6. Chapter 6
Owain
Russet and gold leaves clung stubbornly to the branches overhead as we rode through the foothills. The gray sky was merciless, promising biting winds and a nasty storm by nightfall. It would be the sort of weather that held no illusion of softness. A challenge for even the most seasoned warriors.
We traveled in a long line of horses and men through the mountainous borderlands between Larethia and Gelida. The road narrowed as broadleaves turned to evergreens, their shadows long and watchful in the weak light through the dense canopy.
Normally, I would’ve roamed up and down the length of the procession, finding one man after another to chat with, hoping to distract him from the slog of travel, to raise his spirits. Yet I simply couldn’t find it within myself to be the charming prince they expected.
Still, I couldn’t help but listen.
“First time riding with Prince Shadowborn?” a captain muttered to the same green recruit I’d talked to that morning. “Stay close if fighting starts. That’s an order. You have his back, he’ll have yours. I’ve seen him turn arrows before they can land.”
I wished I could live up to their high opinion of me. Some days the gap between who they believed I was and what I knew myself to be felt wide enough to swallow a man whole.
Cresting a ridge, our horses shifted uneasily, ears flicking at the faint hiss of wind through the needles.
We should’ve been setting up camp in the pass by now, instead of still struggling with the rocky summits along the ascent.
We were already several hours behind schedule.
One wagon wheel had snapped, and two horses were already limping at the end of the line after struggling through the muddy roads on downslope sections.
My instincts demanded we wait until we found some defensible ridge to make camp for the night—this was the most dangerous section of the borderlands—except my men were exhausted. And with another storm breathing down my neck, I was certain I’d chosen poorly in delaying.
“You’ve got that face again,” Cam said, his elemental aura prickling static along my skin. He must’ve been as nervous as I was to have his power so close to the surface—ready for action.
I kept scanning the tree line. “Which face?”
“The one that says you’re about to kill someone.” He adjusted his reins with a deliberately lazy flick of his hand, prodding as always.
Killing someone might be more enjoyable than this.
I stuffed that thought down. “I just…”
Camrick was the only person I’d truly confided in since I was a boy.
Where I was weighed down, he was light as air.
When I was brooding, he could always break me out of it with his recklessness.
But he wasn’t my second-in-command because he was my best friend.
He was Larethia’s general because he was incredibly intelligent, efficient, and practical—one of the most disciplined men I knew.
“Somehow, I know this isn’t going to work out.” I flexed my fingers as a tendril of darkness curled outward from my palm, tasting the air like a living thing. “And it’s not because I’m trying to sabotage it. It just doesn’t feel right.”
The forest didn’t feel right either—the birds had gone silent, and even the wind seemed to skirt the road.
I listened to the shift of branches, the soft clink of armor, and searched for any pulse of magic in the air that would warn me before danger struck.
But I felt none of those things. Instead, a gentle, warm hum, like walking into a patch of sunlight on a frosty day, brushed the edge of my senses.
At first, my restless shadows stilled. But then their interest piqued, making them rise to the surface of my skin. I halted my stallion mid-step.
Cam glanced over. “What now?”
I didn’t answer. I was too busy trying to understand what was happening myself. The internal war I fought had never made me feel like this—only restrained. Could it be an enemy trying to deceive my senses?
But there it was again, barely a whisper of a sensation.
It was the same strange resonance I’d felt once before, when I’d least expected softness, except this time it felt less like shared pain. This was…something else. Something almost personal for how perfectly it fit against the shadows roiling inside me.
If it were enemy sorcery, they’d already tipped their hand. Though, surely, they would’ve attacked by now.
My heart kicked hard against my ribs. For a fleeting moment, I imagined I saw a flash of fabric and red hair weaving through the trees on the ridgeline far above our convoy. But the shape disappeared when I blinked. I returned my horse to a walk, sidling up beside Cam. “I don’t know…”
Whatever it had been, it wasn’t the Assembly. The magic had been too free and unpretentious, not rigid and cold enough to be of their ilk. Whatever had touched me from the ridge had been strong, but it had warmth in it.
Show yourself, I thought, sending out my sixth sense in a quiet sweep.
This time, something answered. It felt as if a palm pressed over my heart, spreading warmth and comfort through the contact, stilling my shadows completely.
Stunned by the unfamiliar sensation, I didn’t as much as breathe, because the reckless, desperately hopeful part of me worried that if I did, it might vanish.
My stallion snorted and tossed his head, reacting to something I hadn’t noticed as I reveled in the strange feeling of not being alone in my own body. I shook myself back into reality and tightened my grip on the reins, gaze locked on the dark trees on the ridge above.
“Princeling?” Cam pressed. “You sense something?”
I swallowed hard. “Keep the men sharp.”
I didn’t want it to be an enemy. I didn’t know what I wanted it to be, only that I didn’t want to lose it.
My magic reached out, unbidden, as though something in the forest called to it.
Something inside me wanted to make my feet follow where it tried to lead.
An absurd, impractical thought ignited in my mind—that someone was out there, experiencing the same impossible warmth tightening around their heart.
Before I could make sense of the strange pull, the first arrow split the air, aimed straight at me. My power rose to meet the threat, forging a broad blade to intercept the shaft mid-flight, splitting the arrow and the air around it into splintered fragments.
“Ambush!” Cam’s amplified voice bellowed.
Chaos broke out.
More arrows whistled down. I raised my left arm, shadows spilling out to form a shield as black as midnight. My men scrambled to raise their own shields, but panic had already begun to spread like a disease.
Cam’s magic blasted entire volleys of arrows out of the air as they rained down on us in waves. I unleashed disks of shadow, striking down any arrows I could, before leaping off my horse. I wasn’t a distance fighter like my general; I needed to get into the fray to be most effective.
The veterans nearest me cleared a space for me to work just in time.
The underbrush on either side of the road exploded with movement. Raiders emerged from hiding, the glint of steel and the creak of leather deafening as they dashed at the line of horses in one great charge.
They carried mainly axes, which meant inferior reach—I could use that against them. The shadow shield vanished, replaced by the first hollow ache that traveled up my arm.
Another pull on my power, and I was holding an obsidian moon cleaver, a crescent of shadow-forged steel with three grips for flexible handling at its heart. Its curved blade was made for a style of war that was less a duel and more a harvest of life.
I whirled, slinging my cleaver in grievous arcs meant to hack through shield, bone, and flesh alike.
Two went down with the first swing. Then a third.
By the fourth death, those fighting nearby began to falter, their movements freezing in a wide-eyed stare.
While elemental magic like Camrick’s was a familiar sight to most soldiers, mine stood apart as something truly unique and shocking.
Shouldn’t have attacked my men.
Each strike thrilled the dark part of me. Most men loved the fight, but I reveled in it. It wasn’t only my shadows that hungered for more. They mirrored the shape of my will, eagerly answering every violent impulse without question.
And every thrill was followed by a sting of shame.
This was my dirty secret. This was the part of me Berian despised having attached to his good name.
He shared a whisper of the darkness I carried from our father, but his mother had been completely human.
Mine had been shadow Fae—a mated one, which meant that the part of me that wasn’t human was much, much stronger.
This was why it had been so easy for me to forgive Emrys for nearly killing me back when I’d visited Tir Darreth seeking a renewed alliance. I understood all too well what it meant to have something living inside you that wanted destruction.
But unlike him, the power in my blood wasn’t the monster. I was.
Monsters could be reasoned with. The power coursing through my veins obeyed my commands because it saw itself reflected in my being—violent and intractable when threatened.
The volleys of arrows had stopped once the enemy broke into our ranks. Cam was on his feet in the stirrups, one arm raised, palm out. Whips of fire lanced out from his hand, scoring blistering welts or catching clothing ablaze.
Behind him, a raider crept closer.
I dismissed the moon cleaver—another hollow ache shocking my arm—and called shadow-knives into existence.
With a flick of my wrist, three glimmering edges shot forward faster than steel could move.
The first took Cam’s would-be attacker in the throat.
Blood sprayed as he toppled onto another raider just behind him.
Two more found their way into men not wearing the green of Larethia.