Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
ARROWREN
“ I t took less than three hours to destroy most of what you see here,” the redhead explained, her profile somber.
Eirik looked around the crumbling great hall, so ingrained in the landscape now that it was hard to tell the manmade from the natural. Honeysuckle lay heavy in the waking night air, beckoning and sweet. It mixed with the faint hint of a nearby skunk.
The moon hung like a chandelier above them, bright in the center of the space. On the fringe, its light streamed through the leaves of the encroaching trees, a living canopy, reaching in from the glassless windows and ravaged walls. At their feet, night-blooming flowers opened around them.
There was something hauntingly beautiful about the forgotten. The way time laid waste to creation. Walls once labored over now held together by the hands of nature. He was sure this castle had once been glorious, a beacon in the deep woods that surrounded it. Welcoming to allies. Formidable to foes.
Eirik slowly exhaled, a strange calm settling over him–an unburdening. It was peaceful here. Something in him recognized it, felt somehow connected to this place. Like he could stay for a while and be fine. Lost in the forgotten ruins of a kingdom that would never know his name. Stone walls that didn’t acknowledge who he might become.
Here, in the company of the past… He was simply a man.
“Three hours,” Eirik muttered, more to himself than the reluctant tour guide at his side.
It had taken three hours to decimate an ancient bloodline, the most gifted fae to ever walk this realm. Contrary to what he’d been told at Windsong, though, it wasn’t just the Astameres who possessed Pure Magic. Much of their court had been blessed with similar powers. And many of them had survived.
A nebulous line between fiction and fact. Truth and lies. As with most societies and all governments, the parts of history that got recorded were based on who won the war, who sat upon the throne at the end.
Which explained the magical flying horses stabled alongside his stallion. They too had survived. Pegasuses.
Eirik felt the giddy, child-like wonder reemerging. They were real!
“It doesn't matter how long it took. Days or minutes,” his escort said, pulling him from his musing. “The outcome was the same.”
She stared at a threadbare tapestry remarkably preserved on the far wall of the hollowed out space. There was more to be said from the hard set of her jaw than her words.
He still didn’t know her name, but she had offered her vein hours after he’d drank from the queen. Eirik almost insisted she find him a squirrel. He wasn’t sure how many more of their memories he could take.
The children reconvened here days after the attack. After the Hornhall and Windsong soldiers pillaged what they wanted, raping and killing any survivors.
Only a handful of adults survived the massacre. Those that were away when the siege had started. And the few lucky enough to have made it into the castle’s intricate sewer system .
Two adults stuck around in the months that followed. An old castle maid and a crippled seneschal. It had been enough to ensure the survival of the youth. That, and the frequent return of the little girl he’d first seen in the queen’s initial memories–the child with the braids. Each time she brought supplies, food, clothing, and arrived on the back of a pegasus. The same magnificent beast that spirited them away the day of the siege.
It was that girl and her midnight-colored steed that made him ask, “One child was cared for elsewhere?” He turned to the fae warrior. “Did she have family somewhere nearby?”
The redhead nodded curtly. The only answer he was going to get. Eirik posed another. “In the visions, I saw at least four other pegasuses. How did they managed to get away the day of the attack?”
She sighed. “If I had known you would ask so many questions, I wouldn’t have offered to feed you.”
“But you did,” he said carefully. “Because it’s important for me to know this story.”
“Why do you think that is, Princeling?”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but, I haven’t had a lot of people, or immortals, in my life that didn’t want something from me. It comes with the whole Chosen One deal.” He studied her closely. “Are you any different?”
“No.” She continued to stare at the tapestry. “We want something from you, alright.” Her brown eyes cut to him. “Just not the same thing as everyone else.”
“And that is?”
She didn’t hesitate. “To see the truth.”
“Ah.” He clasped his hands behind his back, blessedly free of the shackles. “The truth as you would have me see it?”
She faced him fully, flames alight in those richly-colored orbs. “Do you think we would manufacture false memories?”
“Would? Or could?” he countered. “You tell me.”
“You think we would choose to live like this?” She flicked her auburn brows in emphasis of the roofless hall. “In hiding, still to this day. Hunted!” She spat. “Watching our kind struggle under the oppression of your soulless king?”
“Would you have me believe the rebels are innocent in all of this?” he challenged. “I was here less than a month when your kind started the fire that burned the grain silos. A week later, a group of rebel pirates sunk a ship carrying desperately needed medical supplies to Windsong’s southern border.”
“Are you really that stupid?” She looked at him like one might observe a sick possum that just wandered up. Half pity, half revulsion. “Those resources were going to Calian’s army. The war machine built to destroy us.”
“They were also going to be distributed among the villagers. Barely getting by after you poisoned a season’s worth of crops.”
She scoffed. “By distribute, you mean given to those of higher rank. Titles handed out to the ass-kissing few that bent the knee to the royal crown. As for the crops…” She looked away, and a different sort of indignation crept over her pretty face. “We don’t dabble in poison. That wasn’t us.”
He waited, needing to hear what came next without swaying its direction. She exhaled through her nose. “Our group has never acted or retaliated in any way that would harm civilians. But there are others that will do whatever it takes to achieve their goals. Even at the expense of the innocent.”
Eirik weighed her words carefully against his own experiences working alongside the Warborn over the last year. There had been noteworthy differences in some of the issues they’d been sent to investigate. In many instances, care was taken to limit damage. In others, malice was clearly the driving force.
Such as the banker who’d been murdered in his home with his entire family. By the layout of the crime scene, the male had met his death last, after watching his wife and children perish. Clearly personal. Clearly a message.
Why he hadn’t considered it before, Eirik wasn’t sure. That there could be more than one group of rebels, working with vastly different principles.
“Is it that hard to conceive? That you might have been fed only partial truths?” she asked, as if she had tracked his thoughts. “That your judgment and opinions might have come from skewed sources?”
“I suppose this is where you tell me that is due to the synthetic blood?” He arched a brow. “Did it also drop my IQ?”
She angled her head, ruby-red ringlets tumbling to one side. “I am not sure what an IQ is, but if it equates to having your intelligence compromised, yes. The drugs would have dulled more than your physical abilities.”
Eirik shook his head and looked down, “I don’t…”
The frond of a tiny fern laying by his boot caught his attention–its thin burgundy webbing snaking out from forest-green stems, then blending effortlessly into silver-tipped leaves.
He stilled.
When was the last time he’d observed anything with such detail? With the attention, the microscopic vision and appreciation of a vampire?
Staring at the plant, realization set in. Not since he arrived in Ventus. Not since he had started his new diet.
“How?” His gaze lifted. “How did I not notice?”
“I’m not sure,” she said earnestly. “The combination of drugs will affect each supernatural differently. You being mortal before–”
“That’s it.” He turned to face her. “It’s been like…like having the dial turned down on my senses. On my ability to process in greater detail. More similar to how I viewed the world when I was human.”
“Which might explain why you took so thoroughly to it,” she theorized. “If it was akin to previously known sensations your body wouldn’t fight it the same. The way it might if you’d been born with the heightened alertness of an immortal.”
He turned in place, taking in the space anew with fresh eyes and mounting anger. “Why though? Why would Calian not just make it a condition for my being here?” He ran a hand through his hair, his mind leapfrogging over possible reasons for this deception. “My brother and I signed contracts stating we would not use our full powers while in Ventus. Not without permission. As I was given when I joined the Warborn.” His gaze swung to her. “I swore an oath to him!”
“You swore an oath to the Warborn and to Windsong,” she replied evenly. “Not to Calian.”
His chuckle was harsh, annoyed. “Calian is the king. He’s well covered under my vow of allegiance to Windsong.”
Her eyes pinned him where he stood. “Kings can be replaced.”
Eirik didn’t respond. Not while his mind grappled with his current situation, and what the fuck he could do about it. A couple of days ago he would have considered those words treason, had they been spoken by anyone in Windsong. However, they were not in Windsong. And the female before him certainly had no allegiance to it.
If the memories he’d seen from her and the queen were unaltered…if they were indeed true… What would that mean for Mekale and Griffith? For his brothers in arms? For those Eirik knew in his heart, in his bones, had nothing to do with the hideous crimes committed during the siege of Arrowren.
What would this do to them?
“You claimed you wanted me to see the truth,” he finally said. “But what would you have me do with it?”
She studied him. “Only you can answer that.”
“Then let’s start with what I can answer.” He held her unflinching gaze. “There is a sinister force scouring these lands. Whatever past conflict has occurred between the rebels and Windsong needs to come second to that.” He lifted his hand and tapped his thumb to his ring finger. “I need my ring back.”
“So you can alert your family to your predicament?”
“If you’re right, and Calian has been actively oppressing the fae of Ventus for ulterior motives, other than self-defense against rebels–am I really in a predicament? Or have you just saved me?”
She seemed to contemplate his words. “You’ll get your ring back. Once we’ve finished making our case.”
“ Again ,” Eirik ground out. His patience was dangerously close to slipping its leash. “We don’t have time to waste on past injustice. We need to focus on what’s killing–”
“We know what darkness has invaded our land,” a voice said from the shadows.
Eirik spun, searching, disbelieving his own ears.
There, in the corner. The shadows rippled. Like a ship through still water, the dark parted for a familiar form.
The Warborn warrior stepped into the light of the silvery moon and nodded to Eirik’s jailer. “I should have warned you of this one’s stubbornness.” Chogan’s whiskey-colored eyes crinkled with a smile as he looked at Eirik. “In the effort of saving time…”
With the wave of his hand, the night came alive with sounds outside the crumbling walls; fae laughing, carrying on conversations, a buzz of township activity.
E irik was moving before Chogan could finish whatever he was about to say next, to the glassless window. He peered down, awestruck.
An entire city!
Built around the ruined castle.
Twinkling lights crisscrossed and connected the roofs of buildings. Fae strolled carefree under golden lit pathways, many relaxing at outside tables connected to little shops. Their lilting exchanges carried up to Eirik’s ears in the great hall.
How? How had he detected none of this? His eyes continued to explore the cozy village before him .
Its cobblestone roads wound down and around shops and homes, arching over and across trickling mountain streams. Each structure connected seamlessly to the next. As if they had started with one–a test–and then added on. One after another, brick by brick, mud and hay, stone and wood, they had rebuilt the city center destroyed years ago.
Fire and candlelight overflowed the low latticed windows of the straw-thatched cottages, the families inside uncaring that their lives were on display to passersby. They carried on in comfortable ease, going about their nighttime routines. As if they knew no strangers lurked here, only neighbors and friends.
A female fae rocked a baby to sleep by a hearth in one home. In another, a child picked a cat up and off a table for dinner to be set. The cat jumped right back, earning a scolding. Further down the quaint little row of dwellings, two males laughed over a well-played hand of cards, a bottle of wine sat on the table between them.
Something surged in Eirik’s chest. The peacefulness and community. The love here.
Sprung up from the scars of war.
He looked back at his friend. “You’ve kept it hidden? All this time?”
“Not just me,” Chogan said. “It takes a concerted effort to mask this place.” His gaze drifted to the redhead by his side, admiration and tenderness reflecting in eyes. “We have to combine our magic to keep this place safe.”
Eirik gawked at him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Chogan offered him a sympathetic smile. “I needed you to understand this history first. Thoroughly unfiltered.”
Eirik’s brows lowered. “Could that not have been achieved without kidnapping me?”
“You were stalking us.” The redhead scoffed. “Besides, we saved you from the darkness.”
The black fog that had obscured his vision on the crater… He’d thought it had something to do with them, or the winged horse.
She smirked. “Apparently it really likes little princelings. ”
Right… Eirik wasn’t about to touch that one. Not when he had so many other pressing questions.
One apology needed stating first. “About your friend?—”
“The group of rebels I just told you about,” she said, cutting him off, “the ones that do not represent us and what we stand for. The male you killed was one of them. A necessary ally, but not a friend.”
“Barely even an ally,” Chogan added stiffly. “You did me a favor in killing the asshole.”
Eirik continued to stare at his brother in arms. He had spent nearly every day of the past year in the male’s company. Yet, he hardly knew him at all.
“There’s much I need to tell you,” the dark-haired warrior continued, his tone suggesting he knew the direction Eirik’s mind now traveled. “Starting with a few confessions.”
“Confessions?” Eirik could have sworn something like guilt crept over Chogan’s face. He dared asked, “Such as?”
“I needed you to experience Ventus through a different set of eyes. Because sitting you down and trying to explain all this…” Chogan sighed. “You had to get off the synthetic blood to have an open mind. There was too much at stake. Which meant getting you out of Windsong.”
He asked carefully, “Did you suggest Calian send me away to locate the queen?”
It wasn’t hard to discern the emotion now. Guilt colored his friend’s eyes. But Chogan didn’t avert them. “Yes. After I cut the ropes to the chandelier.”
Eirik definitely hadn’t had that on the bingo card he’d just lined up in his head. He processed the confession without judgment. Just strategy. What he knew of the male standing before him. What Chogan would have risked.
What he wouldn’t.
Chogan opened his mouth to say more. Eirik stopped him. “You knew I’d stop it before it struck my brother,” he stated .
When the warrior nodded, Eirik looked around the room again, noting nothing–noting everything.
His gaze circled back to Chogan. “Do the other Warborn know?”
The question prompted the warrior into motion, and he started for the wall of open windows behind Eirik. When he reached them, he surveyed the vibrant village below. Then he said, “You tell me?”
Eirik walked over to the window ledge and followed Chogan’s line of sight. A jubilant group had gathered outside what looked like a tavern. The first strum of a guitar drew his gaze to the musician in the group of pedestrians. Four of them were setting up, getting ready to play, the crowd anxiously waiting.
Eirik scanned the assembled group, his observations halting abruptly when he beheld the fae that stuck out like giant sore-thumb.
Standing a full head above the rest, twice as big as any male gathered and chatting with a pretty doe-eyed female, was Zaire. Not five feet away, Borgen sipped on a glass of wine. Right beside Fenrir, drinking directly from the bottle.
Eirik stared dumbstruck at the scene before him. Villagers approached and casually interacted with the Warborn. As if they knew them. As if they were friends and acquaintances.
Not something to be feared–the king’s ruthless elite fighting unit.
The musicians played a lively tune that had fae singing and clapping along. Others paired up to dance before the band. Though Chogan’s eyes were on him, Eirik didn’t dare turn from the image before him. He’d never seen them look so at ease. Never imagined his brothers could be welcomed so warmly among civilians. Like they…
Like they belonged here.
He glanced at Chogan. The warrior confirmed, “Arrowren is our real home.”
Eirik shook his head as more questions stacked up faster than he could count. “Calian is your cousin... How– ”
“Calian is a monster!” his friend snapped, face darkening. “He ceased being my family a long time ago.”
A few miles from the mountain border that divided Windsong from the Arrows, Bastian slowed his descent. The powers that allowed him to flash from point to point were waning. Once they crossed into those mountains, the wards would snap fully in place, the magic contract rendering him all but a mortal.
He landed carefully in a small clearing. “You can open your eyes now,” he said, still wondering how he had managed the journey this far with the equivalent of a python wrapped around his neck.
Sage didn’t loosen her hold. Nor did she lift her forehead, pressed against his throat. Terrified. The strongest female Bastian had ever met was afraid of heights.
“I swear, we’re on grass.” He couldn’t stop the smile that tugged at his lips. “You just have to put your feet down.”
“For good?” she mumbled into his neck, not budging. “No more spiraling vortexes of death?”
“My powers are nearly spent,” he said around a chuckle. “Whatever practitioner freedom Calian permitted will be null and void the second we step across that border. Though, I suppose I can carry you to it.”
He gladly would, if it meant continuing to feel her body molded to his. Her breath warming his skin, the soft feminine scent of her flooding his senses.
The rhythmic tapping of her heart against his loosened as her vise-like grip around him lessened. Bastian kept his hands around her as she slowly straightened her legs, steadying her until he was sure she had her balance.
Her eyes lowered to where his touch remained, the spread of his fingers on either side of her narrow waist. Reluctantly, he released her and stepped back. When her gaze lifted, for a split second that ring of gold around her pupils flared.
Sage quickly looked around. “We need to make it to the other side of those mountains.” She looked past him. “It will take a day on foot, but there’s a lesser-known passageway out of the realm. You can take it–”
“I’m not leaving here without my brother and cousin.”
Her eyes flashed back to him. “You have to. You’re not safe here. When Gideon finds out you took me... That you interrupted his plans–”
“Fuck his plans!” His snarl rent the night. “Fuck him. Fuck this whole fucking realm.”
He had been wrong. Having his powers suppressed was not the most helpless feeling he’d been forced to endure. The most helpless feeling was watching Sage’s depraved cousin delight in tormenting her; making her his puppet.
The bastard had deliberately kept her in the dark, and then forced her to watch it play out. It was some type of test. Some sick proof of loyalty she must uphold. Making the entire room think they were of the same mindset. They weren’t.
Bastian had read every emotion tangled within her, as if she’d been shouting them in his face. How she remained calm when they dragged in that sacrificial lamb… Her friend .
Friends, at one point in time. The relationship was complex; respect and resentment. Sage shut him out right after the observation. She had retreated into a state of self-preservation so deep, even their connection couldn’t penetrate the wall she’d put up.
That was when Bastian knew exactly how he going to kill Gideon Kerrington.
With dragon fire.
She stared at him, her expression contemplative. “I didn’t know about Xavier Diaboli,” she said, her eyes softening. “Didn’t know about any of it.”
“I know.” The words hung between them. Bastian added, “Same as you know I’m not leaving Ventus. Not without my family. And not until we get Mekale and the others out of Windsong.”
Sage nodded her understanding. “We still need to get to the other side of that range.” She started marching north. “There’s a place we can hide out. And someone there who might be able to break your magic contract.”
“Who?” Bastian matched strides with her.
“A sorceress.” He tensed. Sage ducked under a limb as they started into the woods. “She’s an old friend of my father’s.”
Bastian caught her by the elbow, but not an ounce of effort was needed to slow her progression. She pivoted with graceful ease, following his gentle lead, same as she would in a dance. He asked, “Was she also a friend to your cousin?”
“No one was as important as my father.” Sage looked him in the eyes. “We can trust her.”
Bastian didn’t ask more. There wasn’t the time, nor the need, for such conversations. Not yet. He trusted Sage. That was all that really mattered. In more ways than just their present situation.
“Thank you, by the way,” she added, turning back toward the mountain range. “For not dropping me.”
His gaze swept over her as she cut through the trees. I’ll never drop you, Sage Kerrington. He smiled when her steps faltered ahead of him.