56. Chapter 56
Chapter fifty-six
I’d dressed similarly to Kaed in leathers. The bodice of my outfit felt more like supple armour than a fashion statement.
We hadn’t spoken further about the marks on his back.
Before we’d left the house, Kaed had, to my surprise, handed me a small knife. Its hilt was inlaid with bright purple and blue stones encircled in gold.
“What’s this for?” I took the blade tentatively as if it might be a test. A trick. Like he’d snatch it back the second I reached for it.
“For using. On others. Not on me,” he joked. But not long ago, if he’d handed me a blade, the first thing I would have done would have been to put it to his throat. “The metal has been treated with faebane.”
I looked at him, stunned.
“It’s old,” he clarified.
“And yours?” I eyed the huge blade whose hilt alone was larger than the entirety of the knife I held in my hands.
He nodded. “If my magic ever fails, it’s nice to know I can still cut down the fae who did it to me.”
I thought of Huxley’s magic then and how it had stripped me. Kaed didn’t have his sword last night. I couldn’t imagine the carnage in the rose garden if he had.
Despite the situation we were walking into, I smiled and fitted the knife into my boot.
I recognised where we were as soon as Kaed rounded the next corner. The ruins were shrouded in trees and blankets of greenery. It was an oasis of shade under the afternoon sun. It looked so different from when I’d been here last.
Flutters tumbled through me, but I shut them down as I recalled what we were doing.
“He’s here?” It didn’t feel right to be back here for something so … dire.
Kaed turned his head but said nothing as he walked to a flat slab in the overgrown temple. This one was entirely covered by moss and ivy.
The flagstone scraped rock on rock as Kaed lifted it to reveal a hidden set of stairs that tunnelled deep into the belly of the earth.
Water dripped somewhere and algae seams painted the walls as we descended. The unnatural combination of ancient dust and fetid water clogged my nostrils, and I held my arm over my nose.
“These are the tombs for the unfaithful,” Kaed said as he ignited a dark orb of fae light.
It glowed like black water under moonlight in his palm as we moved through the narrow stone-carved hallways.
There were no windows down here at all, so Kaed’s light was the only source.
“Those who failed to please the gods—or their masters—were thrown into the cells until they embraced the gods again.” His voice held a timbre that wrought a shudder from my spine.
I wasn’t sure if he was trying to scare me or warn me.
How was something so dark lurking beneath the tranquil gardens above?
“What happened to them if they embraced the gods?” I thought of the souls lost in the dark down here.
Kaed’s fae light guttered in his palm, and we were plunged into darkness.
The air tasted dry in my mouth, and a weight settled into my bones.
Barren air. The same as was in the room the Cage stood in.
“They died,” Kaed said to me in the darkness. Taking me by the hand, he led me through the pitch-black tunnels. “No one ever left these halls once they entered them. Their magic was syphoned and their life with it.”
My bones chilled. Huxley had drained me to the point of near death. I had no magic to buffet against the onslaught, so his magic had drained my life force when it had nothing else to take instead.
There should be a well of magic to pull from, but my own magic is hitting a wall. Huxley’s words rang in my head. I’d have managed if I’d been more like Kaed.
“Are you ready?” Kaed paused for my nod before he pushed a stone door aside. How was he able to move that with the barren air all around us?
Firelight flickered from within, bathing us in orange light.
The room was carved from bedrock. No windows, no bars. The cell was born of the ground it lived within. Even the cot that held Huxley’s limp and bloody form was carved from the stone.
Celeste gripped the torch, knuckles white. She didn’t kneel at her son’s bedside. She didn’t even seem to care that he was there. Her face was set in stone, and her hair was pinned in a tight knot.
“Is he awake?” Kaed’s eyes locked onto the oozing near-corpse form of Huxley, his tone without remorse.
“He’s in and out. His arm bones aren’t fully healed.” There was no life, no hint of sorrow on Celeste’s tongue.
“You left them broken?” I gaped.
Celeste cut me a look that could have sliced my skin open. “My son dishonoured me. He traded his worth when he tried to take you for himself."
Kaed grimaced in the dancing light of the torches. He had taken me for himself. But it felt different. And I couldn’t explain why.
“Huxley made a deal with Eryk,” I choked out into the wavering candescence. Remembering how they’d just wanted to use me for something tightened my throat.
Kaed and Celeste looked at me for more. Celeste had left by the time I’d explained last night.
“Eryk said he wanted a seat on the council and that Huxley would help him do that. And … there’s someone else.
” The shrouded figure Eryk spoke of hadn’t been named.
Eryk hadn’t seemed afraid exactly. Perhaps, wary.
But whoever their silent partner in this larger plan was, they were the ones pulling the strings to incite Kaed to violence.
“Eryk can’t be a council member. There are only twelve seats,” Celeste said.
“My theory,” I started slowly, “based on what Eryk and Huxley said, is that they were hoping to create a vacancy in the council and Eryk would fill that space …” I held Celeste’s gaze.
I had no proof, but killing or removing Celeste to take her seat didn’t seem over the top after what had transpired last night.
“And taking you from me?” Kaed nearly vibrated as he spoke.
I put a hand on his arm.
“Whoever is behind all of this, they thought that by taking me …” I slowed.
Kaed’s rage rippled under his muscles. “Would provoke you to a violence that would allow the city to declare war on Hayden. I think Huxley was just a piece in the game. He wanted me enough to play his role without too many questions.” I shuddered at the times he’d found me alone in the library.
Celeste’s face was anguished. “With what army?” Celeste asked. “The Vivernan forces would be crushed by Hayden’s.”
“Does Viverna have allies?” I checked, certain they did. But ones who would stand against the Crown?
Kaed growled into the tiny chamber, and it hummed with his anger. “Sapphine,” he ground out.
“What about her?” Celeste didn’t know she’d left the city for Gloriya.
“Her father controls a sizeable force in Gloriya. That combined with Viverna’s forces. And the faebane in Tymon’s mines.” Kaed’s voice faded into the shadows as the plans unfolded before us.
“And not to mention, if Eryk has been the one hoarding the sources from the library …”
What would Eryk want with a weapon source that was essentially inert without fae witch magic to awaken it?
“The more concerning question is who is this other person Eryk seems to be working with?” Kaed said.
“Eryk seemed certain they were powerful. Powerful enough to aid any plans he might have to plant himself amongst the council members?” My tongue soured.
“Eryk has always been ambitious,” Celeste offered.
I resisted the urge to shuffle my feet at the memory of what I’d felt last night.
Kaed nodded to himself, as if turning questions over in his head.
“Huxley didn’t seem to know who Eryk’s partner was,” I said, folding my arms in contemplation. “Could be a council member or another person who’s entered the game.”
“I can’t see Eryk getting far with the council,” Celeste said. “He’s well-liked, and he does very well when presenting cases. Everyone listens to him. But still.”
And then it dawned on me.
His power. How I always felt at ease around him. How I didn’t know how to say no to him.
“You said he could influence people …” I trailed off, turning to Kaed. “Could he influence the council to vote him in?”
The room went silent like the tomb it was.
And then a wet and rasping laugh filled the small chamber.
Huxley was awake.
He hissed through bloodied teeth as he tried to sit, but his broken limbs were useless.
“Eryk is probably already speaking to the council now, telling them how you kidnapped and attacked me. A son of the city. A son of a council member.”
“You are no son of mine.” Celeste turned from the cot, and my chest tightened for her. The room felt colder in the wake of her words.
“What is Eryk planning?” My voice was as sharp as steel.
I finally felt the anger that had been waiting below the surface for what Huxley had done, what he’d tried to take from me.
He didn’t know there was no magic in me.
He’d have been content to drain me of anything I had.
If Kaed hadn’t shown up … A mix of terror and abstract horror tumbled through me at how close he’d come to being submerged into darkness.
It felt like there was liquid fire just under my skin.
Fire that could burn through water and turn the stones around me to ash.
Huxley looked at me as though he’d only just noticed I was in the room with him. His eyes were alight with that same rabid hunger, only they weren’t wreathed in the glow of his magic anymore.
“What are you?” He echoed his words from last night, and I flinched at them as if he might throw a bolt of magic at me again. “I know you’re Auroran. Any idiot can see that even if they’re too afraid to say it to your face. But … your magic … it’s different.”
Stunned, I blinked. “I don’t have magic.” It was a reflex, but it felt false in the wake of what Huxley had said. And I wasn’t sure where that truth emanated from.
“Yes. You do.” Huxley’s words were drowning in his own blood.
But that got Kaed and Celeste’s attention.
Celeste shifted to look at her son.
“What do you mean?” I pushed. “Explain.” It was a snarl of a word as it left my lips.