Chapter 20
Twenty
Fluorite
Graylen was there—in my dreams. It wasn’t a quick and hazy image like last time; it was him. Really and truly him. Even if he were shrouded in fire, I would know those eyes anywhere.
A deep ache balls up in my chest, and I press my palm against it, trying to ease the tension. But I know there won’t be a way to lessen the feeling, because the pain is coming from the place where my connection to Graylen should be.
It was as if the dream bound us back together, only to sever it the moment I awoke. It reminded me of what it felt like to feel him, what it felt like to not be so alone.
He tried to hide his pain—tried to keep what was happening to him from me—but I could feel it. Though it was faint, there was no denying the dampening of his steadiness. His normal calming presence was like a brewing storm he was trying to hide.
Anger stirs in my stomach. Vidaris is going to realize she messed with the wrong fucking person.
I have to get him back.
He may have warned me against it—and he’s probably right, that my focus should be on how to keep the realm safe—but who’s going to keep him safe?
Even if the entirety of Penyth knew he was gone, it wouldn’t change the burning rage coursing through me. It wouldn’t lessen the stabbing pain piercing my heart each second that he’s gone.
Every fiber of my being wants to scream at the gates of the Vale and see exactly what this goddess-forged magic is capable of, leaving a trail of bodies in my wake. But… I have to be smart about this—have to think like Vidaris thinks and find a way to actually save Graylen.
After getting a nod of approval from Mylah and doing a short series of strength tests, she clears me to leave the cottage.
Leda and Calix tried to get Adrian to tell them how to get back to Crea, but he didn’t budge.
He refused to talk to them, and according to Leda, they had tried…
several methods to get him to talk last night.
But I knew he wouldn’t talk to them.
He doesn’t trust them, and he’s only seen a side of fae that confirms his hate for them. They’re his enemy.
I may be fae, but I’m still the girl he got out of the camp. Still the one he brought to the castle and tried to marry. If anyone is going to get him to talk, it’s me.
So, my feet carry me to the last place I want to be, but the one place I need to be. Anger pulses beneath my skin—frustration at not knowing how to get to Graylen or what darkness is brewing within the realms.
“Lu, you can’t be serious.” Adrian’s voice grates against my ears, sending a wave of fury through my veins. Or maybe it’s that he called me Lu, something I specifically told him he lost the right to do. “Is this really necessary to keep us locked in here?”
More than necessary, considering he planned to force me to go back to Crea, assisted in putting a collar on my neck so I couldn’t use my powers, and put my life and my friends’ lives at risk.
Adrian gestures to the Lyle boys. He, Beryl, and Ember sit together against the back wall, while Mica is off to the side by himself—a clear distance away from his brothers and Adrian.
“She’s a lost fucking cause,” Beryl mutters, his face streaked with dirt and dark circles beneath his eyes.
I grit my teeth, the story of what Beryl did to Graylen flashing in my mind. Of the scar he left across his chest. My body trembles as I look down at him across the open room, fury burning through me at his relaxed position on the floor, leaning against the wall.
He looks back at me with as much hate as I feel toward him, and I tear my eyes away before I hurl a ball of fire at his head.
Leda has already been in here several times, and she assured us that whatever magic Beryl possessed along the border was now gone. Looks like the goddess that granted it either abandoned them, or doesn’t currently have the ability to refuel them.
Either way, they’re surrounded by fae—mostly warriors with wyverns nearby. Trying to fight their way out of here wouldn’t get them very far.
The four boys aren’t shackled or restrained—their time here could be much worse than simply being stuck in an empty cottage.
But unlike the rest of Kauri—with the trees all connected by walkways, branches, or bridges—this one is only accessible by a Woodland who can open the staircase in the center of the tree and again at the top.
It eliminates the need for a guard—where else will four humans go?
I ignore Beryl and shift my attention to a different Lyle boy, the one who reminds me so much of Opal. When he feels my gaze on him, he meets my stare, the blue in his eyes so like Opal’s that it takes my breath away.
“Mica, what did you guys think would happen when you came here?” No matter what softness I once felt for Mica, it doesn’t ease the bitterness coating my tongue. They came all this way, just to force me back to Crea, yet they let their own sister be married to a monster?
Mica’s jaw flexes, and he drops his gaze to the floor, standing with his arms crossed, leaning against a wall like the other boys. But his body is slightly angled away from them, and he hasn’t looked at them once since I came in.
I clearly missed something, but whatever it is doesn’t help any of the problems we’re facing right now.
Beryl throws his hands up and says, “Mica, I swear if you—”
There’s no burying my rage after that. Shadows ripple off of my body, streaked with embers and flickers of fire. I take a step forward, and they pulse toward Beryl, causing his words to get stuck in his throat.
Beryl jumps to his feet while Adrian and Ember freeze. They at least have the decency to look scared.
“I wasn’t asking you,” I snarl.
With my magic nipping at their feet, I turn back to Mica, my magic staying a safe distance from him when I ask, “Now, Mica, you were saying?”
Mica blinks, his gaze bouncing between my magic surrounding his brothers and Adrian and flickering back to me.
“We were told you were in danger,” he finally says.
Beryl starts to deny it, but the sound quickly turns into a curse as I let my fire push past my shadows, lashing out across his calf.
Mica’s eyes dart to Beryl, but he doesn’t stop.
For a moment, it almost looks like his mouth twitches into a smile.
But then it’s gone, and he turns his focus back to me.
I raise a brow at him, waiting for more.
“Duke Wyman told us you were in danger,” Mica clarifies. “And Adrian was desperate to get you back. Since we knew you so well, it only made sense that we would join him to protect him, but also to save you.”
Adrian got himself into this mess, coming to Penyth when he should’ve stayed in Crea. All in the name of rescuing me.
Men and their heroics.
A laugh tumbles out from my lips. Save me. Everyone keeps trying to save me, and I’m pretty fucking over it. I’m tired of people thinking they know what’s best for me, of men who think they know me better than I know myself.
They have no idea who I am—or what I’m capable of.
“I’m not who I was in the camp.” My voice comes out low. Deadly. Mica straightens, his hands falling to his sides. “Did it not occur to you how odd it was, the lengths Duke Wyman went to in trying to get me back? Do you truly think it was all to help Adrian get the ‘girl he loves’?”
I can’t help but spit those words out. You don’t try to hold back the person you love—you stand by their side or give them the space to do what they have to do. Adrian did neither of those things.
Mica’s cheeks flush, and it’s then that I realize he didn’t consider any of those things. Because the moment he was told what he wanted to hear—that this was a valiant effort to save the poor damsel in distress—he believed it.
“We just wanted you back,” Adrian jumps in, his voice cracking.
He inches away from the shadows still poised to strike around them, and I let him, curious how he plans to convince himself he’s in the right.
“None of this was supposed to happen. My uncle told me you were in danger and I was just going to help you get back to Crea—to your home.”
He flinches as the words leave his mouth. He’s already tried to tell me once that Penyth isn’t my home, and I don’t have to tell him again just how wrong he is.
“And your plan to get me back?” I whisper in a quiet fury, trying to keep my anger at bay long enough to hear what Adrian has to say.
Adrian swallows and takes a step toward me, still on the other side of the room but far closer than I’d like him to be. My shadows snake toward him, and he pauses.
“It’s complicated,” he stammers.
Wrong answer.
My shadows attack, wrapping around his neck and pinning him to the wall. Not tight enough to really hurt him, but enough to leave a mark.
The Lyle brothers surge forward, but not quickly enough. My shadows latch around their midsections, yanking them backward, flush against the wall, and holding them in place.
“Please—” Adrian coughs.
I narrow my eyes, letting my magic have its way and tighten just a touch more around his throat. I’m done waiting—done listening to his lies.
“Your. Plan,” I bite out.
His face starts to pale. The Lyles start spewing curses at me as they fight against their restraints.
“Adrian, if you ever want to see Crea again, then you need to be honest,” I snap.
He chokes out something, the binds too tight for him to speak. I loosen them a tad, my gaze burning as I wait for him to respond.
“We were to get you to the border of Zenovia,” Adrian stammers out quickly, his eyes watering. “There’s a gate that somehow transported us from right outside of Runnswick to Penyth’s side of the mountains.”
I blink. The portal in Linnick’s lemon tree was supposed to be the last one.
“You’re lying.” I bare my teeth at him, my shadows moving in from all sides to snake around his wrists and ankles.
“No!” he cries, his face pale and sweaty. “It’s true. I know it sounds insane, but so was you escaping here through a damn tree. You don’t have any reason to believe me, I know that. But it’s true.”
Something in his gaze—the pleading or the fear, I’m not sure which—makes me pause. I tug on my Essence, willing it back into its resting place inside of me. Reluctantly, my shadows recede, dissipating from the room.
Adrian takes a deep breath before adding, “I’m the only one who can open it. My uncle charmed it so that it only answered a word spoken in my voice.”
More like Vidaris made that happen.
I shake my head.
“Please, it hurts,” Adrian chokes out against the restraints.
There’s fear in his gaze, genuine and raw terror.
While I feel a smidge of satisfaction at seeing him so afraid of me, my shadows loosen. I keep the Lyle brothers restrained, not trusting them to stay where they are in the slightest. But Adrian? He looks…defeated.
I don’t want to be like Daimon—don’t want to see the same fear in Adrian’s eyes that I likely had in mine not that long ago.
My stomach clenches.
Adrian starts coughing, his hands flying to rub his neck. I turn away, but he calls out to me before I can flee.
“I would’ve done anything for you,” he rasps. “I still would.”
My fingers curl into a fist, and I walk to the center of the room, tugging on the Woodland Essence inside of me until the bark splits into an open door.
The anger in my veins cools at his words. He still believes he was justified in his actions. Adrian never wanted to hurt me; he just isn’t mature enough to realize I am strong enough to be on my own.
“And yet you still betrayed me,” I toss over my shoulder, letting the tree pull closed behind me.
I can hear him and Beryl arguing through the thick bark, their voices muffled and indiscernible as I let my chains of shadows slip away from all of them.
My heart races, thundering against my ribs as I leave them behind.
We have what we need to get back to Crea, but that isn’t why my pulse is thrumming.
Going to Crea takes me further from Graylen. Every day he stays in the Vale is a day I risk losing him for good. A flurry of emotions rolls through me, leaving me feeling more torn than relieved.