Chapter 27
A king – riddled with envy – ingested Vyrium.
He cursed Evella. He was king. Why should a gutter brat be considered greater than he?
He learned quickly and painfully, only Evella may bestow her gifts.
They cannot be taken by force. When the green-eyed man took his final, desperate gasp, Vyrus waited, accepting him into his fold for all of eternity.
— THE HISTORIES AND PROPHECIES OF THE STAR-CROSSED GODS: CHRONICLES OF VYRUS
‘I’m sorry,’ I muttered to Skye, hurt glinting in her eyes as she turned from me. She smiled sweetly, but I realised too late how she’d taken my words to heart. We sat in the library, studying the books Enfys had rescued. ‘My drawings – my art – it’s a sore point.’
‘It must be.’ She pushed my sketch of a diafol bird under one of the open maps. ‘It’s… Enfys was right. They’re stunning. You’re incredibly talented.’
I bit back the retort of was desperate to spring from my tongue.
Instead, I stood, stretching my legs. I searched the fireplace, seeking the form of Pablo in his favourite spot, but he must have got bored and wandered off.
I released a half groan, half sigh as I rolled my aching shoulders. I couldn’t blame him.
Skye sat on the edge of a table, one of my notebooks from the Drufaeran library resting on her lap. She pushed a curl of coffee-coloured hair behind her ear and swung her legs, the ruffled skirts of her emerald-green dress crinkling in time to the squeak of the table.
I hissed, gripping the elbow I’d been absently scratching, unaware I’d drawn blood, and my heart stilled.
The way I’d lashed out at Skye. She’d only asked me why I never drew any more.
She’d seen how much love I’d poured into my sketches.
I rubbed the blood oozing slowly from the marks I’d gouged into my skin.
Perhaps I’d been sitting too close to the fire, or maybe it was the dust from the library.
I swallowed. The itching. It couldn’t be—
I rubbed the almost constant throb in my head. Time to locate the mine was slipping away.
We’d been searching through the books for almost two weeks since Enfys had left.
She’d gifted us so much—all the resources, passed me my notes.
She’d even clawed back some of the time I was desperate for, but the location remained stubbornly obscured.
By working with Francis and a few clerks, we’d sent a strongly worded letter, citing the treaty and thus, temporarily, halting Romero’s attempts to usurp Matthias.
But we still had to find that Vyrium.
And that still wasn’t the real reason why I was leaping down everyone’s throats if they simply breathed the wrong way.
Every morning, I woke up in cold, lonely chambers with only Pablo for company.
Apart from a few painfully chaste kisses on the cheek, Matthias made no attempt to seek me out.
My lips burned with the ghostly memories of his kiss.
I’d smile whenever I sensed his heated gaze.
But for some reason, that was as far as it went.
We’d opened up. It was clear he adored me.
I thought he wanted me. So why did my husband back away?
An awkward chasm was splitting apart the happiness we’d discovered, and my heart twisted.
The gap between us shouldn’t exist any more; we should be closer than ever.
My jaw clenched against a sudden stab behind my eye.
I should’ve known not to let him in. I should have known it would cause nothing but pain.
As I rubbed the ache, I wondered how much of our chasm was the pain I still carried, and how much was the blight, twisting my emotions and eschewing the truth?
I blew out a breath and marched back to the map, grabbing my notes and making sure I’d marked the locations of diafol hunts correctly. Something was missing, and it wasn’t Matthias.
A guard strode in. I lifted my head, my heart hammering as I mistook him for the king at first. I bit my bottom lip.
Maybe I should stride into his room later?
I’d never been shy before. I’d had a few lovers from my days in the library.
If I wanted someone, if it was mutual, then I refused to play games. So why was this so different?
The pain behind my temple spiked, and I winced.
‘Sorrow?’ Skye said, with that damned faraway voice. ‘Are you all right? Tea?’
I shook my head, taking deep breaths through my nose. ‘It… it’ll pass. I’ve been squinting too hard. I should really get some glasses of my own.’
I grinned as I swung the borrowed glasses by the arm, relieved to see Skye grin in return.
‘Imagine owning a whole country of your own for several months and still wearing second-hand glasses?’ she said, her shoulders relaxing.
‘It’s frugal.’
I sighed, pushing the map aside and grabbing meteorology reports from the last ten years.
The tables around us were packed with silent clerks, busily scratching notes – in large print as per my orders.
A huge map lay on the floor, drawn out by a cartographer who’d taken far too long on the minor isles, till I’d lost my temper and dismissed him.
In all fairness, he was the only assistant I’d sacked.
For me, only losing one in two weeks was some sort of record.
Each day, I waited, eager for the evenings, when the lamps burned low and the assistants drifted from the library.
Stretching hunched muscles, Matthias and I sat on the floor.
We’d pick at the plate of cold food he’d bring, Matthias trying his hardest to stop Pablo stealing any – and the little lines in his forehead each time he failed.
I smirked at the memory of Matthias trying to grab the wolf’s tail.
Then, when it was time for us to turn in, he’d walk me to my chambers, kiss me on the cheek and leave me standing with my back to the door, desperate to call his name.
‘Sorrow?’
I looked up, Skye’s tone bringing me back to my task.
‘I think… I think you’ve marked at least two of these sightings in the wrong place.’
‘Are you suggesting I’ve made a mistake?’ I raised a brow over my glasses.
Skye tilted her head, before blowing out a long breath.
‘Look.’ She put my notebook in my hands, and I lifted it high, angling it towards my stronger eye.
‘You’ve written about a swarm of diafol rats, here, at East Bayside.
’ She pointed to the map. Sure enough, the spot she indicated lacked any mark.
Placing the notebook between us, I knelt down on the edges of the map, fighting the urge to kick it all away.
How many of these locations had I mapped wrong?
‘Shit. We’ll have to start all over again!’ I winced as the pain crashed through my brain. All that time Enfys had bought us. Lost.
‘Well,’ Skye said, reaching to another side of the map by Asmar’s border and picking up the little toy house marking a site, ‘I’ve looked through twice now, and there’s nothing in West Banside, but this is here.’
She picked up the misplaced piece and popped it down on the map. Correctly, I conceded. I stood, circling the map, my pulse spiking higher with each step.
‘You said I messed up two?’
‘Not messed up—’
‘I fucked up, Skye. Show me where I made the mistakes… please.’
I’d messed up Mount Baltin and Mount Salt.
The spots marring my vision often caused letters to swirl and merge, and I cursed my stubbornness.
How bad would it be to get someone to double check?
I circled again. Pablo prowled forward, sniffing the edges of the map before pacing with me.
There was a very obvious pattern developing, and a thrill pulsed through my veins.
I squinted at Skye who cross-referenced locations from the notebooks, peering at the map.
‘What’s here? This lake and these cliffs?’
A thrill ran through me. Don’t get carried away, Sorrow. Not yet.
‘Graig Du, that’s the cliff face. I haven’t come across it in the notes.’ She started flipping through the pages.
‘Doesn’t that mean black cliffs in the old tongue?’
Skye gave a non-committed grunt. The wolf placed his paw on the map, lowering his head before looking back at me.
‘Why’s it called that? Please, for the love of Evella tell me it’s because nothing grows there.’
‘I imagine so.’ Skye straightened. ‘Oh Gods, Sorrow and the lake.’ She raced over to another table, taking a book from a clerk’s hands and racing back. ‘I remember as a child, mother telling us about the emptiness of the Shadow Lake. It horrified me. The idea nothing existed there.’
I stood back, blinking away the swirls. ‘Tell me you see it too?’
Skye stood next to me; her hand clutched my shaking arm.
‘The cliffs… they’re an…’
‘Epicentre,’ I finished. ‘It has to be a Vyrium site. Here, in Asmar.’
Sure enough, the little ornaments and trinkets we’d been using to mark anything unusual formed concentric circles, all facing the cliffs – Graig Du.
I knocked over a servant and smashed my hip into a side table I hadn’t seen as I raced through the corridors, clinging to Pablo. My heart thundered in time to my footsteps as we searched for Matthias.
We had a site! It could still be nothing, but if it was what I’d been looking for…
Pablo tugged me down dimly lit corridors I hadn’t seen before, yet I fought the urge to slow down. I was desperate to tell Matthias. At least the subdued light didn’t trigger any more pains in my head.
The sounds and smells suggested we were approaching the kitchens, and my stomach grumbled. Male laughter carried over the clanging pans and chopping knives, and I couldn’t fight back the smile as Matthias’s dark chuckle, the one I loved so much, sounded from behind a door.
Pab dragged me through, my pulse spiking at the thought of sharing the news, and then—
Oh Gods! Matthias and Ifan stood right before me, minus their shirts, while Asher peered at the prince’s back.
‘Sorrow?’