Chapter 32
The world as I know it crumbles like the debris surrounding me. The ground tilts, the air feels heavier, and my chest constricts painfully.
I stare at Anton, the young man I’ve known for years.
The man I trusted. He stood at my sister’s side in the forge, sweat and steel binding him to our family, weaving himself effortlessly into our affections.
And everything…every smile, every laugh, every lingering look Ferria’s way… It all was a lie.
Shock gives way to hurt. Hurt burns into anger.
I latch onto the fiery emotion and finally manage to choke out, “What are you doing here?”
“Breaking you out.”
He lifts a hand. Shadows curl from his fingertips and snake into the lock. A sharp sizzle then a puff of smoke float into the air. The door swings open. My gut twists.
He’s a Shadow Fae.
“What the hell is this, Anton?” My pulse hammers against my skull. “You’re one of them?”
His mouth presses into a hard line. His hand falls to his side. “I am.”
“Gods, save me.” My thoughts spiral, clawing for reason.
Anton—Kinless Anton. He arrived in Verdanthia when he was just a child. He’s been alone for years.
Why has he been alone?
“I’m sorry, Elara,” he says quietly.
“There’s no need to apologize, my boy,” Juniper interrupts, her voice maddeningly calm. “You did what you had to do.”
I jerk back, gaping at my adoptive mother. “You knew?”
She only shrugs. “I suspected.”
What?
“Where’s Ferria?” I ask.
Juniper said she was with Anton. Clearly that’s not the case.
“She’s fine,” Anton says. “Trust me.”
I scoff. Not likely.
“There will be time for this later,” Silas cuts in, flapping a hand through the dust cloud at his face. “Get these manacles off us, Anton.”
Anton dips his head, then turns to me, kneeling at my feet.
I flinch.
Pain flickers across his kind features, raw and unguarded, and for one terrible moment, I regret my reaction.
“I would never hurt you, Elara.”
I swallow the hard lump in my throat. “I believe you…”
But you still lied.
I bite my tongue and drop my gaze to the cruel metal clasps shackling my ankles. Anton extends a hand, and shadows bleed from his fingertips, flowing into the lock. I gasp despite myself.
Only this time, there’s no pop. No fizzle.
Seconds drag like hours.
“What’s wrong?” Silas demands.
A furrow etches deep across Anton’s brow. “I…I don’t know. The metal… It’s—”
His words cut off on a sharp inhale.
In a blink, his warm eyes harden to cold flint. His lips peel back in a snarl, a feral edge to his voice. “This has been forged with Fae Fire.”
“What?” Silas thrashes against his chains and tries to close the distance between him and his friend.
The chains pull taut, holding him back.
His face pales. “That’s not possible. You said—”
“I know what I said,” Anton hisses, glaring at the manacles on my ankle like he wishes to smelt them down and pitch them into the ocean. “I was wrong. I cannot use my power to open these shackles.”
Dread gnaws a pit in my gut, spreading cold through my veins.
“Then get the blasted key,” Juniper cuts in, sharp and unyielding. “There has to be one.”
“Yes!” Silas’s eyes ignite. “The brute soldier. Fief. He had it last.”
Anton grunts. “Be right back.”
He vanishes down the ominous hall. Less than a minute later, he returns, a single key clutched in his fist.
My stomach twists as Anton kneels at my feet once more.
He inserts the key.
The lock clicks. Metal clanks to the floor.
The moment the shackle falls away from my skin, a blaze detonates inside me.
My body convulses. I bend forward, clutching my middle. A ragged gasp funnels between my lips as flames lick through my veins.
“Elara!” Juniper seizes my arm, then recoils with a hiss.
Red welts mar her hand.
Terror grips me tighter than the manacles ever did.
“What’s happening?” Anton shouts, frantic.
“Your magic, Elara!” Silas bellows, his words booming over the roaring in my ears. “You must release it!”
My magic?
No.
It can’t be.
My magic has only ever helped me. It’s never done…this.
I grunt my disagreement, when all of a sudden, my magic coalesces into a coil of intense heat in the center of my chest, the sensation crawling its way past my sternum and flesh and then—
Bright, blinding light shoots from my body.
My back arches. A scream wrenches from my throat as it feels like my bones and muscles are tearing apart.
Wave after wave of magic crashes through me, punishing, unrelenting.
My power didn’t like its containment. In fact, it loathed it. Now it’s free. And I can feel its determination to never be bound again.
I squeeze my eyes shut. Tears streak down my cheeks.
Please, Velmira. Make it stop.
“What’s happening?” Juniper’s voice slices through the storm raging in my head.
“Her magic is responding to the release from Fae Fire,” Silas says grimly. “It’ll be over in a moment.”
He means I’ll be dead. There’s no other way this ends.
My muscles seize violently, joints bending at grotesque angles. Every inch of skin is aflame, searing as though I’ve been tossed into a forge. If I open my eyes, I’m sure I’ll find blistered, ruined flesh.
And then—
Nothing.
The infernal magic vanishes as suddenly as it struck. One heartbeat it tears me apart; the next it blinks out like a candle snuffed in the dark.
I fall onto my hands and knees before collapsing completely, limbs useless. The rough stone scrapes my cheek. I suck in desperate, ragged breaths.
“Elara!”
Juniper drops to the ground beside me, her wrinkled hands trembling as they cup my face, then slide frantically down my arm and back up again.
Her face hovers inches from mine. “Can you hear me?”
“Y-yes,” I choke out.
“Oh, thank The Mother.” Her lips quake. “You scared a decade of life out of me.”
“S-sorry.” My eyelids flutter closed, tears pricking as the last echoes of pain ebb away.
The urge to sob nearly swallows me whole.
“Fuck me,” Anton mutters.
I blink up at him. His eyes, wide and disbelieving, drag across my body as though searching for evidence of what just happened.
His mouth opens, shuts. “Did she just—”
“Yes,” Silas cuts him off, his voice flat, final.
“Does he—”
“Also yes. And that’s enough questions.” Silas fixes Anton with a pointed stare. “Now, free me so we can get the hells out of here.”
Anton jerks a nod and strides across the cell. A quick twist of the key, and Silas’s shackles clatter to the ground.
The instant he’s free, shadows erupt from his shoulders in a violent rush. He curls his fists and squeezes his eyes shut against the surge.
“You all right?” Anton asks, guarded.
“It’ll pass,” Silas grinds out.
I struggle upright on shaking arms, and Juniper’s steady hand grips my shoulder. I stumble to my feet, leaning heavily against the stone wall to keep from collapsing once more.
“It suppressed your power, too,” Anton murmurs, more a statement than a question.
“Fucking Fae Fire,” Silas spits.
“It isn’t just Fae Fire,” Anton corrects with a scowl, toeing the shackles with his boot. “Only astlerium forged in Fae Fire can subdue power like that. And we didn’t forge it here.”
“Are you certain?”
Anton stiffens. “Ferria would never—”
“I didn’t say she did,” Silas cuts him off. “At least…not intentionally.”
Anton’s jaw locks, lips pressed thin.
Juniper bristles. “Excuse me? What does my other daughter have to do with any of this?”
“Nothing,” Anton says.
At the same moment, Silas says, “We’ll find out.”
Anton snarls, stepping toward him. “You go too far.”
“I go far enough,” Silas retorts, steel in his gaze. “Now, let’s get out of here before—”
“Do. Not. Move.”
The command slams through the air like a hammer. My head snaps toward the doorway, and my knees nearly buckle.
General Ironheart’s broad shoulders frame the hall’s threshold. A massive sword gleams in his grip, its edge catching the dim light, merciless and cold. His gaze cuts across us—Silas, Anton, Juniper—before landing on me.
His nostrils flare. Then he looks away, settling his icy attention on the two males. “So. You’re one of them.”
I don’t know if he’s talking to Silas or Anton, but it doesn’t matter. He’s right. They’re Fae. The enemy has infiltrated our town. But despite their deceit, they aren’t the ones I’m afraid of.
Neither male answers him.
Anton shifts his head toward his friend and mutters, “His sword… It’s astlerium.”
Silas bares his teeth, sharp fangs protruding from the top. “Bastard.”
My thoughts reel.
Astlerium is the metal Fae covet. Why would Ironheart have a sword made of the prized metal?
The general’s lips curve into a humorless smile.
He twists his wrist, the heavy blade arcing with lethal grace. “And I know how to use it. Now, put those manacles back on or bleed.”
A laugh rumbles out of Silas, dark and mocking. “Foolish human. Do you truly think you’re a match for one of us, let alone two?”
Anton rolls his shoulders back, shedding the easy grin he so often wears. Fierce resolve sharpens his face.
The general sneers. “You will not leave this cell breathing.”
Juniper tugs me tight against her side, pressing us both to the wall, as though the short distance can shield us from what’s about to unfold.
“Are you certain you wish to pick this fight, General?” Shadows pulse in Silas’s palms, writhing like living things.
Ironheart meets the display with a mask of stoicism, though his sword trembles ever so slightly.
“It didn’t end well for your kind last time,” Silas taunts.
“This time will not be like the last,” Ironheart snaps, rage sparking in his eyes. “Not with these weapons.”
He lunges, blade arcing high, then pivots at the last second, slashing low with a soldier’s precision.
But no mortal swiftness can outpace a Fae.
Shadows slide from Anton’s fingertips and wrap around the gleaming sword. The weapon halts. Ironheart’s arms tremble as he resists the force of Anton’s power.
“No!” the general bellows. “This isn’t possible. It’s astlerium!”
Silas chuckles and steps to stand beside Anton. Shadows flow from his hands, joining the ones already wrapping around the sword and slowly creeping their way to the pommel.