Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
EVONY
Agreed. March your forces back to Aedrialis, and I’ll sign the papers.
– Correspondence from High Steward Merik to General Calvus.
Evony – Eastern Lumerians, Sultira
“Gork?” I called into the dim opening of a squat, dingy-looking tunnel leading into the bowels of the Lumerian Mountains.
My voice answered back. The sound ricocheted off the stony walls in a pitchy echo.
A chill breeze carrying a damp, loamy scent blew a wet braid across my vision.
I wiped my hand down my face, clearing it from the crisp mountain rain that had arrived.
I set the tightly rolled communication beneath a rock, a fool’s hope, and turned away from the cave.
“Nothing?” Ronan called as he walked his agrippa up the slippery, narrow path we’d traversed.
“Nothing,” I confirmed, crossing my arms.
Ronan’s lips pursed in frustration, and he handed me a deep blue cloak. I wrapped the fabric tightly around my shoulders and flipped the hood over my head.
We’d spent the last two weeks riding south along the edge of the Lumerian Mountain range, where Gork and his little community of creatures had last been seen in search of the Celestyn Bone. All to no avail.
A small host of soldiers had accompanied us, and most of them remained on their mounted agrippa at the head of the trail. Spindly trees dotted the mountainside, their buds pressing through the gray bark. Bright green vegetation crawled over the matted, dead leaves.
“Can you think of anywhere else they would have gone?” Ronan asked, offering me his hand as I stepped carefully over the jagged rocks.
I shook my head with the jerk of my chin, irritated that everyone thought I should know where the godsdamned Celestyn Bone was.
Had I spent months with Gork and the other little creatures?
Yes, but I’d never seen anything resembling a Bellator Bone, and we didn’t even speak the same language.
And though I was pretty sure Gork still couldn’t read my language, I left the note anyway.
Ronan’s shoulders sagged, and a pang of pity tightened my chest. Bags crouched beneath the sapphire eyes of the high steward, and his normally clean face was shadowed with thick stubble.
He gave me a leg up onto the agrippa stallion and led the massive horse down the rickety path and back to our group. I could handle the walk, but I had to admit the slow rock of the agrippa’s gait as he made his way over boulders and downed trees was soothing.
“How did you encounter Gork, anyways?” Ronan asked. He held the agrippa’s reins in one hand as he pulled aside a thick pine branch reaching over the trail.
“There was a cave near our house in Rivaner. My mum’s cave,” I replied, my chest constricting as the title left my lips.
“Dad’s face started showing up on wanted posters shortly after he left for Odessa.
And when Ezrich didn’t come back…” I trailed off as a hollow feeling arrived at the base of my throat, snaking down into my stomach and twisting it as I remembered those lonely days.
Ronan looked over his shoulder. His brows were pinched, and I forced the feeling away.
“I began making my way further into the mountains when I heard the kingsguards coming,” I continued, raising my brows at the ex-queensguard. I hadn’t forgotten his deception, and the day he came for Lyvia at our cottage. The day the tribute came for Rivaner. The day Mum died.
His face tightened, and he stopped walking. The agrippa’s rocky gait came to a halt as the rain softened to a drizzle.
“There are things I would have done differently,” he said after a moment.
I frowned as I watched him, waiting. He ran a hand through his hair, the curly strands clumping together in wavy lines.
“I’ve been fighting this war for most of my life. I lived a double life for half of it. Secrets and lies kept me alive, kept me closer to ending Saros and the tribute.”
My stomach clenched as a bloody wooden deck and soldiers in black forced their way into my mind’s eye. I pushed a tight breath through my lips as Ronan paused.
“And in a life like that, your circle of trust is small. Not trusting the right people can cost you more than your life. It can cost you something more precious.” Ronan’s eyes went glassy as he stared past me.
“There are some I should have trusted. Lyvia, among others…” His throat bobbed as he trailed off, and he cleared it, turning his face back to the trail.
My gaze landed on the reins in my hands, and I frowned. What else had a life of lies cost Ronan? I gently squeezed my thighs to keep the agrippa moving.
“I wasn’t in the tunnels long before Gork found me,” I continued after a moment. “There was no witch. Just Gork and his friends. And they wanted to stay with me.” I paused, my brows pinching. “They are the only ones who ever wanted to stay,” I said, my voice small.
Ronan’s shoulders tensed, but he kept walking. I found myself finally examining the events of the past year and a half, when it suddenly dawned on me why I’d begun to feel so hollow.
“Everyone left,” I said, something hardening in my chest as the words spilled from my lips.
“Before the day Mum died, before the tribute ship came, I was whole. And every time someone left, it was like I lost a part of me. It still feels like it should be there, like it should come back… Like I’ve lost a limb, but I can still feel the phantom arm when I reach for something.
Mum and Dad… Even Ezrich. He left. So did Lyvia, Drystan, Nerissa…
I feel like I’ve been torn limb from limb, like everyone I’ve grown close to has left, some unwillingly, but so many by choice. And now I am just… hollow.”
Cool rain rolled down my forehead and over my lips, dripping onto my cloak.
I stared off into the boring, gray sky. At some point, the agrippa stallion had stopped walking.
I blinked and looked down to find Ronan staring at me.
His lips were pursed, and his eyes were full of sorrow.
I bristled, not wanting the pity, and urged the stallion forward.
Ronan remained distracted, as if some painful memory refused to let him return to reality.
“We won’t find Gork here,” I continued in a hard voice. “They liked to keep moving.”
Ronan finally lifted his head and nodded, walking beside the horse. “What did you do all those months when you were with them?”
“We drew,” I answered, recalling the paintings along the rough walls of the inner mountain labyrinth.
“You drew?” Ronan asked, arching a brow.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Lots of stars. They loved the constellations. Their favorite was the Ascendant’s Arrow.”
The sun cast a warm net over my face, and I closed my eyes against its kiss as I leaned my head against the stable door.
We’d been back in Aedrialis for a few weeks.
The stench of the city’s thawing spring had finally blown away, and I took a deep inhale of the musky hay and fresh grass that had fought through the hard ground.
A heavy clomp followed the soft blow of a snort from the agrippa in the neighboring field as she grazed on the short grass.
The flat pastures surrounding Cantor Manor butted up to the trees lining the inner walls of Aedrialis, and though I could appreciate the bright green leaves pushing through the thin branches of the surrounding trees, I still yearned for the spring of Rivaner.
There weren’t many places in Aedrialis where the soft scent of flowers wasn’t smothered by the trash and shit of the city.
My brows furrowed as I turned my attention back to the shaft in my hands, and I carefully wrapped the thin leather around the base of the sturdy turkey feather.
I twisted it around the feather, tying it tightly to the other side, careful not to shift its position as I added another. Over and under, tight and straight.
Never touch the fletching once it’s tied.
Dad’s words echoed in my ears as I gripped the thin shaft of the arrow between my thumb and two fingers, holding it out as I examined my work.
A deep ache arrived as his kind face appeared in my mind, his big hand clasping my shoulder as he squeezed and smiled at the first arrow I’d made.
Memories surged before I could stop them.
Dad adjusting my elbow as I aimed at the trunk of the tree… His loud whoop as the arrow point found its mark… The crinkle in the corner of his eyes when he laughed….
His body spiked on the walls of Aedrialis.
My gaze locked on the interior of the city’s barrier.
The reflection of the sun shot off the clean white walls in the distance, hitting the back of my eyes with a sharp stab of light, a damning reminder of their purpose.
My vision buckled, and the flash of crimson lines running down from mutilated, spiked bodies somersaulted with the pristine bare walls in front of me.
I stopped breathing, and a fogginess clouded my vision as the oxygen in my lungs began to run out.
My mother’s voice sounded in the back of my mind. You need to breathe, Evony. But the images continued flashing back and forth, my father’s mangled body forced center stage in my mind.
The barn door creaked, and I jumped as the sound snapped me out of my trance. I whipped my head around, nearly dropping my fresh arrow as my stomach jumped into my throat.
I finally took a breath, and my eyes landed on Vander Stryke.
His light brows narrowed as he scanned my face, and he took a hurried step forward.
“Are you all right?” he asked, moving to my side and kneeling.
I blew out a breath and nodded. A flush rushed up my neck as I carefully set the fresh arrow in my quiver.
“Yes.” I nodded, assuring him. “Sorry, you just startled me.”
Vander’s chin dipped, as if he spotted the lie, but his lips quirked to the side.
“I thought you were heading into the foothills with the newest recruits?” I asked before clamping my mouth shut.
Vander cocked his head and raised a brow. “Keeping tabs on me?” he asked, his dimple popping as he smirked.
Birds took flight in my stomach. Yes, yes, that’s exactly what I had done, I realized in mortification. He chuckled and nodded his head.
“I was,” he responded before plopping his large pack on the dusty ground and taking a seat. “The trek back didn’t take as long as expected.”
I nodded, reaching for another arrow shaft in need of a fletching.
“What brings you to Cantor Stables then?” I asked, continuing to stare at the soft striped feathers in my hand.
His arm brushed against mine as he reached inside his pack.
“These were blooming all over the foothills. The mountains seem to be covered in them this time of year, and I never really noticed them before,” he explained as he reached into his large pack and removed a thick bunch of yellow starstay flowers.
He paused, his gray eyes soft on mine as he offered them. “But I saw them, and I thought of you. I just felt like maybe you needed a little bit of home,” he said quietly.
A vice gripped my chest as I reached a tentative hand to the bouquet, and a zap of chill bumps ran up my arm as his fingers brushed against mine. His touch lingered a moment longer than necessary, and my hand wrapped around the starstays as a flood of memories rushed forward.
Words clogged in my throat, and I blinked rapidly as tears pricked the corners of my eyes. Thank you. I should say thank you.
Instead, I hiccupped.
Vander stood, slinging his pack over his shoulder, and offered me a quiet smile. My lips fell open, but the words wouldn’t come. His kindness left me speechless. He gave me a soft nod before leaving me with the starstays and my arrows.