Chapter 32 Family Ties
FAMILY TIES
CEDRIC
Had Cedric swung Ashrender, he was sure he would have sliced the space between Elyria and Raefe in half. The air felt impossibly thick. Her back still turned, Elyria was so rigid she might as well have been carved from marble.
Raefe’s final dig had a dozen questions fluttering around inside Cedric’s mind.
He wanted to ask what the bastard meant.
Wanted to punch him again for being the reason for Elyria’s pain—past, present, future.
Wanted to launch the hundred unintelligible words that were all simultaneously fighting for purchase on his tongue into the tangible silence.
Thankfully, Sephone beat him to it. “Fucking idiot. You didn’t need to bring that up.” Her voice was sharp as a razor as she gave Raefe a withering look.
Raefe straightened. “And I also didn’t need to haul my ass across the entire continent just to be sent away like a misbehaving child.”
Elyria whirled, menace in her jeweled eyes even as her mouth tipped up in a cruel smirk. “Yes, well, if the boot fits . . .”
Raefe threw his hands in the air, indignation reddening his face. “This is the absolute definition of gryphon shit. How many times can a man say he’s sorry”—Elyria and Cedric both snorted at the same time—“before we can all move on? You both got your hits in.” He grimaced. “Literally.”
The tension roiling off Elyria was a physical, visceral thing—the dirt around her boots vibrated, small pebbles rolling across the ground, as if drawn to her. Shadows spilled across her skin, that suit of shadow armor pulling together again, as she took several steps closer to Raefe.
The man, to his credit, seemed to know the smart thing was to take just as many steps back, maintaining the distance between them.
“Move on? Move on?” Elyria spat. “Tell that to the marks you left burned into my flesh. And all because, what, you were upset that I wouldn’t come with you like a good little girl? Because I gave you a bloody nose? The vanity of men never fails to disappoint, I swear.”
Raefe’s hardened expression flickered, some mix of fear and regret flashing over his face. But before Cedric could be entirely sure of what he’d seen, the man had donned a mask of indifference once more.
What Cedric was sure of, however, were the shadows coalescing in one of Elyria’s palms, forming something solid, something sharp. Cedric drew up behind her, placing his palm on the small of her back. She took a shuddering breath, and the shadows released.
Raefe’s exhale sounded like a sigh of relief.
“Fine. At least now he”—he jutted his chin at Cedric, ice forming behind his gray eyes—“has a sense of exactly what it is he’s getting into.
You all may call me an idiot, but I’m not the silly human playing at tying myself to the heir of Nyrundelle’s underworld. ”
Sephone’s typically severe demeanor shifted, her eyes widening as though she was actually concerned for her .
. . partner? Friend? Underling? Whatever they were to each other, it was clear that she did not approve of the path Raefe had chosen to walk here.
“Noctis damn you to the fourth quarter, Raephael. You’re making this worse. ”
Cedric bit his tongue, trying very hard not to let the questions that had immediately sprung into his mind tumble from his mouth.
Raefe smiled, as if he knew exactly what those questions were anyway. “I’ll let the Revenant explain.” And with that, he launched himself into the air with a flap of his rust-colored wings, and shot off toward camp.
Sephone exhaled sharply, shaking her head and turning to face Elyria. “I’m sorry about him. I promise, this assignment has all been above board. Our presence and purpose is fully sanctioned by King Lachlandris. Raefe’s past actions and present behavior are not what—”
“It’s fine,” Elyria replied through clenched teeth. “Just get him out of here.” Her hand flexed over her thigh, over her lingering scars, and heat spiked in the center of Cedric’s chest.
With a nod, Sephone stomped off, muttering under her breath.
A glance at the camp told Cedric that Raefe was already pulling his things together, dumping them haphazardly on the ground next to where Jocelyn tended his horse.
It was a little hard to tell from all the way over here, but he thought she was smirking as she buckled the saddle.
Thought he heard some thoroughly unbothered laughter from Ollie and Tristan and Thraigg as they watched Raefe huff and puff his way through the campsite.
Cedric wanted to relish in Raefe’s imminent departure as much as the others, but the bastard’s parting words kept bouncing noisily off the sides of Cedric’s skull. He felt like he was trying to play catch up in a game that had started eons ago.
Cedric thought he had a basic understanding of the major players in Nyrundelle, including this Master Tartanis.
The man was the head of the criminal guild that ran seedy dealings throughout the major Arcanian cities.
Cedric had been privy to several council meetings wherein Tartanis had been a small topic of conversation upon occasion.
But from the context of Raefe’s accusation—and Sephone’s implication—it was clear that Cedric knew even less than he thought he did.
What he did understand was that this was not a good man.
The fact alone that he was the one responsible for sending Raefe after Elyria that night in The Sweltering Pig would have been enough for Cedric to hate him forever.
“You’re not the only one in this world who had grand plans for the day they finally met the Revenant.”
Elyria’s words during the Crucible came back, fluttering through Cedric’s ears like a war song.
He understood all too well the allure she presented to men who craved power.
And that had been before Elyria was not only the famed Revenant, but the Victor of Nyrundelle. The conqueror of the Arcane Crucible.
It was bad enough that this man had set his eyes on Elyria, that he wanted to use her status and reputation as the Revenant for his own gain. But to learn he was not just anyone, that he was actually her—
“Elle.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” She exhaled through her nose, sharp and shuddering.
“I only want to understand. Is what he said—did he—” Cedric swallowed. “Is Tartanis your father?”
Elyria said nothing. She simply turned toward the trees, her fingers clenched at her sides, her entire body taut, and started walking.
Gaping at her back, the tether in Cedric’s chest tugged at him. Something shimmered down that thread, like an echo, a distant thrum of emotion that Cedric knew wasn’t his own. Pain? Humiliation?
His heart sank.
Cedric tracked Elyria’s movement until she disappeared into the trees, where the setting sun cast long shadows between the trunks.
Before he could decide whether to follow, Sid stepped out of a shadow, tail twitching, emerald eyes flitting between Cedric and the forest as though she didn’t know where her attention was best served.
He blinked. Elyria was right, Sid looked .
. . bigger. No, she definitely was bigger.
Where earlier that same day she’d been able to fit comfortably in his saddlebag, she was closer in size to a small dog now.
His concern for Elyria was momentarily shoved aside by the mysterious shadowborn creature before him.
He took in her sleek fur, the wisps of smoke leaking from her, the layer of sinewy muscle that was beginning to emerge beneath her coat.
She was not just larger, but more solid, more grown, as if fed by the rising surge of Elyria’s wild power, by her mastery of the shadows.
Sid turned slowly, padding toward Cedric on soft paws that still looked far too big for her body. She came to a stop and sat back on her haunches directly in front of Cedric’s boots. Her tail flicked—once, twice.
Cedric just kept staring, trying to take in the physical changes he was seeing in the cat, trying to understand what they meant.
Sid meowed, looked toward the trees, and meowed again.
“What?” Cedric replied. “She doesn’t want me to follow her, I’m sure of it.”
Another meow, one that sounded almost like scolding.
“She said she doesn’t want to talk about it.”
With a breath that sounded suspiciously like a scoff, Sid pawed at Cedric’s shin.
“I’m only trying to respect her wishes.”
The next strike of Sid’s paw, accompanied by yet another meowing reprimand, was significantly more forceful.
“I don’t understand her reaction, I admit.
What did Raefe even mean? ‘Nobody will allow this. Least of all your father.’ These fae and their cryptic nonsense, I tell you.
” Cedric rubbed at his temple. What was the “this” Raefe was referring to?
There wasn’t a possibility that the fae knew about the aching residence Elyria had taken up in Cedric’s mind, body, and soul . . . was there?
Sid meowed, head tilted to one side, and Cedric felt his cheeks heat as he realized he was actively musing aloud to—
This time on the road is finally getting to you, Thorne, he said to himself. You are talking to a fucking cat.
From somewhere in the recesses of his mind, Cedric imagined he heard laughing.
Sid gave Cedric’s boot another exasperated bat of her paw before standing once more and turning to walk in the direction Elyria had gone.
Cedric stared after her for a long moment before muttering a soft curse under his breath and following.
The trees swallowed the light as Cedric trailed after Sid, his boots crunching softly against the forest floor. She padded ahead like a creature on a mission, pausing every few steps to glance over her shoulder, as though making sure he hadn’t wandered off.
Celestials save him, this cat really was a piece of her creator, wasn’t she?