6. The proof is in the…burns?
THE PROOF IS IN THE…BURNS?
Enora
Contrary to my assumptions, I was not ready for stairs.
Hell, I wasn’t ready for the walk down a short hallway beside the cellblock.
But the mage, Jasper, was so hot on my heels, I couldn’t do anything other than trudge through the pain and dizziness that fought over me.
Maksym never bothered looking back as he tossed open a door at the end of that hall, his quick footsteps echoing up through the enclosed staircase beyond.
I studied that first step for longer than was considerate before I muttered, “Fuck.”
The mage definitely chuckled behind me. Then, he was beside me, his gloved fingers ghosting my elbow as he said, “Just hold the railing, and I’ll help you.”
I stiffened but still reached for the rail that was missing several bolts within its initial length. “I don’t need your—”
“I will help you,” he stated again, not an ounce of patience in his voice. “Go.”
Remiss as I was to admit it, I was grateful for the strange mage’s support.
I wouldn’t have made it down the stairs in one piece without him, seeing as I almost missed the third step and struggled with every other as I battled the steep decline and focused on keeping my simmering nausea at bay.
The last thing this poor man needed was for me to vomit all over him the next time I stumbled. But, like most mages, he was steadfast in his assigned duty. Most mages just weren’t so well built in the shoulders, or had such hardened, stubbled jawlines at my eye level. Not back in Odessa, at least.
Clearly, I had suffered no serious head injuries if I was already ogling the first set of broad shoulders to brush against mine. Faceless ones, at that.
“Almost there,” he muttered with half a dozen steps to go.
I’d never been so grateful to see a landing that might leech an infection right through the soles of my feet. I was less grateful for the sight of Maksym’s back. He stood in the doorway, poised like a statue with his horns glinting in that unsettling blue light that drenched the space.
I scoffed and took the last few stairs with a bit more determination than I knew I had in me.
The moment my feet landed on that gritty, debris-laden stone, I shook off the mage’s steadying touch and trudged forward.
For good measure, I gave the king a shove out of the way as I grumbled, “What is so important that you dragged me down those—”
My words died.
The cellar before us was full of bodies.
Not the usual wines or decadent cured treasures that should’ve lined its alcoves and tables.
No, they were filled with sheet-draped bodies, and the cool air carried an undercurrent of char.
The flush that had peeled away from my skin the farther we descended came back with a vengeance.
I had to clutch the hem of my grossly oversized shirt to stop my hands from trembling.
The air that felt a little hard to breathe seemed to shift as Maksym and his mage came up behind me.
“I’m sure you may think a plethora of unsavory things about me right now, Miss Wynn, but you should know, I am no fool,” the king said with a quietness that was not gentle.
“I am well aware of when someone does not feel like believing a single word I speak, so—” He stepped just ahead of me and gestured out to the room.
“Here is a measure of proof for you to consider, all recovered from your decimated camp.”
The cautious glance I cast up at Maksym did me no favors.
Maybe it was just because I was a na?ve Odessan, or it was the doing of the bodies pressing in on us, but he was terrifying to take in up close.
I’d known in my cell his face was full of sharp angles, and his eyes, amber set in pools of black, were as haunting as they were captivating, but the pale blue glow of sconces lining the cellar gave him an otherworldly edge that brought me no comfort.
My breath sawed in on shaky bursts as I approached the first table, and hesitation warred with my muscles when I eased back the cream cloth covering the body. The charred, unrecognizable remains of a face accosted me, and I grimaced as bile burned the back of my throat.
The urge to void the contents of my stomach eased as I covered the grotesque display, but it never left entirely, not as I moved from table to table.
Any hopes of these not being my fallen comrades dropped like lead weights into my stomach.
While many of the bodies had horrific burns, there was still plenty to identify them—tattoos, mostly, or precisely cut scars, acquired over the years to mark milestones in their service to our kingdom.
I’d always been too indecisive to mar my flesh in such a permanent way, and the building ache of regret I felt over that made it a little hard to breathe. When I reached the second-to-last body, that building ache turned crippling.
I had to grip the table to steady myself as I uncovered Streja’s remains.
My mind desperately fought to refute what was laid out before me.
It had to be a sick nightmare. Had to be.
But even in her half-charred state, my squadmate’s beauty was as undeniable as it was devastating, just like there was no denying how fate repeatedly robbed me of anyone who ever treated me with an ounce of damned kindness.
Of everyone I traveled with, why did it have to be her?
“No,” I breathed, a band tightening around my chest. “Not you too, Stre.”
I couldn’t stop staring, despite the acid burning at my throat.
Her once full, rosy lips that would never peel into a smile again.
Plump cheeks that would never see another dimple either.
Her warm hazel eyes would never hold a twinkle of mischief again.
Not in this life, at least.
Part of me couldn’t comprehend that it was really her body I was looking at, not with how it felt like only moments or maybe hours ago we were just leaving the fortress, staring down weeks of travel.
And now, she was…dead.
As I stood there, trying to process how in the hell this could have happened to her—happened to everyone on display around me—something struck my mind.
A memory, maybe. Streja’s voice, fragmented and distant.
“Here, princess. Let me put you to bed.”
“Crash in my tent; it’s closer.”
“I’m so sorry, Nor. It’ll be over soon.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and took a slow breath.
A sudden recall of my mind’s own doing did not feel trustworthy, especially not memories covered in a thick layer of mud.
It took everything in me to replace the cloth over Streja’s body and turn around. Both Maksym and his mage were watching me with clear apprehension from across the cellar.
“What proof was this supposed to be?” I asked, and, goddess, my voice was shaky. “That someone set out to brutalize us and succeeded horrifically at it? It could have been anyone, including you.”
Maksym took a few steps toward me, trailing his fingers over the edge of a table. “I wondered whether it would be as obvious to you. Jasper seemed to think an Odessan royal would be educated enough to know. I wasn’t convinced, but…” He stopped in front of me and shrugged.
He was close enough that I had to shift my attention upward, and the clean, masculine scent that rolled off him temporarily drenched the char hanging in the air.
My lip curled as I ground out, “Speak. Plainly.”
One of his angular eyebrows rose, but he was quick to turn his attention to Streja. “I’ll spare you the detailed history lesson.” He pulled back just the edge of the cloth, exposing her charred arm and hand. “Dark fae could not inflict burns with blackened flesh like this.”
He cast me a sidelong glance and turned over Streja’s palm to expose more burned and blistered skin.
“The damned light pantheon stripped us of our influence over your fire thousands of years ago during The Divide. We cannot wield, amplify, or conjure anything other than the blue nytefire you see all around you, and it renders white burns. This was the work of someone of Odessan or High Fae blood.”
Regretfully, these were all things I knew from countless hours of history lessons, but things I never considered.
When war broke out between the gods those thousands of years ago, and they split into the upper and lower pantheons—the light and dark gods—the upper saw that the adopted peoples of their disgraced brethren were not given an easy ride.
The enormous umbrella of shifters, umbrites, and other creatures, who became homogenized as the dark fae, did indeed lose their influence over fire, a gift given to living creatures by one of the oldest gods of the upper pantheon.
Flame would wither as soon as flint was struck. Torches would die when passed into a dark fae hand. A tragic and trying time for their people, or so the history texts said, until one of the lower pantheon, Mina, gave them a gift of her own—nytefire.
Of course, I had never actually witnessed it before, and its burns were not covered in my history lessons.
Maksym may have been trying to lay something out that seemed factually rational, but it was funny, the doubt a damning brush with death could bring.
“I don’t believe you,” I said simply.
To his credit, Maksym smiled before he glanced back. “Jasper? Would you mind giving our skeptical guest a demonstration in nytefire burns?”
“Of course, my liege,” came his mage’s obedient rumble.
“A demonstration?” I stared up at Maksym.
“Not on you. Don’t worry,” he chuckled.
I didn’t immediately believe him about that either.
But I watched as Jasper approached one of the many open wall lanterns adorning the cavernous space and hovered his hand beside the nytefire flickering away inside it.
Wisps of vibrant blue surged towards him, coalescing into a ball against his gloved palm as he lowered his hand from the dark metal housing. The blue glow lit the exposed bottom half of his face in a mesmerizing way as he approached us.
He had to be part dark fae, then, even if his few inches of exposed flesh were as warm-toned as mine, albeit a bit pale.
Without saying a word, he uncovered Streja’s other arm, which had been touched by far fewer burns.