Chapter 60
Zadriel
Silas’s brow wrinkled, the muscles in his throat working.
“You promised to give Elodie her power back,” he snarled, fingers clenching, dry blood cracking on his knuckles.
One foot inched back, pointing toward the sloping hill as if he couldn’t decide whether to tackle Zadriel to the ground or run back to Elodie.
Sap slithered down Zadriel’s arms and into his palms. “I promised I’d give it to you.”
“You said this wasn’t some Fae trick!”
“No, I didn’t.” Zadriel tsked. “You asked, and I never answered.”
Warmth buzzed beneath Zadriel’s skin, power thrumming in his chest, the feeling as natural as breathing.
As soothing as the hints of lavender and embers clinging to his clothes.
What might he have become, had he not been torn from Arcadia?
He was different from his kin. A Keeper.
The only one born, not made by the Mother, connected fully to Her well upon his first breath, yet, even now, he didn’t understand the extent of his abilities... or the truth of his purpose.
He savored another breath of fresh ocean air, another lungful of her. The itch in his ribs calmed, soothed to a mild sting, his headache little more than a dull throb. His mind clear.
Cracking his knuckles, Silas tipped his head up so he could stare Zadriel directly in his eyes. “I won’t make that mistake again,” he snarled, reaching for the dagger sheathed on his belt.
“No, you certainly won’t.” Zadriel sighed when Silas pulled the blade free. “I have enough scars already, human,” he said, dropping his hands to his sides. Sap coiling around his fists
Silas rolled his dagger in his grip, moving into a defensive stance. “We both know I’m stronger than you, Fae. You might as well—”
Zadriel lunged, cutting the distance between them, making to grab Silas’s wrist and wrench the dagger from his hold, to save himself from yet another mark on his skin...
or worse. Mother knew the brute was aching to make Zadriel pay for the night he nearly bled out in the snow.
For what he’d done to Elodie. Golden liquid pulled away from Zadriel’s fists, braiding together in the air and rearing like a snake, pulsing with an otherworldly glow.
When his black eyes flicked to Silas’s throat, the sap undulated for a breath, then struck.
The force pulled Zadriel with it, his feet sliding in the sand until the last tendrils of sap slipped free from his skin. There was no time for Silas to gasp, his mouth still open, words dying on his tongue while liquid gold slammed into his face. Seeping between his lips. Clawing up his nostrils.
A wet, pleading gurgle bubbled between them, Silas’s dagger falling from his fingers and plunging into the sand. He took a step back, clawing at his neck. Choking. Drops of gilded spittle spilling down his chin.
Zadriel could feel the power burrowing down Silas’s esophagus, filling a body that was never meant to house it.
It was as if the magic were an extension of Zadriel himself, humming a melody only he could hear.
A melody that brought him back to his days in the meadow with his mother, playing with daisies as she worked, savoring every drop of sap she offered, burnt sugar coating his tongue.
All while she spoke to him about destiny.
One day, Arcadia will show you what She needs, little one, Vehsa would say. Can you hear how Her Heart sings for you?
It screamed when he killed Her, Zadriel knew that much, Her song dying in his hands.
Arcadia still called to him, relentlessly, but it was different.
A mournful dirge that nearly broke his spirit.
It wasn’t until he’d found Mora that he remembered what it was like to be in the presence of a precious cadence.
To want nothing more than to blindly follow a song to the ends of the earth.
Though it was different with her. Her quiet melody woven by the Fates and tethered to his soul, forever tugging on his heart.
This song sank its claws into his being and summoned the beast within, calling to his rage.
It was Silas who screamed now. Falling to his knees while he gasped for air, each breath a raspy moan.
Crouching in front of him, Zadriel cocked his head to the side in a way Cillian always hated.
It was curious. Predatory. The slow assessment of a creature watching something and wondering if it were prey.
There was no questioning it in that moment.
Zadriel smiled, huffing an amused breath when Silas took one look at his sharp canines and blanched.
“How does it feel?” he asked, pressing his finger in the sand to gather a drop of sap, smearing gold on his skin. “To be powerless? To fall to your knees as your body betrays you, completely at the whims of your captor?”
Gagging, Silas doubled over, his hands landing on his knees, body heaving while he coughed. Saliva and bile dripped from his bottom lip, pooling on the ground and soaking into the sand, darkening the grains. So little gold glittering among his sick.
When Silas looked back at Zadriel, the Fae gasped.
Silas’s irises were gilded, devoid of their dark, navy blue, the color bleeding into the whites until only gold remained. “Dear gods!” he cried, his gaze going wide. “I see him. There were so many feathers.”
“Feathers?” Zadriel frowned.
“Feathers among the daisies. Blue and gold and soaked with his blood.” Sap leaked down Silas’s cheeks like tears, dripping over his chin and puddling onto his chest. He let out an agonized breath, the sound somewhere between a gasp and a cry. “The Forest couldn’t see, he left Her children blind.”
Was he speaking of the meadow? Or a Galadriah’s feathers? Raw sap did things to the Fae, twisting their bodies and minds in unpredictable ways... What a Halfling’s sap would do to a human, Zadriel had no idea, but there was no way Silas knew about the meadow.
Could this be a vision?
Or the ramblings of a madman?
He leaned closer. “Tell me what you see.”
Silas lifted his hands, bits of gold trapped under his fingernails. He stared at them, his face contorting until the awe faded, the rest of the color draining from his fair skin. “She wanted to save you. Now all they can do is watch.”
Zadriel’s heart stilled. “Who wanted to save me?”
“It wasn’t true,” Silas said, grimacing as if the words were bitter. His hands shook, but he forced himself up, staring at the Esper Rocks as if he saw something else. “She twisted her words and it didn’t matter, he still took you. He took everything.”
The crushing feeling in Zadriel’s chest was nearly too much—he remembered his mother’s final moments, and how she told Brennan he’d taken everything from her, in spite of her heeding a Galadriah’s warning.
“Do you speak of Vehsa? My mother?” Could he see her?
Did he know something? “Please,” he begged, “tell me.”
“Feathers everywhere,” Silas muttered, gasping as if he could see, tremors racking up his body as he took a step back. “Iridescent blue sparkling among the gold. Azure burning a gilded tree. So many feathers. So much blood. He was dead, and his face...”
“Silas!” Zadriel shouted, wrapping his hands around the man’s tunic. He jerked him closer, shaking him as best he could—Mother damn him, the brute was heavy. “Who do you see?” he asked, hating that he couldn’t hide the desperation from his voice. “What do they look like?”
“So much blood.” Silas shuddered, that golden gaze glowing so brightly it burned Zadriel’s eyes.
More and more sap spilled down his cheeks, soaking Zadriel’s hands and seeping into his cloak.
“She thought she could stop it but she guided fate’s hands.
You were damned. All of you,” Silas whispered, his eyelids drooping.
The man went limp, his weight tipping back until red fabric tore from Zadriel’s fingers and Silas fell.
He landed hard on the sand, head lolling to the side.
His breathing slowing. His last words a quiet incantation burrowing into Zadriel’s ears until he wondered if he’d ever stop hearing them. “She lied, she lied, she lied.”