Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
They were lucky.
Loren lay on the packed earth floor of an old fish house, one arm tucked behind his head.
He’d been skeptical when Raelle dragged them into the falling-down shack, but they hadn’t had much of a choice.
The Arcanum was going door to door, tearing families from their homes and throwing them into the street.
Even here, smoke eddied in through the gaps in the warped boards, carried on the same breeze that brought the screams and the roar of the flames to his ears.
The Arcanum was burning Farhallow.
He hadn’t felt Araya again. Their bond was still there—not blocked like it had been with the tea, but muted and strange all the same, like he was fighting and failing to reach her through thick mud.
Loren closed his eyes, but he couldn’t block out the screams. The smoke stung his throat, as bitter as the guilt that curdled in his chest. He’d failed her. Again. She’d finally reached for him, and he hadn’t been able to do anything to help her.
His shadows curled around him, Araya’s little shadow tucked into its customary spot in the collar of his shirt. They should rebuke him. But for once they said nothing. Did nothing to drown out the sounds of their people dying and suffering.
Eventually, the screams faded away. The smoke thinned, giving way to the taste of wet ash and salt. The patches of sky that peeked through the ruined roof lightened from black to bruised gray, a weak dawn breaking over the wreckage.
Raelle finally pushed to her feet, stretching out stiff limbs. She peered out the door, watching silently for a long, tense moment.
“It’s time,” she said.
They rose in silence. Cloaks pulled on, hoods drawn low. The shadows crowded against Loren’s back, not protesting for once as he followed Maerin’s second in command into the smoke-choked dawn.
The Arcanum hadn’t bothered sweeping this part of the district.
The flames had done their work for them—driving anyone who’d taken shelter here out into the open, straight into the Arcanum’s waiting hands.
The only reason they’d survived was the clever network of runes carved into the broken boards, protecting the structure from flame and urging anyone who noticed it to look away.
“Gods,” Serafina said, her face pale.
“They’re probably still watching,” Raelle warned, her voice soft. “Everyone, stay low.”
She picked a slow but deliberate path through the wreckage, skirting the center of the quarter to slide along the edge instead.
Loren kept his head down, uncomfortably hot under the dark cloak with the heat that still rose from the wreckage.
The Arcanum must have used magic—nothing else could have reduced an entire quarter to nothing but burned rubble in a single day.
Even as they picked their way into the interior, where most of Farhallow’s fae lived, the Arcanum’s handiwork was everywhere.
Instead of smoking ruins, doors to homes hung off their hinges, splintered and broken.
The boards that had covered so many windows had been ripped away, discarded in the gutter like kindling.
Loren’s nostrils flared, catching the sharp tang of fresh blood beneath the choking smoke that hung like a pall over everything.
A female with clipped ears slumped against a wall, her dress torn and stained.
She stared numbly at nothing, not even seeming to see them pass.
A few steps further on a child sobbed, clinging to their mother’s skirts as she scrubbed blood off her stoop, tears streaking her own cheeks.
Another street over, an emaciated fae male lay where he’d fallen, his rasping breaths choked and wet.
The shadows shifted against his back, pressing against his spine and curling around his ribs, their voices rising as they took in the damage. They needed to do something—anything—to help these people. The Arcanum needed to pay for everything it had done—
Loren quickened his pace, catching up to Raelle in a few strides.
“These people need healers,” he said under his breath. “They’re bleeding in the streets—”
“We can’t stop.” The hood of Raelle’s cloak twitched as she risked a glance at him, her bright green eyes full of sorrow. “A patrol could come by at any time. The only thing we can do is get to Maerin. She’ll know what to do.”
Loren swallowed the protest burning in the back of his throat. Whatever plan Maerin had, he hoped it was a good one.
More people surrounded them now, the crowd sweeping them along in its current.
Loren braced himself, shoving back at someone who crashed into him.
Something was wrong—Loren had never seen so many people on the street here, all of them stumbling forward with the same dazed horror on their faces.
A knot of people clustered around the leaning building where Maerin had made her headquarters, standing so close together that Loren couldn’t see the building.
That wasn’t good—so many people congregating outside would draw the wrong sort of attention.
The shadows shivered against his spine, their urgent whispers feeding his own unease.
Raelle quickened her pace, shoving dazed onlookers aside without apology.
Loren tried to follow, but Serafina gripped his arm, leaning heavily on him for support.
Loren wrapped an arm around her, helping bear her weight as they struggled to push through the people where Raelle had vanished—
“No!”
Her piercing scream rose above the murmur of the crowd, so full of sorrow and rage that the hair on the back of Loren’s neck stood up. He shoved the fae in front of him aside, dragging Serafina with him as he fought his way to where the crowd opened up.
Two Arcanum soldiers pinned Raelle to the ground.
Her fingers scrabbled against the cobblestones, reaching for the kitchen knife that had landed just a few paces away—out of reach.
The man pinning her with a knee between her shoulder blades laughed, wrenching her arms behind her to lock them in iron cuffs.
“Stupid bitch.” He hauled her to her feet, shoving her toward one of the other soldiers. “Put her with the rest of them. It’s time these fucking rebels learn what defiance costs.”
“Goddess,” Loren muttered, watching in horror as an Arcanum soldier half-dragged Raelle over to a group of prisoners.
Caela knelt among them, her wrists bound in iron and her golden hair torn out of its braided crown.
Tears streaked her cheeks, carving tracks through the ash smeared across her face.
But she didn’t see him, her bloodshot gaze fixed on something above them both.
“Loren—” Serafina grabbed him, her nails digging into his flesh through his sleeve. “We have to go.”
But he couldn’t. Not until he’d seen.
Loren took a step forward, the shadows going horribly still against his back as he followed Caela’s gaze up and up and up—
Maerin’s body hung from the roofline, swaying slightly in the nonexistent breeze. Her silver hair, once braided back from her face, hung loose and tangled now. But it wasn’t enough to obscure the violent, purple hue of her swollen face, her head lolling at an unnatural angle. And beneath her—
Loren blinked, tearing his eyes away from Maerin’s swinging corpse to try and focus on the smoldering marks—no, those were words. The Arcanum had burned a message directly into the building’s wooden facade.
The fate of all fae who forget their place.
“We need to leave,” Serafina repeated. “They’re watching. You can’t do anything to help without revealing yourself. And if they catch you here—”
If they caught him here he’d never get Araya back.
But still, his boots stayed rooted to the stone beneath his feet.
He stared at Maerin’s body, taking in the way her dress had been shredded, doing nothing to hide the dark bruises and livid cuts that marked her skin from head to toe.
How many times over the years he’d spent in chains had his own body looked like that?
He prayed Maya hadn’t witnessed it. There were some things a child should never have to see.
“They tortured her,” he said aloud, speaking to no one. “Because she helped me.”
“This isn’t the time for that.” Serafina yanked on his arm hard. “Unless you intend to fight the Arcanum here and now, you need to move. Now.”
One of the guards was staring at them, his brow furrowed.
Loren stared back, watching as the guard leaned toward his partner, saying something that made the other man straighten, his hand dropping to the hilt of his sword.
How many fae had these men murdered tonight?
How many more had they captured—tearing children from their mothers’ arms, never to be seen again?
“You should go,” he told Serafina. “Find Finn, figure out a plan.”
Serafina’s blue eyes widened. “Don’t be a fool,” she hissed, her voice tight. “There’s no sense in fighting a battle you have no chance of winning. Think of Araya.”
Loren gently pried her fingers loose, easing his arm from her grip.
The shadows shifted against his back, practically vibrating with disbelief and excitement.
Serafina was right. He knew she was and so did they.
Retreating and falling back to plan again was the obvious strategic choice. But he couldn’t do it.
Araya was his mate. But these were her people.
The soldiers were moving now, cutting across the open space straight for them.
Neither one of them spared a glance up at Maerin, despite walking nearly directly under her swaying body.
Two of them, he was certain the shadows could deal with.
But how many more would come to their aid, pouring out of the surrounding buildings once the threat was revealed?
No matter, the shadows hissed. Two is nothing. Ten is nothing. We remember how to kill, Lorendrael.
“Whatever happens here,” Loren murmured, his voice pitched for Serafina’s ears alone. “Protect the children. Araya would want them to be safe.”