12. Chapter Eleven
Chapter Eleven
Isoria
In the red light of dusk, I trod carefully through Archer’s library, my heart fluttering in my throat.
I wasn’t eager to encounter the crown prince again, but I couldn’t stand sitting idly in my rooms a second longer.
I’d already slept almost an entire day away recovering from last night’s events.
Now, I was desperate for a taste of sunlight, and the window in my room faced the wrong direction.
Walking out the door and wandering through the castle wasn’t an option, not with the threat of potentially encountering King Wystan in the halls, so I’d dared to venture through Archer’s quarters until I’d found the library.
Maybe there would be a book about magic and its loss here, something else that had afflicted other fae at some point in history. Or perhaps Archer had learned about blood bonds in a book he kept here.
I threw open the window on the far wall, the final rays of dusk tracing the book spines lined up on the nearest shelves.
Balmy air flooded inside, the night promising to be as heavy with humidity as the day.
I ached with the longing to be back in the sky, chasing that sunset.
Ascending high enough for the city that terrorized my people and me to shrink into something small and less fearsome, for me to put miles between Prince Archer and myself.
I could practically taste the high of freedom on my tongue, and it was sweet.
But perhaps that was nothing but a dream.
Why had the gods put a blood bond on us, the two who had been prophesied to destroy one another? It didn’t make sense. We couldn’t fulfill the prophesies if we couldn’t harm each other.
Had a god heard the future that Maris had foretold and decided to intervene?
“Normally, I’d love to see a female wearing nothing but my shirt standing in my quarters.” I was so distracted that I stiffened at the sound of Archer’s drawling voice.
I flung a glower at him over my shoulder while simultaneously tugging at the hem of his shirt, suddenly wishing it hung further than mid-thigh.
“But on you…” Archer’s words trailed off and he swallowed, flicking his gaze away to stare daggers at the armchair where his cat lay sound asleep in a perfect crescent, as if by being in the same room as me, the creature had betrayed him. “Why is Onyx with you? He hates strangers.”
Turning away from the window and striding past the writing desk and rows of bookcases, I stopped a few feet away from where he lingered in the doorway.
“If you don’t want your enemies walking around in your clothes, maybe don’t take them as prisoners to your chambers.
” I shifted on my bare feet, settling a hand on one hip and shooting him a mockery of a smile.
Archer scoffed. “I’m as much a prisoner in this bond as you.”
The admission sent a pang through me. It rang true, warning me that Archer had no reason to lie about the bond forcing us to stay in close proximity.
He didn’t want me trapped here with him.
I could feel the fragile hope I’d harbored last night beginning to crack, sending an echoing emptiness through me.
What will I do if I can’t get back home? If I can’t help Mama and the others?
Trying to conceal the ache, I forced my expression into a glower and retorted, “Yet you brought me to your castle.”
Archer laughed, the sound sharp and cruel. “Were you going to bring me home to your fire demon friends?”
I looked away. Obviously, that hadn’t been an option, but that didn’t mean I had to like being trapped here. “And yes, your cat cuddled and slept with me, after I enjoyed using your soap and resting in your bed while wearing your shirt.” I gave him another devious smirk. “How does it look on me?”
Archer’s scowl deepened as he pushed off the entryway and stepped closer.
“Like I’m going to rip it off you.” He paused, horror crossing his face before he scowled.
“Because it’s mine, and I can’t stand seeing you touch a single thing that’s mine,” he amended.
“You’re disgusting. A fire demon. A killer. A—”
“A healer who saved your life.”
Once again, Archer’s mocking smile was back. “I know your kind’s tricks. I’ve studied plenty about how you lure your prey with false kindness, healing them to lull them into letting down their guard.”
I gaped. “That’s madness. Why would we waste our magic on something like that? Healing is sacred.” My voice wobbled. “Until your father decided we were unwelcome, we offered healing unlike anything any other fae in Emberglade can provide.”
Archer’s smile only grew, like I’d confessed something.
“Speaking of waste, we have places to be and little time.” Crossing the room to close the window to the heat, he turned back to me.
“Sit down.” He nodded to an armchair while he settled in the chair before his writing desk, leaning back and propping his boots on its surface.
I sat, noticing for the first time the stacks of books with titles about shifters and phoenixes resting in piles alongside an open journal with careful handwriting. My chest tightened. How long had he been researching my kind? How much had Maris the oracle shared with him?
Did he suspect I was the one foreseen to destroy his family, that I was his fated enemy? Was that what he wanted to question me about? Or the location of my kind?
The tightening in my chest increased until it felt like a fist was gripping my lungs, stifling my airflow.
“Why were you wandering the temple graveyard last night?” he asked, watching me carefully.
“I was hoping to visit the temple and consult with Solea.”
He tapped his pen on the desktop thoughtfully. “And then raise the dead within the graveyard?”
“You can’t be serious,” I scoffed. “We already went over this. I can’t perform necromancy.”
Archer tilted his head. “Phoenixes can raise themselves from the dead. Why not others?”
I crossed my arms. “Because that’s not how our magic works.”
“Not even if one of you tapped into the magic of Mortius himself?”
I shook my head adamantly. “I went to Solea's temple because my people are hurting—” My voice cracked, and I blinked at the tears forming in my eyes. Why was I trying to explain myself to the prince? If he had cursed us, he already knew our plight. If he hadn’t, I didn’t need to share that the people he hunted were also growing weak, becoming more vulnerable.
Archer was silent for a long moment, watching my expression carefully. At last, he turned away, looking out the window and the crimson sky. “A fire demon is attacking Emberglade with revenants. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
In your twisted mind, perhaps, I thought, but didn’t say aloud. “Have you considered Mortius himself would have the power to do such a thing?”
His mouth twisted and he didn’t meet my eyes. “It’s not him. Besides, the gods don’t interfere in our affairs anymore.”
My heart twinged at the proclamation. Maybe he was right, considering Solea, Sanvo, and Vithenna had all been silent to the phoenixes’ prayers.
“You claim you poked your head out of your hiding place to venture near the capital and worship your goddess. Was it also to attack my people?” Archer cocked a brow. “You death-lovers vowed to burn Emberglade.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never made such a vow. And I know you’re dense and this might be hard for you to remember or comprehend, but I healed you. Does that seem like the act of someone who wanted to attack Emberglade?”
He sighed, sitting back in his chair. “You don’t make sense,” he muttered. “And where is your hiding place? The hole you crawled out of, where I assume more demons like you reside?”
It was the question I’d expected him to lead with, the one I’d dreaded. “Just because we’re bonded doesn’t mean you can force me to share that. And you can’t torture it out of me, either, unless you’re particularly masochistic.”
Archer smiled slowly, lazily, like a predator sure he’d trapped his prey.
I hated that his eyes were clear and piercing, that the dying daylight gilded his hair, that every hard angle of his face was softened by his sullen mouth and long eyelashes.
Monsters shouldn’t be beautiful. “A blood bond only forces us to share the pain we inflict upon each other,” he said.
“I could have someone else torture you.”
“What would that look like, having your supposed betrothed interrogated and tortured?”
Archer shrugged. “It was fun to imagine. Pity we have to fool everyone we care about each other. Starting tonight.” He stood, as if he’d accepted that, for now, he wasn’t going to receive the answers he wanted from me.
“Tonight?” My voice wobbled.
“Tonight, I will have to present you to my father.”
“We can’t fool him.” My chest tightened. “He’ll read my mind.”
Archer shook his head and stood abruptly, crossing to his shelves on the opposite wall.
He pulled down an aged book, flipping through the pages.
“This book references ancient bonds. It says here that with a blood bond, outside magic views the two separate souls as a single magical entity, meaning that anyone else’s power, like my father’s, would react to both of us in the same way.
As his blood relation, I was born immune to his mind-reading abilities and given mind magic of my own.
If his magic doesn’t work on me, it can’t on you either.
” He hesitated. “We also can’t use our magic to harm one another—so your magic would have no effect on me. ”
I frowned. “And what does your magic do?”
“What a sheltered life you must live, to not have heard of my renowned magic.” He grinned haughtily.
When I realized he wasn’t going to share, I asked, “What else does the bond do?”
“Like I said” —Archer turned a few more pages, pointing to a passage as he read— “we cannot be more than a mile apart, or we begin to die. Prolonged time apart would kill us. And if one of us dies—at any being’s hand—we both die.
” He glanced at me pointedly. “And I don’t know about your phoenix resurrection powers, but I’m not sure they work with a blood bond unless I am resurrected too. I don’t recommend trying anything.”
Inwardly, I shuddered. Phoenix resurrection was no easy feat, and could only be accomplished under specific circumstances, so it wasn’t something I’d considered, anyway.
Archer slammed his book shut. “Therefore, you live on, tainting the world with your deathly powers.”
I stifled my groan. The gods are mocking us, surely. “Again, I’m a healer—”
“With a relationship to death that no other fae has. The ability to defy it entirely.”
“Is there any way to break a blood bond?”
Archer pressed his lips together. “They’re formed by the gods themselves.
Unless you can get a god to listen to you” -he snorted, like the idea of one heeding me, a supposed fire demon, was outrageous- “we’re out of luck.
” He replaced the book, and I took note of its location.
Though he didn’t have much of a reason to lie to me when I could check the book myself later, I still wanted to see it all with my own eyes.
“And now you must prepare for our meeting with the king.”
“He’ll see through our ruse immediately,” I protested.
Archer smirked as he strolled toward the door. “Then be convincing, Feathers.” I bristled at the nickname. “I’ll fetch you in an hour.”