25. Chapter 25
Chapter twenty-five
We had found little to nothing of any value.
I had taken some time to look for more books on Aurora and Cloud Garden, but I had come across only a handful of the latter.
They were a noble city with neutral diplomatic status.
But I found the readings paled in comparison to the artist’s depictions of the hanging botanical monuments.
I had found no books on Aurora.
Part of me was curious about Kaed and the Crown’s role in the history that had shaped the Four Corners. I supposed I could have just asked him. But I wasn’t sure what answers I would get. If I’d get any at all, or just another mocking remark and a dangerously sharp smirk.
Gavrin had been more than happy to carry the “few” books Audrie had taken with her for extra reading. He had such a gentle undercurrent to him that I wasn’t sure he was aware people saw. I didn’t know if Audrie saw it, but I was certain he would carry the Four Corners for her if she asked.
I wondered if it would matter. What Gavrin seemed to feel for her. Audrie seemed oblivious to the sentinel’s obvious affection towards her.
My thoughts took me to a place I’d always avoided, but when I looked at Audrie, her youth, her vibrance.
Her mortality. It hit me just how different Gavrin was to her.
I didn’t know his age, but he was immortal.
Or as close to immortal as beings could get.
And there was no way to make someone immortal if they didn’t already possess the magic in their blood.
Gavrin was following his heart, and his heart would lead him only to pain. The grim truth was that Audrie would be lost to the dust of the world one day, and Gavrin would not. Not for a very long time.
The weight of that question had long hung around my neck. I’d been born fae, in part at least. But by all accounts, not the part that mattered.
I examined the fading mark on my hand where I’d grasped the bars of the cage. Fae blood was in me, but only enough to make me different. Not enough to make me special.
Each year I had continued to age, to mature. It never stopped. There were no wrinkles to show for my mundane heritage yet. No grey hairs, no aching bones.
But I couldn’t help living in fear that one day it would come for me.
Did Celeste feel that? As she gave her life to heal others? Did Kaed feel it when he unfurled his wings or when he let his shadows slip into this world? I didn’t see ageing on him the same way it showed on Celeste. Was that just because she’d spent her magic more?
Magic was an abyss I didn’t fully comprehend. To sacrifice myself for it was something I wasn’t sure I would do, even if it was something I could do. It wasn’t an unusual fear, the eternal end, I supposed. It was possibly the most human part of me.
I couldn’t untangle the emotional heap inside me that needed to belong before I was gone.
My finger ran over the spine of one of the books I’d brought with me—Myths and Legends of the Four Corners. Not exactly research. But my mind was tired.
I thought I’d leave Shadowfall and find an adventure like in one of my books. Adventure that would take me where I needed to be. To discover part of myself. Find what family I was missing. The part of me that made me different.
But all I’d found so far were musty books and complications.
I wasn’t sure if I should knock or not. For a moment, I stood foolishly, my hand hovering in the air.
There had been a note on my bed when I returned to my room after the steam of the bathing chamber.
“The study. Tonight.” It was signed “K” in elegant script.
Sometimes, I thought he was deliberately rude.
I had dressed in a long-sleeved dress of dark indigo with lotus silk skirts. With how rich and cool the fabric was around me, I felt I could blend into the night sky.
Distantly, I wondered how I would ever go back to the simple cottons and leathers once I left here.
“I know you’re there.” His voice carried through the carved wood. “We can’t have this conversation with a door between us.”
Gossamer curtains swayed in the cool breeze of the night through the unlatched doors to the garden as I entered the study.
“You managed to speak to me just fine the other day through a door. A locked one.” The thoughts of his manacles around me, his body pressed to mine, the heat that glowed between us, seared into my mind as I saw him.
I hadn’t seen him since the Cage. He was free, entirely unbound, and something about that sent a ripple through me.
I couldn’t pin the emotion that caused that ripple. Fear? Relief? ... Desire?
Kaed chuckled low in his throat, as though he might have actually found something funny.
He sat at his desk, papers and ink fanned out like he’d just been tending to them. He looked like a careless rogue sprawled after a conquest.
I swallowed deeply and was suddenly thirsty. His navy tunic was cut to expose the top of his chest and hug his abdomen.
I restrained a groan inside me.
Could he not just be unattractive for once instead of lounging across his desk like a dinner spread? He’d looked like something I could have devoured that night at the garden party, wrapped in leather and eyes draped in paint. Like something from a fantasy tale.
But tonight. Tonight, he looked lethal.
Perhaps I was just delirious from hunger, but I was now waging a war inside myself as I tried not to nibble on my bottom lip.
“We found nothing today,” I began as a distraction for myself. It wasn’t entirely true. I’d found Eryk on the balcony. And I had found his comments to be … unusual. I didn’t bother telling Kaed any of that, though.
I hated that I needed to redirect myself from the way he looked by bringing up the dower tomes we’d read through today.
Without speaking, he walked to the front of the desk and leaned back on it. In his hand was a thick piece of parchment, seal broken.
He held it up. “Hart found nothing in the Western Corner.”
I didn’t know why Kaed felt the need to tell me about Hart. About the safety of my home. But I was grateful.
“Oh?” I tried to sound casual.
Was that good or bad news for me? I was still the only source Kaed had. And he hadn’t tried to take that from me.
He flicked his fingers, and the missive vanished into darkness, consumed by his shadows as his eyes became downcast.
I gaped at the display of magic, but I tried to focus on what he’d said. “What is it?” Unease washed through me like a fever.
Kaed’s eyes snapped up, and their blue fire crashed into me. “Hart won’t stop searching for the faebane. Not if he thinks it’s out there.” He let the meaning of the words fill the room.
“I told you there was nothing in the library.” I shifted under the heat of his stare.
Kaed said nothing for a moment, and I became hyperaware of how alone I was with him as his shadows began pouring from him, darkening the space between us.
“He’s requested the source from me. Directly,” Kaed finished with deliberate slowness.
We watched each other then. Would he take it from me? Would I break if he tried?
But I couldn’t find the fear in me that should be there when I stared at Kaed.
“I can only delay my response to him for so long before he comes to me himself.”
Kaed wouldn’t force me? Not even now, when his brother and his father were probing directly for the answer?
I swallowed past the tension around my neck.
Silence spilled between us as Kaed’s shadows retreated at his command.
There was nothing that separated us now, and I could see his full, tall and striking form as he braced his hands on the desk.
Oh gods. Could he not look like that? The only upside to his looks was that it made it hard to remember to worry about other things, like being hunted by his brother.
He folded his arms until the fabric strained around them. “How do I know you’re really trying to find the faebane?”
“I said I would do this. So I will do it. If you’re used to people going back on their word, perhaps you need to find better company.”
His lips twitched at my emphatic tone, and he raised his hands defensively.
“I only mean it wouldn’t be the first time someone has lied to the Crown.
” He paused before looking at me. “Your terms were clear.” His voice fell flat as he reminded me.
“In two moons, if there is nothing, I will let you go. Regardless of my own situation in this city.”
Heat coursed through me. “Thank you.” And I meant it.
Something like a tangible wisp of smoke hung precariously in the air between us then. Had we just respected each other on our terms?
It felt like the lightest of breezes would destroy it at any moment.
Gods, he looked lethal and elegant and just too good not to touch.
I clenched my hands.
“I trust that you are worthy of your word. I don’t believe you would make a bargain with me only to break it. But these meetings will be routine for you now.” He levelled his gaze at me, and I felt the full weight of the prince that lurked behind those striking features.
“Maybe I should have bargained harder,” I tutted.
“I’m sure you’ll find something to threaten me with again if you feel the need to renegotiate.” His lips twitched at a smile begging to break over his face.
Whether intended as a challenge or not, my eyes fell to the dagger he had at his hip. The same one I’d drawn his blood with that very first day.
He didn’t miss where my eyes landed.
“Think you’re fast enough?” He leaned into the darkness in his voice. The challenge obvious in his words.
He could no doubt see the hunger in my eyes. It wasn’t a desire driven by preservation this time, though. Some dark and twisted part of me liked what I’d done in the Cage, carved out a piece of his loyalty for me.
“Not now you have your magic back.” A pang of shock hit me then. “It is back, isn’t it?”
A half smile tugged at his lips. “Worried for me, peach?”
I stammered. I wasn’t worried about him. I just … I didn’t want the burden of owing him anything else.
“It’s there,” he confirmed.