Chapter Thirty-Five The Price of Friendship
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
THE PRICE OF FRIENDSHIP
The prison caravan went over yet another boulder, jostling Reya and the other magic-born against the walls and each other. Wincing, she braced one hand against the floor and wrapped the other around her knees so she wasn’t touching anyone, and took deep, controlled breaths.
She thought of smoke, sweat, and steel. The scent of whiskey on her father’s beard. The popping of red coals in the fire pot. Glowing metal sizzling as it cooled in the water. The tenor of her father’s voice.
The forge was the only place she’d ever felt truly safe. Until him.
She thought of leather, smoking cedar logs, and pine sap. The emotions constantly shifting in the amber of his eyes. Lavender sheets twisting in the candlelit dark.
She knew losing him might break her. Knew he might already be gone. She pressed her trembling lips together. Caelan was worth the danger of further broken pieces. The All-Gods had warned her not to risk her life for his, but she was prepared to throw herself at their mercy.
It had been three days since Caelan was taken from her. Three days of cold and silence and regret and self-loathing. Of hatching traps and scheming through the night. Of hard travel. All to get here.
Getting captured had been surprisingly difficult.
Flashing around the God Power hadn’t been an option, and she hadn’t quite unlocked her gift for perception.
Even if she had, it wasn’t ostentatious enough to cause a scene.
She’d had to summon her Ire in front of an entire village and put up enough of a fight with the Silver Guardsmen in the area to be convincing, all without revealing more than she needed to.
But the real challenge had been in allowing them to put her in chains.
Reya could still hear the click of the Kellstone collar as it locked into place around her neck, heavy and cold.
She rubbed the band of skin that was already turning red beneath the green stone.
She’d once grown accustomed to the feeling of Kellstone against her skin, like a ringing in her ear that eventually faded into the background.
But then she’d learned to live without it, and didn’t know how to need it again.
The Drelid next to her had been staring at nothing for hours now, eyes hollow.
The male Sage across from her, on the other hand, was staring unabashedly at Reya as she tried to reel in her panic.
Where Stellene’s Ire had been a deep evergreen, this male’s Ire was the palest shade of green she’d ever seen.
Silver hair fell over his brow, so stark against his deep brown skin.
Next to Caelan, he was one of the most stunning people she’d ever laid eyes on.
“Lovely accommodations we have here, aren’t they?” he baited her. “Very spacious.”
It was less secure than the carriage she’d broken Stellene out of, if only just, and Reya wondered, not for the first time, what sort of power she must have to make Rothmire so certain he’d found the Guardian.
Despite the Sage’s taunt, Reya was grateful for any distraction. “What kind of elemental are you?”
His voice was rich, every word spoken as if by a lover. “Give it a guess.”
When Reya rolled her eyes, he pouted playfully. “I’m an ice elemental, love. Rare, that. They call us the Winterborn. And yes, it’s every bit as fantastic as it sounds.”
They went over another bump, and Reya flinched.
“Not a fan of small spaces?”
Not since she’d watched her parents die from the inside of a cellar.
Reya was twelve when Lennox realized she couldn’t handle small spaces. Such a weakness would get her killed or worse one day, he’d explained before knocking her out. She’d woken locked inside a trunk.
Even now, she could hear Lennox speaking to her through the wood. If you cannot be here—if you cannot endure—then go somewhere else.
He’d kept her in there without water or food for two days while she’d screamed herself hoarse.
When he’d finally opened the trunk, she’d been curled in the fetal position in a puddle of her own piss and didn’t speak to anyone for a month.
But damn him, she’d learned how to exit her body. How to send her mind somewhere safe.
“I’ll survive.”
“I’m Citrio.” He nodded to the Drelid, who sat angled toward the corner like she would crawl into the wood and disappear if she could.
Waist-length blue hair was all that covered her forest-green skin, though Reya hardly thought her nakedness was what was bothering her.
Drelids didn’t wear clothes because they interfered with their ability to camouflage.
“And this here is Blue, as I like to call her.”
“That’s not her name?”
Citrio sighed. “She doesn’t say much.”
An algae tear slipped down the Drelid’s cheek.
“Are you all right?” Reya asked. It was a stupid question, and Reya didn’t know what she expected the female to say.
The Drelid didn’t reply or look at her as she wrapped her arms around her bare green legs to guard against the chill, chains clinking as she shifted.
“As I said. We’ve been traveling together for some time now.”
“Maybe she just doesn’t like talking to you.”
Citrio’s smile was a flash of white. “I like you already, Red.”
Reya ignored the familiar pet name. “You’re rather chipper for someone who’s being carted off to die.”
His expression didn’t change. “I’ll admit I didn’t think I’d die at the hands of good old King Rothmire. But we all die sometime. I get to go out surrounded by beautiful females. What’s not to be chipper about?”
She had to admire his nerve.
“I don’t suppose you managed to snag anything long and sharp on your way in here.” Naturally, they’d searched her, but she’d had nothing on her worth confiscating.
He chuckled. “The Silver Guard doesn’t make mistakes.” She scoffed. “We won’t get out of this cage until they’re ready to put us in another.”
Reya was counting on it.
“Close the gates!” someone shouted. Wood groaned and metal whined and closed with a boom that seemed to shake the mountain beneath them. A gate. But which one?
When the carriage doors opened, she was forced to shield her eyes as the guards yanked her out onto an unfamiliar castle bailey. Already, the altitude was making her lightheaded, a sensation she had never known as a girl.
The first thing she saw were the Etellinian Mountains looming above them, lightning flashing between the snowy peaks.
Pine-scented storm winds lashed her cheeks, and she didn’t fight the tears that welled in her eyes. Let them think she was frightened.
At long last, she’d made it home.
Thunder cracked across the sky, the sound echoing off the castle stones like the roar of an All-God. Now that she could see, she was beginning to question her plan, even if it was too late to change course now.
The stone fortress that jutted up like teeth from the fog was as well guarded inside as it was outside.
Once the seat of the long and storied line of Etellinian rulers, whose people had been beloved by Ryksis above all others, the castle had been built into the mountain itself, mounted like a crown atop a peak.
A lone bridge crossed the ravine at its front, one that she knew was guarded without lapse on this side and the other, where it opened onto a long, curving road up the rocks and pines to the colossal stone wall that surrounded the fortress on all sides.
She counted eleven gray stone towers on the walls, all armed with siege weapons and scorched black from catapult fire and boiling tar.
The Rhiterran crest had been carved on the archway above the portcullis, the stone around it rugged and raised in such a way that revealed something else had been there before, a small echo of the people who had once ruled this castle.
Reya knew the faded shape. It was the eternal knot—the same one she wore on her armor. The symbol of the mountain kingdom.
“Like your new accommodations, bloodling?”
Reya grunted as a guard grabbed her by the hair.
“Get in line.” He shoved her forward, and she feigned tripping, latching on to the armor and cloak of another guard in an attempt to steady herself.
The commotion did not go unnoticed by anyone.
She allowed surprise and pain and fear to spread across her features as the guard turned, looking from his torn cloak to the tears that had been on her cheeks well before she’d tripped.
When the backhanded blow landed across her cheek, she let herself go flying, skidding across the dirt and cobblestones of the bailey.
He spat at her. “Lay hands on me or my men again, half-breed, and I will see to it personally that you are whipped every day for a week. That goes for all of you!”
Citrio reached down to help her up, the guards motioning them into line again. Reya licked her bloody lip as she scanned the small group of magic-born she’d been transported here with.
There were three Sages, including her, four Drelids, and several magic-born creatures Reya couldn’t recognize or name.
When Blue was jerked away from Citrio to stand with her kind, Reya didn’t miss the expression of rage on his beautiful face.
Whether they had developed some kind of bond or not, the world wasn’t quite so intimidating when you had someone familiar by your side.
The line began to move, and Reya clenched her fists. She took a deep breath as they neared the walls that were already closing in around her.
She had no fail-safe. No dagger, no armor, and no Etellinian steel. Just herself.
It would have to be enough.
With one final glance at the Etellinian Mountains, Reya stepped into the dark, yawning mouth of Bladestone Prison.