Chapter 12
Chapter
Twelve
Maerin’s safehouse was packed.
Her fighters had taken it in stride, abandoning their training drills in favor of distributing food and calming panicked refugees.
They’d had to evacuate the tunnels entirely, bringing everyone back to the same slums they’d been so desperate to escape.
Except now they had no home, no legitimacy.
They couldn’t claim rations without being arrested.
Finn hadn’t been able to get them out before.
What chance did he have now, with Nyra gone?
His fault. Loren closed his eyes, listening to the hissing voices of the shadows. All of it was his fault. If he had just listened, they wouldn’t be here right now. They wouldn’t all be in danger.
You would have left her there? The shadows accused, their voices drawing together. With him—
“What choice was there?” Loren said, his voice low. “You couldn’t fight him.”
The shadows hissed, crashing around him like a wave.
The nearest group of refugees shifted nervously, a few of them casting wary glances at the roiling darkness.
A child buried her face in her mother’s leg, clutching at her skirts.
All of them had grown up with the Shadowed Veil looming over them.
With whispered tales of twisted monsters and terrible power.
“You have to keep them under control,” a familiar voice warned.
Loren glanced back over his shoulder, scowling at Maerin. “Do you think I don’t know that?”
He should be out there—helping. But no one wanted help from the fae with the hissing, spitting shadows surrounding him. Not even if he were their king.
“Well, you’re certainly not doing it.” She stepped up beside him, a careful eye on the shadows clinging sullenly to his legs. “How long have they been like this?”
Loren took a deep breath, consciously gathering them back in. “Since she was taken.”
“And it’s getting worse, isn’t it?” She frowned, her silver eyebrows pinching together. “Is that what happened last night?”
“Partially,” Loren growled. “What does it matter?”
“I think it matters a great deal if you intend to try again,” Maerin said.
Loren stared at her. “We failed,” he said. “The Shaw estate was destroyed. They moved her and I can’t pinpoint where without wandering around the city—which Finn won’t let me do with Arcanum forces out in these numbers.”
“You consider destroying the Shaw estate a failure?” Maerin cocked her head, considering him. “I think it’s the greatest blow we’ve struck against the Arcanum in years.”
“Nyra died,” Loren snapped. “Your fighters died. For nothing.”
“People die in wars, Shadowbane.”
Maerin glanced across the room, her gaze softening as it landed on her daughter. Maya wove through the refugees, offering blankets from a stack taller than she was.
“It doesn’t stop us from doing what is necessary to make a better world for them,” she said, nodding toward Maya. “But I am sorry about your weatherworker. I met her once or twice. She seemed like a good person.”
“Did you want something?” Loren asked.
“Actually, yes.” Maerin turned back to him, the softness vanishing beneath that steel-edged exterior. “I wanted to know if you were reconsidering your goals, given how—” she pursed her lips “—unsettled you appear.”
“My goals?” Loren stiffened. “Are you talking about rescuing my mate from the monster imprisoning her?”
“I am.” To her credit, Maerin didn’t flinch when the shadows snapped out, pulling back a breath away from breaking skin. “Because this—” she waved a hand at his shadows “—isn’t enough. We’d have defeated the Arcanum years ago if moaning and weeping was all it took.”
“I assume you have a suggestion?” Loren bit out.
“I do.” Maerin took a step forward, unbothered by the shadows pressing in around them. “You are your mate’s best chance at rescue. But you can’t save her by letting your bond drive you into foolish, desperate choices like facing Jaxon Shaw alone. There’s a tea you can drink—”
The shadows hissed, rearing back.
“You want me to block her out?” Loren demanded, echoing their ire. “She’ll think I abandoned her.”
“Well—” Maerin shrugged, like it made no difference to her. “Your way isn’t working. All that power and you still couldn’t beat one human mage.”
Loren had nothing he could say to that.
“She’ll forgive you once you get her out,” Maerin said more gently. “But only if you save her.”
No. He couldn’t do it. The cold absence of Araya’s presence suddenly felt enormous, like Jaxon Shaw had carved his beating heart out of his chest. The mate bond was sacred—a gift from the Absent Goddess.
Araya had chosen him. After everything they’d been through, he couldn’t—wouldn’t—reject her like that.
The shadows shuddered, swelling around his feet. Maerin said something else—but the roaring in Loren’s head drowned her out.
“I need some air.” He shoved past Maerin, refugees scrambling out of his path as he made for the door.
Finn stepped forward like he might stop him—but the shadows whipped out, slamming into the wall by his head so hard splinters of wood rained down on them both.
But Loren didn’t stop, not even when Thorne shouted his name. He just needed to get out—
He walked blindly through the streets until black glass crunched under his boots, barely realizing where his feet had carried him before he was stumbling down the slope toward the shoreline.
All he knew was he needed to get away—away from Finn’s concerned expression.
Away from Maerin’s acerbic criticisms and all of the refugees suddenly counting on him to save them when he couldn’t even save the person who mattered most.
But he could never escape the shadows.
They swarmed around his feet, their frantic whispers drowning out even the crash of the waves against the shore.
—save her save her save her—
—act, Lorendreal—
—cannot leave her. Not there. Not with him—
—you are their king. They do not command you—
Loren dropped to his knees, shards of black glass digging into his skin through his trousers. The waves crashed against the shore just a few paces away, the cold wind knifing off the water showering his face with spray.
“There’s nothing I can do!” The words tore from his chest, immediately lost to the cruel wind. “I failed! I went in and I failed.” His voice broke. Loren pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. People had died. Nyra had died.
The shadows hissed their displeasure, their judgement digging into him like claws.
Would you give up then? Their voices drew together, strengthening into an echo of the power that had nearly destroyed him. Will you lay down and die? Even your father fought to the end—
“He killed everyone.” Loren laughed, the hollow sound immediately stolen by the wind. “He created the Shadowed Veil.”
And we protected the fae. As is our mandate.
Loren lifted his face, staring out over the dark water. Just months ago, the Shadowed Veil had loomed on the horizon, a churning darkness that devoured anything that drifted too close to its ravenous maw. It had stood between the fae on Eluneth and the New Dominion for over twenty years.
But not without cost.
The fae behind it had been free, yes. Free to struggle to coax crops from soil that never saw full daylight.
Free to watch their children waste away, day after day, under a sky that never truly brightened.
Free to be torn apart by the zal’vorr—the same creatures they had once hunted and lived alongside, now twisted into nightmares by that same dark power.
Araya had torn it down. She’d chosen him, and demanded that dara’el do the same.
Now she was gone. Ripped from his arms by the man who had stolen her magic and carved into his body.
And instead of a wall of furious shadows guarding the horizon there was only open sky and the dark smudges of Arcanum ships—the New Dominion blockade, poised to crush the fae on Eluneth the moment the opportunity arose.
“Why couldn’t you do it?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
The shadows froze, their churning mass falling eerily still. Do what?
“Fight him.” The cold breeze tore the accusation from Loren’s lips, flinging it down the beach. “You swallowed a battlefield whole,” he continued, his voice rising. “Blotted out the sky. Tore ships from the sea—”
We remember. Dark tendrils lashed the ground, sending up a spray of black glass.
We were bound to your father. His grief.
His rage. But now—they wrapped around him, a dark blanket drawing over him like a shroud—now we are bound to you.
And he… Their voices faded, breaking apart and coming back together again.
He wields your power. Commands with it. Bound to bone with blood and aether.
We—you—are not strong enough. Not here. Not now. Without her.
Loren closed his eyes. The wind clawed at his face, cold and merciless, but it couldn’t touch the dull, expanding ache beneath his ribs.
The greatest power known to fae in this world had chosen him.
Bound itself to him. And now he wasn’t strong enough to use it to save the person he loved.
He’d failed dara’el. Failed the fae—here and on Eluneth. And now he was failing her.
Loren?
“Araya?” His head snapped up. She was there—he was certain of it. He could feel her presence like a small sun in his chest, her mind stretching out to his. “Ael’sura.” Tears filled his eyes. “Tell me where you are—”
And then she was gone, her mind torn away from his with so much violence he flinched. Some might argue that she’d never been there at all—but he’d heard her, felt her get ripped from his mind.
Loren shuddered, his skin crawling with his own memories of punishments endured at the hands of Arcanum inquisitors. What price had she paid to reach him just for those few moments?
“Loren?”
Serafina’s soft voice cut through the crash of the waves. She picked her way across the beach slowly, her bad leg making the uneven ground treacherous. Her breathing was ragged by the time she stopped beside him, careful not to come so near that the shadows bristled at her presence.
“What do you need?” Loren asked.
Serafina frowned at him. “I don’t need anything,” she said. “Finn is worried about you.”
Loren huffed out a humorless laugh. “You mean he’s worried I’m going to lose control,” he said bitterly. “That I’ll do something stupid—like he wouldn’t go charging after you if you’d been the one taken.”
“I spent months in Arcanum custody after you escaped with Araya.”
Loren flinched. He’d known that—Goddess, was he stupid as well as helpless now?
“I’m sorry.” He forced himself to meet her gaze. “I know you risked everything to get her out. I was supposed to protect her. And now…” he trailed off, his throat thick. “Everything is worse than it was before, isn’t it?”
“It’s not hopeless.” The wind tore at Serafina’s hair, tugging pale strands from her braid. She didn’t look away from him. “Hard. Dangerous. But not hopeless.”
“I can’t control my own shadows.” Loren stared out at the dark sea, the cold spray stinging his eyes. “Maerin thinks I’m distracted—she wants me to block my bond with Araya to focus on what she thinks matters more. How is that not hopeless?”
“Well...” Serafina bit her lip, considering. “It might not be a bad idea, Loren. If it helps you control the shadows—”
“It’s an abomination,” Loren said flatly. “She’ll think I abandoned her. What kind of damage will that do to our bond?”
“It’s temporary,” Serafina said. “What kind of damage do you think they’ll do to her if we don’t get her out? If blocking the bond helps you fight more effectively it’s not something we can just dismiss out of hand. We need to take whatever advantages we can find—”
A shrill alarm split the night, cutting Serafina off mid-sentence. Loren surged to his feet, the shadows rising around him as he spun to look back at the city. Shouts rose into the night air, the screaming alarm cutting off as suddenly as it had started. Silenced.
“What is it?” Serafina asked, her face white.
“I don’t know.” Loren’s fingers twitched, reaching for the sword he hadn’t brought. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.
“It’s a raid,” an unfamiliar voice said.
Loren jumped, the shadows rearing back like snakes as the stranger materialized from the darkness at the edge of the beach. She thrust her hood back, revealing the tightly braided black hair and sharp features of Maerin’s second in command.
“Raelle.” Serafina breathed a sigh of relief. “What is happening?”
“Nothing good,” the hard-faced female said, her voice as grim as her expression. She tossed a swath of black fabric at them. “Put these on. You have to get out of the open.”
Loren shook the black cloak out, throwing it around his shoulders. “We have to get back to the safehouse,” he said. “We have people there.”
“Can’t.” Raelle shook her head sharply. “Already compromised.”
Serafina sucked in a breath. “Finn is there.”
Raelle cast her a sympathetic look, but her voice was still hard. “You can’t get in. And you shouldn’t want to. Neither one of you will do your friends any good if you’re captured.”