9
Celestine and Darcen weren’t in the clearing.
They stood on the path lining the west side of the fortress. Darcen sensed me first. Perhaps because Celestine was swiping tears from her cheeks and facing the sea beyond the rock-made wall Darcen leaned against.
He cocked his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you run so fast. Did you happen upon a toad?” But his forced smile fell when I neared, and he could better see my face. He stepped forward. “What is it, Ayla?”
“People in the woods.” I slowed and rushed out, “One tried to attack me.”
Darcen looked over at the courtyard, where wards trained and chatted. “Get them inside and get help.” He then pulled a slim knife from the waistband of his pants and ran toward the woods.
Just as two males in more tattered clothing appeared in the clearing.
There was no time to ask Celestine why she was crying. We both ran to the courtyard. I left her to collect the wards there, and called, “I’ll take the others through the side door.”
As I neared the gardens, Tyressa looked up from the mountains she’d made of soil. “Come quickly,” I said, and she trailed me to the vegetable garden.
Paphin sat alone, eating a carrot. He tried to hide it behind his back when he saw us coming.
“Resenda?” I asked. She was the only other noble from our kingdom taking refuge on the isle, and therefore, often with us in the vegetable and herb gardens.
“Finished her time,” Paphin said through a mouthful of carrot. He frowned, swallowed, and stood. “Are we in trouble?”
“No, but you must head inside.” I glanced behind me. “Right now.”
No one was there. Nor down the eastern path leading to the beach.
Once the younglings had gone into the fortress through the side entrance, I closed and barred the door. Then slumped against it as the bell rang three times.
The Archives of Avyshla was considered the safest place on the continent. Otherwise, none of us would have been here. This isle was sacred ground—protected divinely and by ancient treaties forged in blood.
So the uproar in the prayer hall was to be expected.
High Priestess Nellassa allowed the noise while she conversed with other priestesses before the locked glass doors to the fortress.
Meront, Haynes, and Darcen had not long returned, claiming they’d bound five males and one female to an old oak.
Prisoners, they’d said.
Somehow, they had escaped the sea cells and scaled the perilous cliffs to the woods. One of them had admitted that many from their group didn’t survive the climb, and that two others had attempted swimming through the Sea of Secrets to the mainland.
It was a wonder any of them had made it. Those cliffs were hundreds of feet tall.
Save for some scratches and bruising, Haynes, Meront, and Darcen didn’t appear terribly injured. Dirk, in his moth-eaten blue robes, saw to the worst of their scratches beneath the stairs while glancing nervously at the wards.
Since asking if I was hurt, Celestine had been silent beside me at our table.
I wanted to know why she’d been crying, but the state of the wards and remembering what had happened in those woods kept my jaw locked. My cheek and throat were still red. Ceaselessly, I picked at my nails, though I’d already rid the dirt from them.
Not just dirt. Weeks or even moons of grime scraped from my attacker’s face when I’d tried to scratch him.
I fought a shiver and once again attempted to find my unlikely savior among the chaos of the prayer hall. Few wards sat. Some younglings drifted from table to table. The faeries sitting were doing so atop the tables. Usually, they’d be reprimanded for it.
The priestesses were too preoccupied to notice.
Finally, they left their huddle by the doors to stand in a perfect line of sky-blue, the high priestess in the middle.
The latter raised her arms, the sleeves of her robes billowing, and waited until everyone quietened before speaking.
“I know you’re all afraid. Not in our lifetimes has anyone escaped the sea cells.
However…” She clasped her hands at her stomach and swept her eyes over the hall. “We are quite safe.”
Murmurs erupted. Questions and concerns.
Nellassa’s auburn eyes gleamed like the sapphire hanging from the hood of her robes to her forehead. The jewel was rumored to be the same shade as Avyshla’s third eye. “Due to the bravery of our princes and Lord Haynes, we believe all the prisoners who escaped have now been captured or killed.”
Plim asked, “What will happen to the captured prisoners?”
“They will be returned to the sea cells.”
“How can you be sure there aren’t more lurking about the isle?” Paphin shouted from the table closest to the stairs.
A fair question. Yet it made two priestesses scowl at the young lord.
The high priestess gave him a thin smile. “We will be conducting regular sweeps of the isle in the coming days, as well as inspecting the cells. Until we are certain that no more prisoners roam the isle…” Her tone hardened, and her chin lifted. “You will all remain in the fortress.”
Groans immediately flooded the hall.
“Unnecessary,” came from the shadows.
Everyone turned to face the back of the prayer hall right as Prince Voran emerged from the archway.
Shirtless, damp, carrying his boots, and blood-sprayed.
Beside me, Celestine gasped.
Voran strode through the tables of gawking wards. His hair hung in darkened tendrils around his cheeks, dripping onto his formidable chest. But he didn’t approach the priestesses to explain himself.
He headed straight to the stairs.
Just when I thought he’d climb them without telling anyone why it looked like he’d tussled with some type of sea beast and won, he stopped midway up the steps.
“Those cells are nearly as ancient as this isle.” He gripped the stone railing, causing muscles to clench. Everywhere. “The storm surge destroyed one, allowing the twenty-one prisoners stuffed within to swim free.”
Then, without another word, he left.
High Priestess Nellassa glared at the stairs long after he’d disappeared. It was only when Meront and Darcen approached her that she finally blinked. “Return the prisoners to the cells and make sure he spoke true,” she said quietly.
I still heard her above the rising voices in the prayer hall.
No one could blame her for not believing the Valadorn prince. He might have been a ward like the rest of us, but his uncle was the reason we were all here. That, and his brusque apathy, didn’t exactly sell him as trustworthy.
Haynes and Sessenya saw to serving lunch. After barely touching her venison or bread, Celestine headed to well duty. Wanting the distraction and hoping she’d tell me what had happened with Darcen, I helped her for a little while before bathing.
She didn’t end up sharing until dinner.
Meront and Darcen had yet to return. It would likely be some hours before they did, given they could only safely transport one prisoner at a time in a rowboat.
“He doesn’t want it.” Celestine squashed her potato with her fork. “Me.”
She’d spoken so softly, I almost didn’t hear her beneath the chorus of chatter in the prayer hall. Disbelief lodged my bite of pigeon in my throat. I pushed it down by eating some vegetables, then asked, “He actually said that?”
Celestine shrugged. “He didn’t need to. He circled it like a hawk, explaining why we have to ignore it. Reject it.”
So Darcen felt it too. The fated connection. A draw that went beyond lust and love. A bond felt only by mates.
Five years ago, my father had told me after too many ales that he’d been fated to someone. He’d been forced to reject the female when he’d learned he would wed my mother. He’d claimed it was akin to cutting out a piece of his heart, as ever since, he’d never quite been himself.
While I’d felt horrid for him, I’d mostly been shaken. For days afterward, I’d wondered if his love for my mother had been true, and if she’d known about his severed connection to another.
Celestine squashed her pigeon next. “Meront was partly to blame, of course, but really,” she sighed, “it’s all because he’s the sole heir of Coraldeen. He must marry within his kingdom.”
There was little point in saying that Darcen wasn’t yet promised to someone. Celestine knew. Just as she knew that could change at any moment. Few would wish to be the lover of royalty because it may hurt less than severing a fated connection.
I didn’t know what to say. Nothing would comfort her right now. So I let her turn her meal into mush and moved closer until our arms touched.
While we sat in silence, Valadorn’s prince arrived, washed and wearing his usual black attire.
My heartbeat faltered as those large boots neared our table.
But I lifted my eyes. I forced them to meet his. As they did, he raised a brow, as if surprised by my sudden confidence.
His scent lingered long after he’d taken his seat at the table behind us.
Celestine’s sorrow saw her leaving after a mere few mouthfuls of her squashed food. She declined my offer of company and kept her head low as she headed upstairs.
The wolf prince soon followed.
I was up and moving before I could think. Only when I reached the top of the stairs and ventured left down the hall did I even acknowledge that I wasn’t heading to my own room. The west wing loomed ahead, but I wasn’t going there either.
Before the archway to the wing was the stairwell. Voran entered it, the door creaking shut behind him.
I waited until he would have climbed the stairs, then opened the door and hurried up the stone steps to the third floor, where the males’ rooms were located. Cracking open the door, I peeked around the stone wall to find Voran slowing at the very end of the shadowy hall.
As he reached his room, he peered back toward the stairwell.
I retreated onto the landing but tucked my boot between the frame and door to keep it from closing. Surely, he hadn’t seen me. Only a single sconce had been lit in that hall. A moment later, I heard his door close and gnawed at my lower lip, my eyes sliding to the stairs.
I should have walked down them to my own room. I had no idea why I’d even followed him up here.
Except I did. I knew exactly why I’d followed him.
The wolf prince—who I’d assumed would rather kill than kiss me—had saved me in those woods. Even after I’d caught him suspiciously digging at the soil like a hound with a bone.
He could have easily let that prisoner strangle and have his way with me or kill me. He could have claimed no fault. Could have claimed to have no knowledge about whatever befell me. Instead, he’d stomped on that prisoner’s chest like he was an insect—crushing his ribs and internal organs.
And I wanted to know why.
So I snuck down the hall before another male retired for the evening, and before I could talk myself out of it.
A slim floor-to-ceiling window awaited at the end of the hall. Its blue-stained glass muted the moonlight. But there was just enough to reveal the tarnished brass door handle. I stared at it while waiting for my heart to settle.
It didn’t.
Moments became minutes as I stood there and found the courage to knock, only to lower my hand before my knuckles could touch the aged wood.
I wasn’t sure what I would even say. Thank you didn’t seem like enough. It also seemed strange to thank the prince of the kingdom that was currently battering my own. Wrong. Of course, I could just ask him why he’d saved me.
But what if I didn’t like the answer? What if he’d saved me so he could murder me himself?
I now highly doubted he wished to kill me. Whatever the reason, I’d lingered too long. My curiosity could wait until I wasn’t at risk of being discovered outside the enemy’s room. Before I turned away, a noise came from just beyond the door.
Then his deep and caustic voice, muffled by the barrier between us. “Do you often stalk males, Princess?”
I felt my face drain of color. He’d sensed me. Perhaps he’d even heard me with that shifter-hearing.
Tauntingly, he said, “Tell me I’m the first, and I’ll let you in.”
My mouth fell open.
I forced it closed, my face burning as I marched down the hall.