Chapter 69
Ciana twirled the golden feather between her fingers, watching how it refracted the soft light of her room.
Mariah had given them three of Cielle’s feathers before they’d left Kreah.
They’d burned the first the night they’d read that world-altering passage in a journal thousands of years old.
They’d raced out of the archives, Eliza the archivist blinking in surprise but not stopping them to ask why they were leaving.
It had been nearly three full days since Ciana had tossed that feather in the fire. How long did it take to work? How fast could an Attlehon eagle fly?
Regardless, she was a tightly wound bundle of nervous energy, and this time there was nothing Sebastian could do to help.
They’d had their moment of peace, an incredible escape from the horrors of the past year. Ciana regretted none of it; her only regret was that it had taken her so long to find the courage to put the trauma of her past behind her.
But Sebastian finding what he had in that old journal had been a wake-up call. A rude slap back into reality, their perfect bubble popping with the turn of an ancient page.
It felt like some sort of cruel universal joke. Or perhaps a blessing, depending on how one looked at it. After all this time—
Wing beats fluttered outside her window. Too large to be one of the small tree finches that roosted in the palace.
Ciana leaped to her feet as Cielle alighted on the awning of her open window, feathers rustling.
“It worked,” Sebastian said breathlessly, standing from where he’d lounged in a chair.
Ciana nodded. The golden eagle’s shrewd eyes were a bit too piercing for her comfort. Cielle cocked her head, trilling softly.
“Yes,” Ciana said. “We have something for Mariah.”
The eagle trilled again and fluttered her wings, as if pleased.
“Here.” Sebastian pushed the tightly rolled scroll into Ciana’s palm.
“You’re sure you can’t just tell Mariah down the bond?” Ciana didn’t turn from the eagle watching them from the window. She was elated to hear that her friend had her magic back—plus something extra. She only hoped it hadn’t cost Mariah anything in return.
Sebastian shook his head. “She closed it. Even if I tried, she’d have to be the one to open it first.” He sighed, still clearly frustrated. “I just wish we knew what was going on in Leuxrith. I don’t like the idea of her being alone.”
“She’s not alone—not completely. She has Callamus and Signe and Matheo.”
“You know what I mean, Cee.”
Right. Ciana swallowed. Andrian wasn’t her favorite person, but the idea of him still being with Kol and the Royals, after all this time, clenched a vice around her heart.
The look on his face when he’d knelt before her, swearing to protect their queen with his dying breath, flashed through her mind.
He may be an asshole, but he was a part of their family. They needed him. Mariah needed him. Ciana hoped that once she got this message, she would be able to get him out.
She moved slowly to avoid startling the great eagle, eyeing Cielle’s sickle-shaped talons curved around the wood, the deadly hook of her beak.
“Please,” Ciana whispered, “don’t attack me. We’re friends, right?”
Cielle clicked her beak, and Ciana swore the bird rolled her eyes.
Reassuring.
Ciana fed a length of soft leather string through the sealed scroll, then with delicate movements, tied it to Cielle’s pale gold legs. The small feathers there were surprisingly soft, like ripped silk.
When she was done, Cielle clucked, using her beak to fit the scroll into her taloned foot. She looked back at Ciana, trilling softly and cocking her head.
“It’s for Mariah,” Ciana said. “She needs to see it, as soon as possible. No one else.”
She felt like a fool for talking to a bird. But when Cielle blinked and bowed her head, she got the distinct feeling that this eagle was no ordinary beast.
Mariah had told her as much, but it was another thing to see it.
As quickly and quietly as she’d arrived, Cielle spread her wings and launched from the window. Even beneath the canopy of Vatha, her feathers caught the light, and she vanished into the afternoon haze.
“Well.” Sebastian strode to her side, sweeping her curls off her neck. “I guess all we do now is wait.”
Ciana nodded, eyes still searching the sky—for what, she didn’t know. She toyed with the tiny ring on her pinky finger. She wasn’t ready to take it off; not yet. Maybe she was on the right path and one day wouldn’t feel so afraid.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Ciana and Sebastian whirled as the heavy knocks rang through the room.
“Lady Ciana Visseau! Sir Sebastian Riqueti!” The male voice was deep and unfamiliar. Sebastian frowned, striding quickly across the room and yanking open the door.
Four guards waited on the other side, dressed in full Vathan regalia. Niktael’s insignia—a white oak tree set as the backdrop to a lit torch—blazed proudly across their chests.
“Is something wrong, gentlemen?” Sebastian’s words were polite yet cool, his gaze sweeping over them.
One of the guards straightened. “King Niktael requests your presence in the throne room. Immediately.”
The air in the Vathan throne room was different from any other time Ciana had been here.
Gone was the warmth she’d started to associate with the king and his kingdom. Instead, something tense and heavy draped over the resplendent room. Even the trees lining the sides were colder, like they were nothing more than statues devoid of life.
The throne room was also far from empty. More guards lined the hall, all similarly dressed. There had to be at least an entire platoon, all heavily armed and standing at attention.
At the far end of the hall, seated rigidly on his wooden throne, was Niktael. He was dressed in finer clothes than Ciana had ever seen him in, a lush spotted fur coat draped over one shoulder and his carved oak crown settled heavily on his brow.
Fear curled in her gut, hungry and wild, when he refused to meet her gaze. His eyes remained downcast, locked on a spot beneath his throne.
“I don’t like this,” Sebastian murmured. He’d grabbed his sword before leaving her room, but even that weapon seemed useless with the number of guards surrounding them.
Ciana agreed. She did not like this—not one single bit. Her instincts shrieked at her to run back the other way.
But the four guards from before still followed at their feet.
There was no way out of this—whatever this was.
She walked forward, clinging to Sebastian’s side, doing everything she could to control her breath and the racing beat of her heart.
Nothing worked, but she tried.
When they had nearly reached the front of the throne room, another figure emerged from the curtained shadows behind Niktael’s throne. A man with dark skin and red-brown braids, garbed in flowing robes. Power thrummed from him, an agelessness pulsing from his moss-green eyes.
Ydros.
Ciana and Sebastian halted at the base of the dais, jaws tight. It was only then that Niktael finally looked at them. Ciana’s breath left her in a rush when she saw the sadness in his soft brown eyes, the regret shining from his handsome face.
“I’m sorry,” he said, so soft that only she and Sebastian could hear.
Sebastian tensed. “Your Majesty,” he said slowly, “respectfully, what is the meaning of all this?”
“The king is finally heeding my counsel.” Ydros’s deep voice boomed through the hall. Ciana’s skin burned under the weight of his power.
“And what counsel is that?” Ciana cringed at the not-so-subtle snarl in Sebastian’s question.
Ydros was unphased. He watched them cooly, arms crossed behind his back.
“Lady Ciana Visseau confirmed the rumors from the north. The Queen of Onita is responsible for setting Kol, the Scourge of the First War, free from his prison in Enfara.”
Ciana’s heart slammed to her feet. No. No, she would never. She didn’t—
Memories—blurred, hazy memories—hit her like a boulder.
The dinner with Nik. The lightness she’d felt eating the food and drinking the wine. The raging hangover she’d had the next day, the loss of her memories about how she’d gotten back to her rooms.
When she turned to Sebastian, mouth slack and tears burning behind her eyes, she hoped he read the truth.
Drugged. She’d been drugged for information on Mariah.
Was this why Nik had given them access to the archives? To make himself feel better after forcing her to spill information about her queen?
What was it he’d said before leaving them? I hope the knowledge of Vatha is enough to bank the flames of war.
Maybe the war he’d intended to bank wasn’t the one where her queen won. Maybe all along it had been a distraction while they’d readied this. One Ciana had played into all too well.
Nik’s betrayal burned, but not nearly as much as the guilt.
Ydros wasn’t done.
“The interests of Vatha no longer align with those of Onita.” The god regarded them with cold disinterest, as if he were analyzing the weather. “Mariah Salis and the members of her court are hereby declared enemies of the Vathan Crown. Seize them immediately.”