Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jack
Four days into the pass, and I was barely holding it together.
The wind bit through my cloak like it knew who I was and wanted to test my limits. But I welcomed the challenge. Welcomed the distraction. Anything was better than the burning ache clawing at my chest since the night at the lake.
I knew I’d been a bastard to Sylvi back at camp.
A necessary evil, I’d told myself. A calculated cruelty.
But the truth? The truth was uglier. I’d walked in on her reading Leoric’s letter, and it had split something open in me, something dark and primitive.
Knowing how he felt about her, that he’d dared to touch her name with ink and intention, that they shared a connection, mauled my mind and turned me into a jealous savage itching to claw free of my own skin.
And the worst part was that I hadn’t been able to read her.
Hadn’t been able to puzzle out from the look in her eyes what exactly had been written in that letter.
She’d concealed its contents, not that she had any obligation to tell me what he’d said, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want to know all her secrets.
My coldness had gashed her. I’d heard it in the crack of her voice when she tried to stop me from leaving, and still, I’d walked out.
Not because I wanted to. Gods, no. But because I feared what I might do if I stayed.
Because if I touched her again, I wouldn’t stop until there was nothing left of us but cinders and ash.
So, I put a wall between us. And for four days now, I’d forced myself to keep it up.
The first day on the pass, her gaze had raked over my back like iron-tipped nails, anger sloughing off her like embers as she sat atop Stormchaser—Ravin’s horse, a chestnut mare with a flaxen mane—keeping pace behind me.
Sylvi’s posture had been a portrait of discipline, but I knew her tells: her clenched jaw, the way her fists strangled the reins.
She hadn’t spoken a word, but her rage had screamed at me like a banshee.
The second day had been harder. Quieter.
There were stolen glances when she thought I wasn’t looking, when I was too much of a coward to hold her stare.
Longing pooled between us like a depthless sea.
Every time I sensed her near me, my throat dried.
My hands itched to reach out, to brush my knuckles against the softness of her cheeks, to feather my lips over the delicate column of her neck, to run my fingers over the curve of her hips, the dip of her waist.
Gods, even my voice ached to say something—anything, to draw her nearer.
But I remained quiet. So did she.
On the third day it poured icy rain like the sky was in mourning, and I felt its sorrow in my veins.
Sylvi’s eyes barely drifted from the slushy trail.
Her shoulders had slumped a little beneath her cloak, and the sharp edge of her tone had dulled, her hollered commands at the guards lacking grit.
We were all tired, I knew that, but this subdued version of her was foreign to me, and I ached so badly for the Sylvi I knew.
Seeing her so downcast was like an iron fist slowly wringing the life from my chest, squeezing until there was nothing left but pulp.
I wasn’t so self-assured that I thought her gloom was all because of me. Which cut at me even deeper because I yearned to know what troubled her, and to not be able to simply pull her aside and ask her…
Fuck. I hated this.
And today… Gods, today, I’d felt nothing. Our tether was still intact, still coiled around my soul like an oath, but it had gone still. No thrumming, no tug. Just a silent presence that had begun to devour my sanity with famished hunger.
This had been what I’d wanted…thought I’d wanted. Distance. Control. Peace.
But peace was a cruel lie.
Because every breath I took without the sound of her voice to anchor me, without the echo of her laugh or the razor-cut of her wit to keep me centered, was a breath I didn’t want to take.
And I feared that if this silence stretched much longer, it would kill me.
At least we were now only less than a half-day’s ride from the Unseelie King’s encampment.
We’d ridden hard since leaving the Wildlands, taking only what rest we needed to keep the horses from collapsing.
No tents, no fires after dark. Just stars, rock, and frost. I’d crumbled the ice wall before we departed, and while the dark creatures who’d attacked us hadn’t tried to ambush us again, I knew the Helvaktír were still out there, hovering at the edges of my awareness, buried in the marrow of the land, their presence pulsing like phantom fingers against my skull. Watching. Whispering. Waiting.
“Son of Ice… Lord of Shadows...”
Their voices clawed at the back of my thoughts.
I ignored them. Or tried to.
But even now, beneath the howl of the mountain wind, I could feel their magic in the rock beneath our boots, in the snow that never melted. Their power was a buzz just beneath my skin, like a lightning storm trapped in my blood.
I shifted in the saddle, breath fogging in the cold, and dragged a palm over my jaw as we neared a ridge that overlooked the Thrymgard valley.
The shields I’d been raising each night to protect our envoy while we rested took more magic than I wanted to admit.
I was burning through my reserves faster than I could replenish them, but I was still able to sense the magical barriers the king had placed around the perimeter of his encampment.
His magic was strong, but the shields he’d erected weren’t meant to bar us from pressing through, but to alert him of incomers.
I raised a fist, ordering the guard to halt, and rode up ahead to the ridge’s edge overlooking the northern mouth of Thrymgard Valley.
The snow thinned here. Trees bowed under frost-laden limbs, the road ahead winding like a vein through stone.
Draumskelmir grunted beneath me, his massive body restless beneath the leather barding and plated neck guard.
His braided mane whipped in the wind as I guided him up the slope alone.
There, past the ridge’s jagged edge, Thrymgard Valley stretched before me in muted color, slate hills streaked in ice, pine trees like watchmen, and nestled in the basin…
The unseelie camp. Dozens of black-lacquered tents stood in perfect columns, each staked into the frozen soil with metal pikes.
Crimson banners snapped against the wind, each one bearing the Maelthar House crest—a black stag skull, crowned with gnarled antlers like iron thorns.
And between them, cradled like an omen, a silver crescent moon.
A chill danced down my spine.
I’d expected tents and soldiers. But not this…not battalions.
The king hadn’t brought a royal envoy. He’d brought a godsdamned army.
Sylvi came to a stop alongside me. I didn’t glance her way, and she didn’t turn toward me, either. She hadn’t said a word to me beyond official orders since we’d left the Wildlands, and I doubted now would be any different.
From the corner of my eye, I noticed her grip the reins harder. “We’ll break for food now before we descend the mountain.” Her voice was clipped, formal. Then she spurred Stormchaser around and rode down the slope, leaving me on the ridge’s edge alone.
I dismounted, my boots crunching over the frosted ledge as I walked to the very edge of the ridge, wind slapping across my face. My heart thumped with unease as I stared down at the king’s encampment, sprawled across the snow-covered basin like a bruise.
“Fuck me,” Ravin said from behind, calling my attention. His limp was less pronounced than before, but he still moved stiffly as he approached. “He brought a fucking warband.”
I nodded my agreement.
His gaze swept over the camp below. “Don’t look so grim. At least those creatures skulking in the trees might think twice before picking us off on the way back.”
“This doesn’t feel right,” I muttered. “Why bring these many soldiers if this trip to Skadgard is just a diplomatic meeting and marriage celebration? What’s the message here?”
“That he doesn’t trust us,” he said quietly. “Or…he wants us to think he doesn’t.”
“Or he’s reminding us that he could crush us if he wanted.”
Ravin exhaled slowly. “It’s all posturing.”
I shook my head, unconvinced, my gaze locked on the center spire of the camp, where the blood-red banners of the Unseelie Court snapped in the wind. “He brings a small army but requests an envoy for safety. He knows something we don’t.”
“About the Wildlands?”
My brows drew lower. “That’s what I intend to find out. We need to keep our wits about us. Gather as much information as we can.”
Ravin fell silent for a moment, studying the valley with the stillness of his gift. A hunter assessing its prey. “Should I send a hawk to alert him of our arrival?”
The wind howled through the pines, and the buzz of the shields erected around us danced over my skin. “He already knows we’re here.” I clapped him on the shoulder. “Get something to eat and rest that leg. I need you in top shape.”
He gave a half-laugh. “I may be sore, but I’m not crippled. Swapping with Sylvi scored me prime care from Sascha. That female’s got hands blessed by the gods. The gash is already scabbed over.”
“Good.”
Ravin glanced at me. “Speaking of Sylvi—”
“Don’t,” I said, cutting him off more brusquely than I’d intended, my gaze snapping to that sea of black and red below. “It’s been handled. That’s all there is to say.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw him give a mock bow, smirking. “Understood, Your Highness. I’ll be by the wagons, waiting with some ale for when you’ve finished pulling that log out of your ass.”
Asshole.
He limped off, leaving only the wind and the distant hush of pines between me and the king’s camp. Fires flickered to life one by one like warning beacons, and I wondered if I was truly ready to trade my soul for my kingdom.