Chapter 37
Breathless.
We were breathless.
In the bedlam of the storm, icy raindrops scraped my skin. Air billowed from our bending lips and into the frigid night, but all I felt was unguarded warmth. It radiated from both my blood and Alistair’s arms that fought to keep me close. But I had no intentions of leaving. I couldn’t. That was the violent nature of dark waters—once fallen beneath the surface, lost in the abyss, there was no escape.
Something began to pound at the crown of my head, wrath simmering into my mind. I curled myself deeper into Alistair, his protective arms around me, lips wet between mine. But—
No man could hold back a god.
A low note grated along my skull.
It ached. I winced. Alistair misinterpreted my recoil and tilted his head back.
The magical thread of light had dissipated from his eyes, leaving the wash of black. There was no tightness around his gaze, no tension locking his jaw or furrowing his brows. Hairs were ever-messy, wet strands sticking to his face. Eyes trading between my own, he studied me carefully. No intentions, no scrutinizing—simply, memorizing.
He stole another kiss, ripe at the threshold of my lips.
I lifted my hand, wiping the strands from his brow. One corner of his lips tugged.
My blood was burning with this deep ache, far beyond my control.
But another ache, the one scraping the arch of my skull, seethed without relent. I thought the God of Deception might have bored a hole in my head. He collided into me, violent and fuming.
Davina Torrance! Deceit vibrated the fabrics of my being in one mighty roar.
I clenched my jaw, trying to hide my unease.
What of you still bears sense, you damn fool! The god sounded like gargling shards of iron. You fall prey to the plagues of this age! What will become of you when I cannot save you?
I did not speak. Deceit’s anger grew.
Sharp talons, those five whetted spikes, stabbed into my mind. My vision bent. My hearing was ruptured. Slowly, menacingly, Deceit twisted each nail.
Without me, you are nothing, he raved. Another lost soul, destined for Oldurem. What we have accomplished through the years will be for nothing! The gods’ loathing for us will only rise!
At Deceit’s cries, I was pulled into my mind.
Us? I asked.
Deceit gnashed his teeth. Tore out his claws. As quickly as he came, he left.
I unlocked my fists and loosened my jaw. If Alistair noticed my unrest, he didn’t say anything of it, only ran his hand up my neck and held my chin. He bestowed one last kiss and guided us towards the estate.
“I don’t want to go back,” I said down the path of laurel trees.
“Is my house truly so unpleasant to you?” Though he spoke in utmost seriousness, I was beginning to learn this was merely his mask. Ever austere, ever stoic.
“Quite horrid, my lord.” I mirrored his severe tone and raised my gaze high above me, where the raven sigil whisked off the rains.
“Your home is simply too small.”
“Oh?” He loosed a low laugh.
“And where is it you wish to be? It is only the castle that overshadows my house.”
I hiked my pitch.
“That is not true. I know of another place.”
“There is none.”
“Indeed, there are many,” I said, feeling his eyes on me.
“The mountains, the pastures, the lakes, the skies.”
“So you wish to see the lands of Andrael?” He asked with genuine interest.
“Perhaps one day, when my duties are no longer needed. Though it is not Andrael I wish to venture. I have heard many wonders of the elvish lands.”
“Man does not visit Caelithien. In fact, such desires are unlawful in this age.”
I found his hard stare and thin lips. Reading deeper, I determined—“You’re being facetious.” In his own, rigid manner.
He equipped a smirk, showing just enough teeth to tell me I read him correctly.
“I’ve seen books about the elves in your library,” I continued, rain skipping at my feet.
“I’ve heard their waters glow in the night, and the mountains sing. Stars glimmer like a thousand jewels. I’ve also heard elves can create strings of light and weave them into their clothes.”
Something solemn swept across Alistair’s face—unless I was misreading him.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Did I offend?”
He shook his head with a shy grin.
“I only can’t imagine it. We’ve lived in the dark for so long. I hardly remember the light.”
“I remember.” Standing beneath the nightfall and clouds, I thought of the sunshine rising over the castle walls. How the stones would nearly burn my palms at the touch. I’d run in the hills outside the city, roll in the soft grass, and count the valley’s sheep. Beneath the sun, faint freckles would dot my skin. Evandor was there, lost in the foggiest edge of memories. I had nearly forgotten he counted the sheep with me.
“I remember the warmth.” The words drifted in a note of bliss.
“And you wish for lighter days,” he said somewhere between a question and a statement.
I dared mark in confidence.
“Just as you wish for the light.”
Near the end of the path, Alistair curled his arm around my waist and brought me to him in one, effortless pull. Our bodies met, and both his arms wrapped around the small of my back. He gave me a look—one that made me believe he’d kiss me all over again, but it slipped away.
Alistair stroked the damp hair off my shoulders.
“The lords of this age are not to wish for the light, Miss Fallen.” Burdens.
“We are servants to the Shadows beneath the rule of the king.”
“Well then, my lord, I will not tell the king of your misdeeds.”
Alistair’s lips tugged at the corners. He leaned forward, his hands cupping my waist, and he slid his wet lips between mine. They were soft, bending to the curve of my mouth. He flexed his kiss with a gentle suck and relaxed. I savored the taste. Tongue gliding along my lower lip, he traced it patiently—tenderly—and pulled back, our lips dividing.
Subtly tensing his arm, he pressed himself harder against me and ran his rough thumb on the same path of my lips that his tongue had.
His smile matched mine.
“Rhoswen,” he whispered with attention drifting between my eyes and lips.
“Before we go back, I need to know—why did you take potions to change your appearance? Twice, you searched my belongings as Freya, and I don’t understand. What did you hope to find?”
He believes I take potions.
The God of Deception might have been amused, but he was not with me.
“Why is… complicated, to say the least. Many rumors have arisen in the land of retaliation against the crown. Even lords. I have been blind before, serving those who seek the fall of the king, and I needed to know with certainty where your allegiance lies.” I then asked.
“How did you know that it was me and not Freya?”
He gave a low breath.
“When you are honest with me, I will be honest with you.”
“You do not believe me?”
“Rhoswen,” he hushed.
“Can I trust you?”
There was a difference between honesty and trust here—I knew there was.
“Of course,” I said and meant it. Truly meant it.
“Then I will trust that, one day, you will be honest with me.”
I traded his trust with mine.
“And one day, you will tell me the magic you keep.”
He nodded a heavy head.
“All truths are revealed in time.”
So soon, the conversation died. Words locked up, secrets nowhere near our tongues, but I did trust him. I trusted he truly wished for lighter days, and that, one day, he would tell me the secrets buried. One day, I hoped to do the same.
A familiar groan sounded beside us—the front door hinges.
Alistair and I looked at our sides, and gilded armor nearly blinded me, reflecting each flick of flames from the estate. Two soldiers stepped beneath the doorway. Rain rattled against the gold. A discord of commotion bellowed, but it was stifled beneath the storm.
Behind the king’s soldiers, Prince Knox stepped outside. With pride and broad shoulders, he strutted down the aisle of trees as though it were a velvet aisle at his feet, not stones. His golden hair diminished beneath the cloudy sky. The Matron of Shadows slipped beside him, eerie smile intact. I could not see the rain mark her black robes, glossy in nature. Or, perhaps, this matron was a tempest on her own.
The commotion expanded.
Alistair and I stepped from the main path, clearing a way with bowed heads.
Constantine’s neck twisted. Above her high, defined cheekbones, her haunting gaze drifted over her surroundings—seemingly absently—until she found me. She then glanced at Alistair, and her ruby lips twisted. My skin crawled. The matron deviated from her path and joined us at the edge.
“Miss Fallen.” Constantine bowed her head, her iron hair remaining still. It met me like mockery—someone of her station, of her practice, to bow to me. She craned her thin neck. “My lord.”
Alistair bowed in the fringe of my sight.
Another band of soldiers exited the estate.
“You’re leaving?” I asked. Chills raked my skin again, seeing a Shadow move in her eyes.
“Yes, dearest,” she purred, charmed and strange.
“Into the wood of my children’s children, we must away.”
“Your children’s children?” I did not yearn to ask, but with this Shadow clawing at my back, I needed to know.
“I believe many know the children of Shadows as corpses. Man born from the dark.”
When Constantine’s voice died, her song began to emerge from nothing and fill the void in my mind. She prowled within. Navigated. And there was no god to herd her away. It sounded as though she pressed a piano key and stayed, the note knowing no end.
You know much of the corpses, the matron spoke in my mind. You have seen the children of my children. That day in the wood, the Shadow protected you upon their hallowed ground in the dark. She glanced at my side, where the corpse had stabbed me. And Lord Alistair finished the Shadow’s work, saving you.
I trembled in the dark—the place where only the god should be. Warily, I uttered within, Leave my mind.
Her smile was rich in beauty and darkness.
“Lord Alistair, Miss Fallen,” she voiced.
“We are to see each other soon. King Paden’s roots suffocate the gods, and together, we will see their Chosen fall to the guillotine.” Her all-seeing eyes honed in upon me. In me. “It will be a celebratory night.”
“Until such day, matron.” Alistair affixed his lordly timbre and offered another bow.
Constantine curtsied slowly enough that I thought she might have warped time. She arose, eyes upon me, and left for Knox’s side. Carriages rallied, horses kicked, and gold and burgundy whisked with the carriage tapestries.
Evandor walked from the estate and into the night, throwing glares. Another thick plume of guards followed. Commotion erupted past the estate’s entrance. Neil shot out of the doorway, something shattering at his back.
“Release my daughter at once,” he cried.
“Get back,” a gilded soldier’s voice clanked against his visor, marching towards the carriages.
Neil wailed his fists.
“Unhand her!”
What is happening? I asked within myself, only to remember the god had left me.
“Father, please,” a small voice sobbed from within the mass of gold.
I stepped from Alistair, wincing in the rain, trying to draw out clarity. Evandor had begun to near us, Alistair’s hand grazed my wrist, but I left both men without acknowledgement. As I neared, Maisie came into view. She was trapped behind the soldiers like a prison of golden bars. Face pale-struck, tears flowed down her cheeks. Both her arms were clasped by gauntlets.
Neil yelled, hurling himself at the king’s men.
“You cannot take her. I will not let you take her!”
The soldier uttered.
“I said get back.” He whisked Neil off like a pesky rodent.
Fear and guilt filled any hollow place in my stomach.
“Maisie?” I breathed, nearly leaping to her, but I couldn’t—not with my father’s men surrounding her.
“Maisie, what is happening?” I asked, trying to find her between the slats.
No words formed on her tongue.
It struck me like a scream—how she could see Shadows and sense their presence. The nightmares she’d endured, watching through the eyes of the Shadows themselves.
Neil was going to take her away from here. He was going to ask Alistair for leave and never return. But—
It was too late.
“They’re taking you?” The question quivered out of me.
Maisie answered by way of pain in her eyes. The tears that fell.
“You cannot have her!” Neil threw himself against the barricade of men.
Constantine wove through the soldiers, stringing her arm around Maisie.
“There is nothing to fear, child,” she hummed.
“My children await your seeing eyes.”
“No.” I squirmed, trying to squeeze through a slat.
“This is her home, Matron. You can’t take her.”
The matron’s eyes scraped to me.
“Dearest, Rhoswen, you will see her soon. Beneath the bloodmoon.”
Her words lit a fire in me.
Without thought, I reached through the soldiers and clenched Maisie’s sleeve. Maisie squeezed my hand, and I tried to pry her away.
“Don’t let them take me. I-I can’t endure their eyes, Rhoswen. I can’t.”
The agony of her voice, the weakness of it.
I primed to pull Maisie out. Muscles flexing, soldiers shouting at me, rain hammering, Maisie crying, Neil screaming—everything suddenly fell silent. Cold. Constantine’s finger barely touched my hand, and the Shadow plunged into me and bound my bones. Not by my will, my hand unwound, my fingers unlocked. The Shadow dragged me away.
“Maisie will be a wonder.” The matron’s voice was slick in my ears. Haunting, ethereal.
I curdled the air in my lungs and blew it to Constantine. Her face contorted in rage, nostrils aflare.
I breathed in again to speak a spell of deception.
“Constantine—"
“Do not breathe the breath of your master,” she snapped. The Shadows in her eyes violently lashed.
“Lest it be your last breath.”
Gods, she knew… She knew who I served.
Constantine raised her hand, stroking the air, motioning for me to leave. Her enchantment, her damn Shadow, forced me to step back. I fought with all I was, but I couldn’t overcome the dark magic in me.
A soldier reinforced distance, bashing his forearm against my chest. I lost some air and all my balance, toppling backwards. Before I met the ground, steady hands broke my fall.
“Sands, Rhoswen, are you trying to get yourself hurt?”
With a guiding shove, Evandor set me back on my feet.
I whipped my hair in a flurry and marked my brother.
“Have your men release Maisie. They cannot take her.” My cry to the crown went unanswered. Evandor’s face softened from the cunning fox he often was. I demanded again.
“Make them release her.”
“Evandor.” Alistair came to my side.
“Is there anything you can do?”
Evandor threw another glare at Knox, Constantine, and the soldiers. He looked at Maisie, and each distinction of anger unraveled with an expression I could not quite place.
“The Shadows have spoken. Constantine has decided,” he said with rounded shoulders.
“Maisie will join the matron at my father’s castle. My hands are tied. There is nothing I can do.”
“You are the prince. There must be something you can do. Anything.”
“I am sorry, Rhoswen. Constantine’s demands are above us.”
“But…” My words trailed off to extinction.
Maisie was good, she was pure, and she was being dragged off to the most foul, corrupt place in all of Andrael—the place I was forced to live in the dark. Halls where men wreak sin and conspirators prey on the weak. It was no place for someone of virtue.
Evandor set his hand on my shoulder.
“You will see her again when we gather at the castle. I will be sure of it.”
Every muscle in my face tensed as I beheld the greens in his eyes.
“That is not enough, Your Highness.”
I ripped away from the prince, closing the distance to Maisie.
Neil threw his fists at the soldiers like a madman. Each grunt from Neil, each bash of fist, each splatter of rain—Maisie’s cries broke through them all. Desperate cries. And I was desperate to be beside her. To steal her away. Let her live out her dreams in lands apart from Shadows.
A soldier angled to Neil, dying light catching his death stare.
“I fucking told you to step back.” The man lifted his fist.
“Neil!” I shouted through the loud batter of iron to skull.
Neil fell to the ground, Maisie screamed, and she reached for him as the soldiers urged her into the carriage.
In the mud, I fell beside Neil, searching his face for life.
His words came crumbling.
“They have taken her. I… I could not save her.”
“She will come back to us. She must.” I swiped away the hairs stuck to the blood on his forehead and helped him to rise to his knees—he couldn’t make it any further.
We watched Maisie through the carriage’s window, rain pelting the glass.
Constantine’s fingers curled around her shoulder.
My skin began to burn. I thought of another, but… I-I couldn’t. Not here. Not with soldiers, two princes, a matron, a lord, and his entire estate surrounding me. I let the thought fall from me.
“Father!” The cry chased from behind. Footsteps neared.
“What has happened?” Catriona looked near and far, and then her eyes rested upon the carriage before us.
“Maisie? Where is she going?”
“Can you not see?” Neil roared in fresh anger, saliva flying from his mouth.
“They are taking your sister. They are taking her from us!”
“Who is taking her?”
“The damn crown!”
If Evandor heard Neil’s desecration of the Torrance reign, he did not speak of it. We traded each other looks, my brother and I, as he walked to his carriage. My face hardened into a glare, like steel in the hands of a blacksmith. In this moment, despite the weight of Evandor’s name, he did nothing.
For a man endowed as most wise, I was sorely disappointed.
The prince’s eyes did not shed pity upon me, though they appeared near to. Lips bowed downward, Evandor fell into the dark of the carriage. Fell into the dark to search for the Amulet of Light so he might reap further destruction in this age.
This was my brother, this was the crown I denied, this was the blood I resented.
The storm did not relent.
Royal carriages had left moments ago, leaving tracks in the mud where Neil and I knelt. He cried this night. I could not see his face, but I heard every sob take root in his heart and fall from his lips. His shoulders rose and fell with his choking breath.
My own tears had come and left, the night leaving me near dry.
A hand set on my shoulder. Alistair knelt beside me.
“Come, Rhoswen.” His request met me softly, and he handed me his jacket.
I accepted, taking it from his outstretched arm and setting it upon Neil’s shoulders. Neil did not stir as I left, comatose in the mud. Catriona rested her head upon her father’s shoulder, whispering words I could not hear with tears of her own.
Alistair drew me close with an arm around my shoulder, and we walked to the estate.
The fire was but embers in the hearth.
Feet scurried against the gold-inset tiles, servants clearing out emptied wine glasses and crumb covered plates. I tiptoed past a shattered vase at the doorway, mindful of the young servant plucking shards from the ground.
Lucien was there, brooding in the corner, his glare jagged and sharp upon me.
I kept walking. An unlatched door swung at my touch, exaggerating my strength in a frantic swing. There were no hearths in the room, only dim candlelight. I wanted to blow out the candles and be in the dark. Escape in the dark, just for a moment. A moment of quiet, though I knew the quiet would never come—not without a god to silence my thoughts.
The door swung again. Alistair entered. I yanked out a chair from the table and sat down.
“Do you need anything from me?”
I shook my head.
“I will bring you tea.”
“No,” I said with temper.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re shivering.” His hand stroked the back of my neck, and he twisted my hair in his hands. Wrung out the ice waters. He left for a nearby hutch and came back with a large, black cloak. He set it over my shoulders, and I clenched the front, securing it around my frigid self. Alistair pulled out a chair, sat across from me, and looked at my anger-creased eyes.
“You did not try to save her,” I grumbled, tightening the wool around me.
If he was irritated or frustrated by my tone, he did not show it.
“There was nothing I could do.” My glare deepened, and he continued.
“There is nothing the crown could do either.”
“No one outranks the king.”
“No, but King Paden asserted that Constantine’s words are law. Being the Mother of Shadows, she wears a crown of her own. The king has made her untouchable. Unquestionable.”
“She is one person standing in a land beneath your reign.”
Alistair sat calm and collected. Austere.
“And as the crown stands above all regions of this realm, the matron stands above me. If I could have done anything, I would have.”
I groaned.
“I should have taken her away from here.”
“What do you mean?” He asked.
“Maisie had told me that she could see the Shadows before the matron ever arrived. Her father never believed her, and Catriona thought Maisie was playing games. I—” I breathed regrets.
“I should have taken her away. None of this would have happened if we had left.”
Alistair shook his head in a gentle manner, a care softening the corners of his eyes.
“There is nothing you could have done. If you had left, Neil would have been right behind you.”
My grin did not touch my eyes.
“But you forget—I live in the shadows. If I did not want to be found, I would not be.”
“What kind of life would that have been for Maisie?”
“It would be a better life than what awaits her at the castle,” I said plainly.
“And how can you be so sure?” He challenged.
“Have you spent time as an advisor at the castle?”
My eyes fell to my lap. “No.”
“Then you do not know what life she will have in Sariem. Constantine is—” Alistair paused, seeming to ponder his wording.
“unusual,” he let out.
“But she is not cruel. She favors Maisie, and Maisie will be safe.”
“You and Evandor are friends?”
“We are.”
“And you trust him?”
“Evandor and I have been friends since Princess Davina’s funeral. After that day, we have trusted each other with our lives.”
The knot in my stomach nearly snapped. Davina scraped deep within, but I tightened the roots. Put mortar on the wall. Gods, I hated how she kept resurfacing. Alistair and Evandor’s trust was built upon a day of lies—the coffin was empty. Davina was rather alive and breathing in Alistair’s study just earlier this night, crying before his mirror with a comfortless god twisting in her mind.
“Tell Evandor to look after Maisie.” There was a plea in my demand.
“I do not trust anyone in that place. Tell him to make sure she is safe.”
“I will,” he promised.
I believed him and settled deeper into the heat of the wool cloak. Tilting my head back, I shut my swollen eyes.
Deceit, I called within myself. Though I was thankful his godly presence did not weigh me down, I yearned for him. He was something familiar. Burdensome, but familiar. Will you not speak to me?
He didn’t. I felt every dark corner of my mind where he often housed.
Hollowness.
The Shadow had come upon me again this night—as Deceit left me abandoned, I did not know what fate had in store for me. Nausea settled in my stomach, and thoughts of Maisie and darkness befell my laden head. If Deceit were here, he’d grab each thought in his bony, leather fingers. He’d silence them. He’d done that a lot through the years, and I never really learned how to silence them myself. I did not care to ruminate on the realities of this life. This Dark Era. The god had told me he wouldn’t let me fall to Shadow, but…
He wasn’t here. My god left me.
Pain and anguish crawled up my throat. It nearly purged from my lips, and—
A sharp scream rattled the walls, splintering the silence.
This night was a plague I was desperate to leave behind.
I threw myself upright with a cold tremor dousing my spine. Alistair already had his hand at the hilt of his blade. We stared at the other for an instant, and in unison, we charged through the estate.
Hallways blurred as shadows scraped in the fringe of my sight. Behind us, feet pounded down the hallways—others chased the scream. Like a string to guide us, we followed the sound that had died, but the cry still lived in my mind.
We ran through the bloodred dining hall and charged into the kitchen.
And there, Lilian knelt on the ground.
Whatever pieces of my heart that still lived immediately rotted.
Alistair and I stood silent, still as carcasses. The air turned to stone, somewhere caught between my lungs and my throat.
Others joined as spectators without words. My gaze was locked, wide and unblinking, until Lucien came behind the rest with a distinct, prideful march. I looked at him, and, once he saw the aftermath of what happened, all pride fell from him.
His lips hung open like a dead man’s.
I wanted to make him a dead man.
Lilian cried, words slurred and broken. I could only pull together fragments.
“I told him not to,” she sobbed, holding her son in her arms.
“I told Ewan not to touch them.”
Upon the floor, Ewan lay. Beside his limp hand, there was an iron box.
An iron box with blue petals.
The Crown
And with mankind, there came the gold.
The jewels, the splendor, the riches in hordes.
The throne of the gods was marked in distain,
So mankind made his own, his fist at the reins.
We all then bowed with knees dripping red.
From his pedestal on high, for the king, we bled.
Without heart, without mercy, he took us as sacrifice.
Bringing the Shadows closer, our lives were the price.
Hallowed be thy crown, the gold never to rust.
And to the Shadow’s beauty, we bow, we trust.
Let the darkness consume all that we’ve known.
For in the end there are only two promises—
The darkness and the throne.