Chapter Forty Two
The Lone Wolf Returns
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Avaldale, Vrethian.
Kyra.
She shouldn’t have come here. It was foolish and reckless and yet she hadn’t been able to return to the docks just yet. Hadn’t been able to turn her back on the old manor house on top of the hill.
She had to see if they were still there.
Forehead pressed against the cold glass, eyes straining into the darkened hallway, Kyra searched for a hint of movement in the shadows.
Nothing.
They could have been hiding upstairs? Or perhaps there was a ward blocking an outsider’s view-
Even as the thought arose, Kyra knew it wasn’t true. She could feel the abandonment of the manor. It had been empty for some time.
She also knew her family’s disappearance had everything to do with the blood red letters across the porch beneath her feet. The ones that read: TRAITOR.
It too, was definitely not paint.
Upending her skin of water, she poured its contents over the word, swiping at it with her feet. Well, it didn’t spell traitor anymore. But it did look like a fucking crime scene.
Win would never have fled by choice. She’d spent a hundred and fifty years stubbornly rooted to the place.
Which meant she had felt threatened. By the Union or her fae kin, or both.
Whomever it had been, they had struck fear into her heart, enough to make her abandon all that she had held so dear for over a century.
Her grandmother, despite her obstinate faults, would have gone to the end of the world and back to protect her family.
Even if it meant leaving her home and the legacy of the Daeiros name behind.
With all she had learned about her grandmother through Naal, the softer side she had never truly seen, the thought made Kyra’s stomach twist.
They had to be alive.
A great explosion stole the night’s peace.
Kyra whirled around, heart thumping, to see the horizon had become a colourwash of aggressive orange, fiery light illuminating the smoke now billowing above the city.
And it was coming from the port.
‘Fuck,’ she breathed, then broke into a sprint, cloak flying behind her.
Breath was soaring in and out of her lungs by the time she reached docks, ducking behind an old shed full of rotten oars and rusty, broken ship parts.
Thick, unyielding flames ate away at the little ship she’d arrived on. Timber snapped, white sails now nothing but ash on the wind. The very air was taut with screams.
Sailors were burning with their ship. Those innocent Nythanorian fishermen who had done nothing but bend to the will of the Earth Warden who had convinced them she needed them.
Some had jumped overboard to escape the blaze, but their bodies bobbed motionless on the surface of the water, impaled by arrows.
‘Come out, come out, Earth Warden!’ A hoarse, unfamiliar voice drawled over the crackling flames. ‘Come be the hero we all know you’re dying to be!’
She didn’t know that voice. But they knew her. They knew she was here.
Shaking, Kyra peered around the shed.
A throng of Union soldiers were lined in formation at the docks, all facing the burning ship. And in front of them stood another with a longsword pressed against the neck of one of their own. One who was young, with kind eyes and true humanity in his heart.
‘Raymond,’ Kyra whispered.
Fear gripped her, bitingly cold and fierce. If he died because of her-
She started running then without thinking, feet pounding the worn wood beneath her feet, revealing herself in the light of hungry flames.
‘Here she comes!’ the Union cunt holding Raymond proclaimed loudly. ‘Our Earth Warden, here to save the day!’
Laughter rang like jeering bells from the surrounding soldiers.
Kyra halted before them and seethed, ‘Let him go.’
‘I don’t think so,’ the soldier sneered.
‘I wasn’t fucking asking.’
‘We don’t answer to fae-sluts. And I’m afraid-’ he gave a mocking sigh, ‘I already have orders.’
Kyra surged forward, palming her dagger. ‘Don’t you fucking dare-’
Raymond’s wide eyes locked with hers. ‘Kyra… don’t-’
But whatever he had been about to say was cut short, as the soldier behind him swung his sword wide, cleaving Raymond’s head from his shoulders in one fell swoop.
Kyra froze.
She watched in silent horror as Raymond’s head rolled towards her. The murdering soldier kicked his corpse to the docks. The dull thud was loud in Kyra’s ears.
The blood that spilled onto the deck and into the water was louder, each drop resounding with horrific clarity.
Like a dripping faucet.
She was going to kill them all.
A carnal sound snarled from her lips and she revelled as fear, true fear sparked in the soldier’s eyes. He backed away a step, and she was vaguely aware of soldiers swarming to surround her, swords drawn.
They didn’t know they had awoken a beast.
The earth was dormant now. But the sun…
It would obliterate them all. The entire city. She should have done it months ago when she had stood on the hangman’s platform, should have let that power rip and fry them all to nothing-
She let the monster climb up and up, let it shine from every pore, fuelled by hate, fury, vengeance, an insatiable need for death-
She let her dagger fly.
It embedded in the back of the murdering soldier’s head. He thudded to the ground, dead.
Before she could let her sun magic sing an aria of promised death, two figures landed in front of her and she was ripped into the air in a rush of wings.
Arrows flew toward them, missing them by millimetres. She bucked against the thick arms that held her, furious that her kills had been stolen-
‘Nysari, do not engage!’ the male holding her shouted. ‘Do you want to start a war with Vrethian as well as Zarynth?’
His words were met with a growl of frustration from the female flyer to their left.
Kyra didn’t know them at that moment. She knew nothing but her own rage, her fury, her grief.
They landed, but the male’s hold on her remained tight. ‘TAKE ME BACK!’ she screamed in a demonic voice that wasn’t hers, writhing in his arms and glowing, glowing so bright-
‘Nys, do something!’ the male shouted at his female companion. Fear coated his voice.
Then, quite suddenly, Kyra was violently shoved, and found herself submerged in dark, icy cold water.
When she resurfaced, spluttering on saltwater that had shot up her nose, her skin was no longer alight with the sun.
She blinked stinging eyes up at her abductors in the boat. Nysari and Mankar were staring down at her. The latter muttered, ‘That’ll do it.’
He leaned over with his arm outstretched, and with ease, hauled her back into the boat.
The moment she found a seat, Nysari none too gently clamped iron shackles around her wrists, glowering down at her.
‘Are these really necessary?’ Kyra said weakly.
‘Precautionary,’ was Nysari’s cold reply. ‘You have a lot of explaining to do.’
Softly, Mankar asked her, ‘Where’s the Eye, Kyra?’
‘Gone,’ she croaked.
Nysari let out a hiss.
‘Gone where?’ Mankar pushed.
But Kyra could barely hear him over the ringing in her head. She turned her gaze toward Avaldale’s port, where that ship was now little more than a smoking wreck. Those innocent fishermen… dead. Because of her. Never again to return home.
Raymond, dead. Never again to return to his family.
Because of her.
She started shaking then, as the image of Raymond’s rolling head plastered every corner of her mind, and she couldn’t stop the vomit from rising as she lurched over the side of the boat and spewed into the water.
???
Gallena’s Temple, Phaenon.
Naal.
It seemed implausible that the ice cells of Phaenon would hold not one, but two Mother-blessed Wardens. And yet, until Naal was sure, until she knew that Kyra held no true threat to her people or their cause, that was where her impending conversation with the Earth Warden would take place.
Naal stood outside Kyra’s cell, watching her closely. Bound in shackles and shivering against the back wall, she looked so small. She had not so much as acknowledged Naal’s presence, had not said a word since they had left Avaldale’s shores, according to Nys.
Naal clasped her hands together in front of her and took the plunge. ‘I will give you a chance, Kyra, to explain yourself. I will not interrupt and I will not pass judgement until you have done so.’
A minute or two trickled by, where Kyra did not so much as even lift her head. Naal was inclined to ask the question again, when the Earth Warden said in a hoarse voice, ‘I needed the Eye to free my brother from slavery.’
Naal searched the words for any hint of treachery, calling upon her own wits to detect a whiff of a lie. She found none. Her breath came a little lighter then. ‘And did you?’
A nod in response.
‘Look at me, Kyra.’
It took a moment, but eventually the Earth Warden raised her head. Her eyes were bloodshot and swollen.
‘Why did you not tell me?’ Naal demanded quietly.
Kyra’s gaze hardened. Solid as the compacted ice around her. ‘You wouldn’t have helped me.’
‘I might have tried to understand,’ Naal countered. ‘I might have at least tried to find an alternative.’ She sighed heavily. An attempt to keep her anger, her fear at bay. ‘The Eye of the Fifth was not yours to use as a bargaining tool.’
‘I had no choice. He would have died there if I hadn’t-’
‘We could have worked it out together, Kyra,’ Naal interrupted with rising exacerbation.
‘It was a blood bargain, Naal,’ Kyra spat. ‘You and I both know there was only one way to fulfil it.’
‘And how many people were caught in the crossfire whilst you took it upon yourself to free your brother?’ Naal said, now unable to keep the shake of fury from her voice. ‘You are responsible for the deaths of good Nythanorian men. You shattered half of the bones in Zuriel’s body.’
‘Do you think I don’t fucking know that?’ Kyra hissed. ‘Do you think for one moment I don’t despise myself for it? I didn’t mean to-’