I opened the door. My eyes dragged up. Heart buckled. Knees wobbled.
A dark figure towered before me with a key in hand.
Lord Alistair Raven.
The god scorned as I stared into death’s eyes. Your timing is pathetic, Rhoswen.
Alistair reached for his blade.