Chapter 31 Deeper Motivations
DEEPER MOTIVATIONS
ELYRIA
She’d known the fire wasn’t his the instant it sparked.
Even if she hadn’t been watching Cedric intently, her hand on his chest, her gaze roaming across the angles of his face, taking in the serious set of his brow, the tick in his jaw, she would have known.
It was chaos and arrogance wrapped up in orange flame.
Nothing like the wild, blistering, beautiful golden ones Cedric conjured.
Elyria’s stomach turned before she even looked up.
She released a low groan as she took in Raefe, standing a dozen feet from Cedric and her, fire still dancing in his open palm.
His expression was neutral, but she suspected he’d only just schooled it to be as such.
Suspected he knew very well what he’d just inserted himself into.
She could see something working behind his gray eyes, could see him puzzling over her closeness to Cedric, the hand he’d surely just seen drop from the human’s chest.
He extinguished the lingering flame in his hand as his other one darted up to his face, his fingers brushing over his nose as though checking to make sure it was still there, was still repaired.
She smirked inwardly at the memory of Cedric charging at Raefe as though he wasn’t a knight of the realm, wasn’t the Victor of Havensreach, wasn’t a representative of the crown.
No, in that moment he was just Cedric, in all his typically misguided, honorable glory.
Well, honorable for her. She supposed it wasn’t quite the definition of honor for him to punch a visiting member of a diplomatic party in the face. She was just glad that his precious lord paramount had already left the courtyard before Cedric came to her defense.
Not that she needed the knight’s assistance, of course. But she surprised even herself at how much she didn’t mind that he’d provided it anyway.
She wasn’t blind, after all.
And the sight of Sir Cedric Thorne, eyes blazing, fists clenched, standing over the crumpled fool who’d once tried to make prey of the Revenant?
Well.
“What do you want?” she asked, sitting back on her heels, shadows curling faintly around her shoulders.
“Didn’t mean to”—his gray eyes darted between Elyria and Cedric—“interrupt. The dwarf was grumbling about the fire. Thought I’d come help.” Shoving his hands into his pockets, he took a few steps closer.
At her side, Cedric tensed. “I think you’ve helped enough.”
“Exactly.” Elyria dusted her hands off as she got to her feet. “And it’s Thraigg,” she added.
Raefe blinked, his carefully arranged mask still in place. “What?”
“You called him, ‘the dwarf.’ His name is Thraigg.”
From the corner of her eye, Elyria saw something flicker over Cedric’s face as he stood.
Humor, maybe, though he wisely said nothing.
She knew she herself regularly referred to Thraigg in the same manner—they all did.
It was just a simple matter of what they were—Thraigg was a dwarf, the same way she and Ollie and Jocelyn were fae, Tenebris Nox was nocterrian, and Shep was sylvan.
The same way Cedric was . . .
At any rate, it felt different when Raefe did it.
“Right,” he muttered. “Of course. My apologies.”
Elyria threw her hands in the air. “Stars a-fucking-bove, haven’t you run out of those by now? Every other word out of your mouth has been some sort of halfhearted apology. You’re wasting your breath. I don’t buy a single one.”
He took another step toward them, and Elyria felt Cedric move closer to her side. “Consider this my last, then, and I won’t bother you again.”
“Finally,” she said, drawing out each syllable. “Get on with it then.”
“I am sorry, you know.”
She scoffed. “That’s the best you have? You aren’t sorry.
” She grabbed her chin between her thumb and pointer finger in a show of mock contemplation.
“Well, perhaps that’s unfair of me. I’m sure you are sorry.
Sorry you didn’t listen to my warning in The Sweltering Pig not to mess with me.
” Her gaze flicked to his half-torn ear.
“Sorry you were punished for failing to do so.”
Raefe pressed his lips into a hard line, his forearms flexing, like his hands had formed fists in his pockets. Like he was trying to calm the burgeoning anger she knew must have been burning to escape.
Good.
“I don’t even know why you are here. If you failed your boss when he ordered you to collect me this past summer”—Cedric let out a low growl, and Elyria suppressed a grin—“I don’t know why he would allow you to come after me again.”
Raefe scoffed. “Allow me? You think I’m here by choice?”
“Then it makes even less sense,” she said, eyes narrowing. “Why would he trust you to carry out his plans for him?”
Raefe’s eyes flicked to the knight at her side, then back to Elyria. “I was told I had to make things right.”
Elyria wanted to laugh. Wanted to rip the fabric of her breeches off and show Raefe the proof of what he had yet to answer for. Instead, she flexed her jaw before saying, “I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what those plans of his are? That’d certainly be one way to try and make amends.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“Pity.” She turned to walk away.
“What I can tell you,” Raefe called after her, “is that your conquering of the Crucible changed many plans for many people. Including him.”
Elyria stopped mid-step.
“What does that mean?” Cedric asked.
She ignored the knight’s interjection. Kept her back to them both. “When did you learn who I was to him?”
“After he did this to me,” Raefe said, his own voice so low she wasn’t sure Cedric would have been able to hear him. She didn’t have to turn around to know he was referencing his ear. Eventually, she turned anyway, squaring her shoulders as she faced him.
“You are not just the Revenant anymore, you know that,” Raefe continued. “You are a victor. You have just as much sway with the king as he does now.”
Elyria scoffed. “With the king’s niece, sure. His sister, maybe. Not King Lachlandris himself. I can guarantee your master”—she spat the word—“has far more influence than me. The fact that you’re not wasting away in a Coralithian jail cell for what you did to me is proof of that.”
“And I already said I was sorry about that!” Raefe’s voice cracked on the last word, along with the last shred of his apparent composure.
He pulled his hands from his pocket, throwing them in the air.
“Noctis fucking take me.” He closed the distance between them, stalking straight through the center of the burning firepit to thrust a finger in Elyria’s face.
“You want to know what made it so easy for you to goad me that night? So easy for me to go overboard? To want to teach you a lesson? It was this fucking attitude of yours.”
Crack.
Cedric’s fist was midair, already flying toward Raefe, when Elyria’s shadows snapped out.
Ribbons of night swept Raefe’s feet out from under him, launching him into the air.
Rust-colored wings flared, but they weren’t fast enough to keep the fae from careening directly into Cedric’s extended fist—gut-first.
Raefe dropped to the ground, wheezing as he clutched his stomach.
Cedric surveyed him, the fire burning in his gold-brown eyes at distinct odds with his demeanor—cold, detached. It felt so unlike him that Elyria probably should have found it frightening.
She didn’t.
“Speak to her like that again, and they will be the last words you ever say.”
Elyria looked down on Raefe with a curl of her lip.
“You were right to say that was your last ‘apology,’ Sir Gilding. We’ll continue following your partner’s lead to Dawnspire, should she wish to remain, but you can fuck right back off to Coralith.
Let your precious Master Tartanis decide if you deserve to keep your other earring. ”
“You can’t do that,” Raefe said, the words coming out strained, each one punctuated with a wheezing breath.
Elyria shrugged. “I can do anything I want.”
Cedric gave a grunt of agreement. “And I doubt you want to find out exactly what either of us want to do right now.”
Light, unhurried footsteps sounded from behind, and Sephone muttered something that sounded like, “Lunara give me strength,” as she approached and knelt at Raefe’s side.
Her dark hair was braided tightly against her scalp, bringing even greater attention to the shaven half of her head and the lightning-burst tattoo there.
“For fuck’s sake,” Sephone said, helping Raefe to his feet with a grunt.
“Can you please stop antagonizing her? This is not what anybody wants.” She splayed her fingers, and the faint scent of blackberries and port wine whispered through the air as Sephone leant a wisp of healing magic to her associate.
Cedric stepped forward, angling himself between Elyria and Raefe before turning to face Sephone. “The Lady Lightbreaker has informed your . . . colleague . . . that he is not to continue accompanying us to Dawnspire. You may stay, however. If you so choose.”
“That isn’t up to you, human fil—” Raefe began with a sneer, though he quickly silenced himself at the look on Sephone’s face.
“I will continue on, if only because I am committed to following orders.” She gave Raefe a sideways glance, and at least the fool had the decency to look chagrined.
“Sephone, you cannot be seri—”
The spiked cuff on her wrist jangled threateningly as she held up her hand. “Your presence is clearly antithetical to the nature of the accords, and our very purpose for being here. We are trailing an actual threat to Nyrundelle—to all of Arcanis. We do not have time for this sort of infighting.”
Raefe paused, a genuine flash of fear crossing his face. “You’re asking me to return to Coralith empty-handed?”
Sephone sighed. “No. Go back to Luminaria. Take up our post there again. Keep track of any new activity, any new trails that might be useful for M—for Lord Corlyn and the king to learn of. I’ll reconvene with you after I see where Dawnspire leads us.”
Raefe’s shoulders sagged, a defeated laugh breaking from him.
With a toss of his hand, he extinguished the flames blazing in the firepit, his eyes narrowing first on Cedric, then Elyria.
“Whatever it is the two of you think you’re playing at here, I hope you both know how foolish it is. Nobody will allow this.”
Elyria scoffed, turning on her heel.
“Least of all your father.”