DRAWING ATTENTION
Silas was right. Nivelle was nothing like I had expected, and her first words had not been the least bit welcoming. I felt like I was breaking some sort of ancient rule just by being in her cottage.
The wights sat curiously at her feet, their ghostly tails swishing silently. One word from her, and they’d probably do her bidding. Roirdan kept a watchful side-eye on each and every one of them.
The witch turned to Silas. “You should have known better than to bring them here.”
Silas looked a bit offended, but it was Niall who spoke up. “We needed confirmation.”
“Confirmation of what? Your lineage?” Nivelle snapped as she appraised Niall from head to toe.
Amused, he tilted his head. “Now, why would I need that?”
She huffed a laugh. “You don’t know? Funny. I can smell it on you. That . . . darkness that lingers in your blood.”
Niall stiffened. He clearly wasn’t expecting her to be targeting him or his power. But she left him with that thought and examined me next.
“You’re the one the prophecy spoke of. Daughter of the god-king.” Her voice pitched low as she came closer. “A ward breaker with light in her veins.”
It wasn’t a question but I answered it nonetheless. “I am.”
The wights’ ears twitched toward me, but Nivelle didn’t look amused. “What more needs confirming?”
Before I could respond, Roirdan moved. His shadow swallowed the witch as he stepped up to my side and peered down at her.
“If you knew who she was, you should have also known we wouldn’t let just anyone near her, even if they claim to be her guardian.
We want confirmation that Silas is who he says he is. ”
Nivelle tilted her head back to look up at the commander, her eyes glittering with defiance. “And who are you to make such demands for her?”
“Think of me as one of her other guardians.” He leaned forward until he and the witch were eye to eye. “And I’ll be your worst nightmare if you don’t show some respect to her and the High Lord.”
Nivelle matched his tone, her lips peeling back in a snarl. “You would threaten me in my own home?”
Roirdan put a hand on the pommel of his sword and grinned. “Would you like for me to do it again, witch?”
At Nivelle’s feet, a wight sank back on its haunches, poised to strike. Roirdan jerked, attempting to unsheathe his sword, but Nivelle simply flicked her finger, conjuring a crackling rope made of blue light, and bound his hand to the hilt of his blade.
The wight settled, then hissed at the commander as if to say, Try that again, I dare you.
Nivelle watched Roirdan’s muscles strain as he struggled to free himself from her magic.
The rope she’d conjured wasn’t budging.
“My worst nightmare?” she cooed.
Roirdan’s head snapped up, but something like pure, carnal delight flashed in his eyes, recognizing and relishing the challenge.
Silas reached out, throwing a hand between his sister and the commander before they went for each other’s throats.
Roirdan scoffed at the move, working his jaw as he sized up the small witch before him. He leaned into Silas and mumbled, “I like her.”
“That’s enough—the both of you,” Silas said. “I want Auren’s mate and the rest of their group to feel confident that I am who I say I am, and that I have no foul intentions. Until then, they have a right to be suspicious.”
Nivelle narrowed her eyes on Roirdan a final time before looking at Niall. “Torin delivered the message from Karios, and I relayed it to Silas. There is your confirmation. Now go, before you attract unwanted attention to my domain.”
She turned, but Silas grabbed her gently by the arm.
“Velle, please.” The nickname felt oddly personal, and the look that she gave him in return seemed softer, meeker.
Like there was another side of her hidden beneath that steely facade.
Finally, she relented, giving the subtlest of nods, and Silas let her go.
Behind her, one of the wights jumped down from where it had remained perched on a table. It made a steady path toward me, head lowered in curiosity. I knelt and offered my outstretched hand to it, allowing it to take a sniff.
I felt Nivelle watching the interaction, scrutinizing it.
The wight paused briefly before pressing its nose to my fingertips, and I gasped, not expecting to actually feel any physical contact. Its nose was cold as ice—cold as the dead—but when I tried to stroke its head, my hand went right through it.
That only works one way then.
“What are you doing?” Nivelle asked, seeming more annoyed than curious.
I didn’t answer, too stunned by the creature and its existence—another thing that defied everything I’d ever known.
One by one, the other wights came forward to take a sniff and investigate. To meet a stranger. The witch watched them as they circled me. Judging by her expression, this was probably not normal.
After enough of them had inspected me, I stood back up and gently cleared my throat. “We won’t take much of your time.”
Nivelle regarded me for another long moment and said, rather harshly, “We will speak out in the garden.” She strode past us without waiting for a reply, and the front door swung open before her.
The restraint finally fell away from Roirdan’s wrist, and he cursed under his breath as he shook out his hand at his side.
Silas led the way after Nivelle, and we followed, watching the wights scatter in every direction, their trails of mystical blue light winding through the trees.
The world was now cast in an eerie purple light—the fleeting minutes between sunset and nightfall.
Ahead, Nivelle entered a small, fenced area through a gate that was covered in bramble bushes and thorny vines.
It enclosed a section of cultivated ground that was teeming with flowers—some of which I recognized, and others I’d never seen before.
Sprays of blooms that resembled dahlias—but were the color of dried blood—reached their dark faces toward the murky sky.
Large, drooping bell flowers swayed on a phantom wind, their pale petals like skin that had been leached of all color.
For a garden, it was a bit strange. Macabre.
The wights seemed perfectly at home, though.
And that was somewhat fitting—spirits in the form of cats, slinking about the moody blooms and shadows.
We stopped just inside the gate behind Silas, watching as Nivelle continued to drift along the pathways.
“The garden calms her,” he said quietly.
Sure enough, the witch’s demeanor changed before our eyes. In the cottage, she was callous and guarded. Here, her shoulders were relaxed, her gait slow and tempered.
In the evening light, her skin and hair were radiant, as if she thrived under a gloomy, cloud-covered sky. She looked ethereal. Almost . . . pleasant.
But looks could be deceiving.
She paused to lift the bloom of what looked like an exceptionally large, wilted ranunculus . . . and the petals withered under her touch, disintegrating into ash.
All of us stiffened.
When she turned, her gaze landed on Roirdan first. A hint of a smirk tugged at the corner of her lips.
He didn’t flinch, but I could have sworn his breath caught in his throat.
“Karios sent the summons a few months ago,” she said to us.
The tone of her voice was calmer and quieter than it had been in the cottage, but still not warm or welcoming.
“The instructions were for him to find his Dionam in the human realm. Once he found you, he was tasked with retrieving a relic on Karios’s behalf.
” She shifted her gaze to Silas. “Which, I assume, you acquired?”
He answered with a grin. “Of course.”
“Good,” she said, as she touched another flower that looked like it was on its way toward death—already shriveled at its edges. The petals decomposed under her fingertips.
“I am well aware of who you are, Auren, as well as the task the god-king has placed on your shoulders.” She glanced back over her shoulder at me before moving along to another bush, sending fading blooms to their demise. “Silas will stay with you indefinitely.”
Indefinitely. The word rang like a bell in my mind.
“So, if I defeat Lyceius and take his place . . . If I become a goddess . . . will Silas live forever too?”
The wardeness shrugged gently, continuing her slow perusal of the garden. “Dionachs can exist eternally if the gods and the fates will it. So, I would say that if you achieve your god status, then yes, he would coexist alongside you for as long as you live.”
Silas and I exchanged glances.
“Would you want that?” I asked him.
Did he want to live forever? How could I force that upon someone?
He offered me a gentle nod. “I will always want whatever keeps you safe, Auren.”
I looked at Niall. He was silent, and surprisingly more at ease than I expected, given the topic of conversation. “You’re quiet,” I said to him.
“I can’t argue with Silas. Your safety is all I care about.”
“Is this information enough to clarify any lingering suspicions then?”
“Yes. But there is another reason I wanted to come here.”
Silas shifted on his feet, obviously not aware of Niall’s ulterior motive. None of us were—judging by the way Roirdan glanced at him out of the corner of his eye.
Niall stepped further into the garden and called out to the witch. “I came to ask if you would join our cause.”
Nivelle halted mid-step, hand outstretched toward a sagging stem with crimson petals. “Your cause.” She weighed the words on her tongue.
“Help us defeat the evil that lurks in our lands.”
“You speak of the fallen god,” she surmised, hand still hovering over the lackluster bloom.
“I do. A witch’s power would be a great asset, and certainly one that Lyceius has never encountered.”
Nivelle hesitated, then closed her hand, apparently deciding the flower still had life left in it. She continued scanning the bushes for more fading stems. “Your ‘cause’ has nothing to do with the witches.”
Niall slid his hands into his pockets as he traipsed lightly, keeping his steps slow. “It’s the entire realm’s cause. If Lyceius—”