Chapter 3 Ignore the Ominous Portents
(They’re Probably Nothing)
Arabella
Our new campsite was a disaster.
I picked my way through the maze of half-erected tents, dodging ropes and stakes.
The entire army had been forced to make camp in near-total darkness to maintain secrecy.
The evening air carried the mingled scents of damp earth, sweat, and dinner.
Occasional curses punctuated the night as someone stubbed a toe or knocked over equipment.
No one truly complained, however. Every single soldier followed Kazimir of their own volition, and every one knew of his wrath.
The companies were well-oiled machines of terror.
For the remainder of the journey, I’d coached Griffin on riding to spare him further humiliation with the mule. Results were mixed.
Now, the enchanter was hovering near Lord Sebastian’s tent, wringing his hands and occasionally smoothing down his disastrous hair. The man was a magical genius and a social catastrophe, and tonight, he was a spectacle.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
He jumped, spinning around so fast he nearly lost his balance. “Lady Blackrose! I was just… going to find Lord Blackrose… I’m making progress on the, uh…”
My truth-sense tingled behind my eyes. The man was such an abysmal liar.
“I’m sure,” I said drily. “Go to bed, Griffin. You can talk to Lord Sebastian tomorrow.”
He flushed a blotchy red that was visible even in the darkness. “Right. Of course. Bed. Excellent idea.” He scurried away, tripping over a tent stake and nearly face-planting in the dirt before righting himself and disappearing into the darkness.
I suppressed a smirk. Sebastian was a relic of a life I’d thankfully escaped—a kind, hopelessly earnest boy who had grown into a kind, hopelessly earnest man.
A perfect, harmless piece of bait to dangle in front of Kazimir, if only to watch my Dark Lord’s jaw tighten in that particularly delicious way.
Just as I turned to leave, a snore ripped from Sebastian’s tent, loud enough to stir a nearby horse. It sounded less like a man sleeping and more like a bear choking on a badger.
Ah, yes. That I remembered. He’d produced the exact same noise once, face down on his dessert at a dreadfully dull banquet when we were children.
I walked on, silently thanking all the gods that ever lived that Kaz didn’t snore. The Dark Lord had many terrifying qualities, but at least I could sleep without feeling like I was bedding down next to a drowning bear.
A low, gurgling groan echoed from the shadows nearby, followed by a pathetic-sounding burp. Nyx was sprawled dramatically across a patch of flattened grass, looking less like a terror of the skies and more like a child who’d eaten too much cake at a birthday party.
A very, very bloody birthday party.
“Serves you right,” I murmured, stroking her snout. She leaned into my touch with a soft whine, her stomach making another unhappy noise. “I don’t feel sorry for the soldiers, but perhaps you’ll remember this lesson next time. Metal doesn’t digest well.”
She gave a small, smoky sigh that smelled of burnt hair. Then she burped again, and a distinctly human-shaped tooth clattered to the ground.
“Charming,” I muttered, though my mind had already drifted back to Sebastian’s arrival and the disturbing gaps it had revealed in my own history.
The cellar incident happened when I was fifteen—a full year after my mother died protecting me.
A year after they’d altered my memories and locked me in the tower for the first time.
And yet, even after all that, I’d still had enough spirit left to defy my father.
The thought should have made me proud, but instead it filled me with a cold, creeping dread.
How many times had they done this? How many memories had they stolen? My mother had died when I was fourteen, but I’d been made to believe she’d died from an illness when I was eight. Six years of my life with her, just… gone. And if they could erase that, what else had they taken?
What else had they done?
Kazimir thought some of those suppression runes in the tower were too old to have just been for me. Had my mother been locked there too, her own power suppressed the same way mine would be?
A bitter taste filled my mouth. It was a grim sort of irony that Kazimir and I were both navigating our own peculiar brands of amnesia.
He’d woken from the Heirloom’s activation with no recollection of the cataclysmic vision he’d experienced.
He didn’t remember the ancient, malevolent Shadow King screaming for vengeance from behind my husband’s storm gray eyes.
He didn’t remember the crushing weight of centuries of rage and imprisonment that I’d glimpsed through our bond, a darkness so profound it had nearly swallowed him whole.
I’d seen it. I’d seen the entity wearing Kaz’s face, twisting his features into a mask of hate.
And I hadn’t told him.
Part of me insisted it was for his own good.
He was already battling the ghosts of his past; he didn’t need to know he was also the vessel for a slumbering evil with a penchant for world domination.
The other, more honest part of me was simply a coward.
How do you tell the man you—you’re falling for that he might be possessed by a cosmic evil?
I hoped my own missing memories didn’t conceal a similar secret. Though if I did have an ancient entity living inside me, I prayed it was at least one with a decent sense of humor and a less homicidal agenda.
I finally found Kazimir near the edge of camp, a black-clad silhouette under the gloom of the trees.
The heavy cloak he was shrugging into was one I recognized—the same midnight wool he’d worn the day he’d snatched me from my carriage, its hem and collar stitched with runes that shimmered faintly in the moonlight.
Once, he’d told me it looked “suitably dramatic.” I would die before admitting he was right.
He moved like a dark god, all six-feet-plus of arrogant Dark Lord wrapped in barely leashed power. That insufferable confidence came from knowing he could destroy anyone in his path, and it showed in the way he carried himself.
Sharp planes and wicked beauty defined his face: high cheekbones and an aristocratic nose paired with a mouth that had no business looking so kissable when it regularly issued death threats.
He was a kidnapper. A villain. A warlord who’d upended my entire world and usually made me want to wipe that arrogant smirk off his face.
But damn it all, when he was close, I forgot every sensible reason I’d had to run.
Sensing my presence, he turned. The look in his eyes when they found me was a wave of possessive heat that washed over me and settled deep in my bones.
It chased away the chill of the missing memories, the lingering horror of my father’s sins, and the weight of the secrets I was keeping.
In Kaz’s gaze, I wasn’t a broken thing with pieces missing. I was his. Seen. Wanted.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked.
I offered a small, crooked smile. “Wondering if you’re ever going to get a new cloak.”
A corner of his mouth tugged upward. He didn’t push for the real answer, and a quiet sort of gratitude bloomed in my chest. He knew today had been a shock.
He was giving me the space to process it.
It was one of the things about him that constantly surprised me—this undercurrent of quiet respect that ran beneath the violence and the dominion magic.
“Where have you been, anyway?” he asked, adjusting the drape of the cloak over his shoulders.
“Playing chaperone. I had to shoo Griffin away from Sebastian’s tent before he serenaded him.”
Kazimir’s expression darkened. “He’s going to be a problem.”
“Griffin or Sebastian?”
“Both.” His gaze narrowed. “Have you considered that your dear Lord Sebastian might be a spy?”
“Would you have let him into our camp if you thought he was?”
“Maybe,” he said, and the infuriating thing was, my truth-sense didn’t so much as tingle. He was just that devious. “The enemy you see is less dangerous than one you don’t.”
“He’s not a spy, Kaz,” I said, rolling my eyes. “He’s just a man who’s very good at baking. And apparently, smart enough to seek protection from the only person who could help him, no matter how intimidating that man looks in a cloak.”
Kazimir flashed me a devilish smile. “I’m taking the northern ridge,” he said, changing the subject. “Getting the lay of the land.” He wasn’t using a portal, conserving his magic for the inevitable battle tomorrow. Instead, he would ride part of the way and climb the rest.
“I’m coming with you,” I announced.
He stared at me as if I’d suggested we take up knitting. “Absolutely not.”
“I’m not asking for permission.” I crossed my arms. “You’re not leaving me here with a lovesick enchanter and a scone-baking nobleman while you go have all the fun.”
He let out an exasperated sigh, sending a plume of white into the air. “It’ll be cold,” he said finally. “And there’s a steep climb at the end.”
“I’ll manage.”
His gaze turned stormy. The unspoken fear for my safety was so loud in our bond it was practically screaming. He was being ridiculous. And a little bit sweet, in a terrifying, Dark Lord sort of way.
I took a step closer. “Admit that you want me to go with you.”
His jaw tightened, but the reply, when it came, wasn’t the sarcastic retort I expected. It was quiet, the words cutting through the air with a raw conviction. “I always want you with me.”
Another awkward beat stretched between us. We’d been having a lot of those lately.
Kaz looked away first, his shoulders stiffening. The warmth in our bond shuttered as his walls slammed back into place. “Though a night of peace and quiet does have its appeal.”
Bastard. I decided to aim for his pride, a target I knew I could hit from a mile away. “Worried you can’t protect me as well as your army can?”
His head snapped back toward me, eyes flashing silver. “Our army. And the fuck I can’t.”
“Then it’s settled.”