Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
ARYELLA
Be strong. Be selfish. Be stubborn. Be difficult. Be however you need to be. You owe them nothing.
—FROM THE BUTCHER OF NYRIDA’S LAST KNOWN LETTERS TO QUEEN ARYELLA I
After my run-in with Elias, I went to the library with just over an hour until curfew. I wouldn’t have much time, but I couldn’t stand the thought of making no progress toward helping Gavin by day’s end.
The tiny, rectangular room was miniscule with only three shelves and two four-person tables. Dust had settled on every surface, and the smell of must hung heavy in the air. There were a few oil lamps on the shelves that seemed to have gone unlit for quite some time. Did no one read around here?
At least it would be quiet.
Back in Warrich, Ezra had mentioned that Simeon refused to use dark magic, like blood oaths. That Simeon, as deceitful as he was, would refuse dark magic just to maintain some moralistic high ground sounded absurd, as did the notion that if he knew, he would tell me anything at all.
I got to work by scanning the spine of each dust-lined book without knowing what to look for besides blood and oath and dark . I knew it wouldn’t be that easy, but it was a start, considering how little information I had.
The Book of the Selvaren sat beside me, but I knew the answers weren’t there.
After months of scouring it, I nearly had it memorized.
The copy Damond secured me from the Tovick library had blank pages at the end like every other copy, and I’d marked up each page so thoroughly that some margins were blacker with ink than parchment yellow.
An hour later, fading daylight outside the dusty window signaled my time in the library before curfew was coming to an end. I yawned, reminded of how much my nightmares were stealing my sleep.
“What are you looking for?”
At the sound of a man’s voice, I tensed where I sat, then spun around in my chair.
“Hi!” Mina’s bright voice greeted me. “We’d been wondering where you escaped to after dinner.”
I thought Elias had followed me, but the twins’ freckled faces glowed with the same kind smile.
“Hi,” I answered with a relieved sigh. Thank the gods for these two. I’d had enough of the commander for one day. “I’m doing… research.”
Mavic came closer and peered over the edge of my book. His brows shot near to his hairline. “Are you planning on poisoning someone?”
“Gods, no.” I looked down and realized what page I was on.
“Lethal Poisons.” All I’d been able to think about was that vial of poison around Gavin’s neck and I’d ended up here.
I slammed the book shut. Not a positive impression for an outsider to be researching deadly poisons on the second day out of her cell.
“I’m looking at remedies. For healing. I want to learn to help. ” In a way, all of that was true.
Mavic slowly nodded. “All right.” The way his eyes narrowed had me worried he didn’t believe me, so I was shocked when he asked, “Can we help you learn to help?”
I hesitated, unable to explain what I was looking for. What I really needed were more pairs of my own eyes to search through these books faster.
I thought about the upcoming tests, and how we’d be judged.
Elias had made it clear there would be dangers.
Worry for Mavic and Mina threaded through me, prickly and harsh.
While I couldn’t tell them I was searching for ways to break a blood oath with Molochai, I could give them the opportunity to learn how to help themselves.
They could do something productive, even if it didn’t aid me.
“I think it would be wise to prepare for the tests. We don’t know what the commander will challenge us with.
” I started to list everything I’d already learned from Gavin’s books.
“Splints, resetting broken bones. Cleaning and wrapping wounds.” I glanced down at Lethal Poisons. “Remedies for… poison oak?”
Mavic considered this. “I have to admit, though I tend to lean toward more active recreational activities than reading, you make a good point.”
“Ew, Mav,” Mina muttered under her breath on her way over to a table.
I laughed, then winced as the muscles in my side tightened and the ache from the hit I took yesterday grew sharper. I should have known better than to sit for so long. I spent the next half hour standing and flipping through pages while stretching.
The twins continued to bicker playfully with each other.
Their chatter was amusing, but I couldn’t get rid of the nagging guilt that I still hadn’t found a thing.
I’d sorted through books I thought might be useful and skimmed many of them.
I could crack open a few more and say a prayer, or I could try again tomorrow.
The bell rang to signal curfew, and my decision was made for me.
The next evening, I was in the library rubbing the exhaustion out of my eyes after another day sparing with whatever mismatched opponent I was given.
There’d been nothing slippery on the mat today, but I had a black eye to match my bruised ribs thanks to a tall eighteen-year-old male who felt too quick for his height.
I’d miscalculated my movements and a punch had sent me tumbling straight to the mat.
The bruises hurt, but I wouldn’t hide them.
Books were scattered across the table before me, everything from shallow-water spear-fishing guides to Rexus dynasty lineages to the history and evolution of northern Warrich bear breeds. I’d already made it through half of the library, and I had found nothing useful.
If it was Simeon’s intention to keep the knowledge of magic away from anyone besides himself, he did a damn good job.
Mavic and Mina didn’t join me tonight. Mina had taken her own blow to the ribs during sparring. She wanted to lie down, and Mavic refused to leave her alone. Part of me was relieved to have the quiet. I’d gotten used to it while living with Damond.
There was one voice I could stand to hear, though.
“Are you there, Shera?”
“If I ever answer ‘no’ to that question, we have much bigger problems.”
A smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. “ I miss you ,” I told her. Being away from her felt unnatural.
“Can you escape the clutches of your commander and come outside?”
Her words were teasing, but I could hear her annoyance.
“I should make an appearance in the bunks but can try to sneak out once everyone else is asleep, past curfew.”
So I did. I waited until I could count to one hundred without hearing a single stir, grabbed my boots and jacket, and tiptoed through the cabin. The side door creaked shut behind me, but I was swiftly slinking through the shadows before anyone could see.
Gravel crunched beneath my boots, but I kept my steps light enough to go unheard. I waited for the guard to linger on the far end of the path before quickly picking the lock of a rarely used gate and sliding through.
“ I’m outside of the fortress ,” I told her as the light hum of Simeon’s wards around the fortress faded behind me.
“Can I come to you?”
A guard would only need to take one peek through the slits in the wall to see me. If we lingered beneath the torchlight, they would see us both. I could handle whatever the punishment was for being out past curfew, but I wouldn’t risk them seeing Shera.
“ We need to meet farther out ,” I told her.
“There’s a ravine about a mile northeast of the fortress. That’s where I’ve been spending most of my time.”
I couldn’t get to her fast enough. Running through the crisp night air numbed my cheeks but warmed my body, and there was just enough moonlight to illuminate my path. Ten minutes later, I deciphered the outline of a cliff beneath the pearly glow of the full moon.
“ How close are you? ” I asked Shera. “ I’m ? — ”
I gasped and froze when my boot smacked against something rigid, and the smell of carrion wafted over me.
“ Ary? ” Shera asked. “ Are you all right? ”
“ Are you close to the ravine? ” I asked her. “ I think there’s something here. ”
“ What? ” she asked nonchalantly. “ That rotting dead body? ”
I froze, eyes wide. “ There was a dead body out here and you didn’t tell me? ”
“I thought it was a deer. It smelled rotten, not fresh, so I didn’t bother taking a closer look”
“Good gods, Shera.”
“ Don’t be dramatic ,” she retorted cooly. “ I’ll be sure to investigate next time, if I must. ” There was a pause, then a faint rustling. “ I see you. ”
On my right, her glowing violet orbs came closer in the darkness. Between the shock of finding what I suspected was a corpse and keeping emotions suppressed while inside the fortress walls, my composure cracked at the sight of her, and silent tears fell.
She traded her stroll for a faster trot, and I knelt in the dirt to receive her.
Taking her in my arms was like leaving a stuffy room and inhaling cleaner air.
I tried and failed to ignore the intrusive thought, the brutal reminder that the reprieve I found holding her in my arms was as close as I could get to how it felt to rest in his .
Through our pathway, she sensed my unease, nudged my cheek with her nose, brushed her shoulder into mine and purred, as if her purr could fix everything.
“ I missed you. ” I scratched behind her ears the way she liked, soothed by her plush cushion of fur. “ You’re well? ”
“I’m well.”
I pressed a quick kiss to her forehead, which she didn’t particularly like, and laughed when she let out a low, playful snarl. I pulled back to assess her and swore she looked older. Her silver fur had thickened, and it shimmered elegantly in the moonlight.
“You’re eating well out here?”
“More than you’d like to know, I’m sure.”
True. I knew she had to hunt to eat, and I could, too, if needed, but unless someone I loved was harmed or in danger, killing didn’t come easy. I felt inclined to hold on to that part of myself.
I turned back toward the rancid-smelling mass on the forest floor. It looked to have a covering, but I couldn’t make out many details past that.
“ I’ve been mostly by the ravine, but I’ve also been testing how far our connection reaches ,” Shera told me.
“How far?”
She started grooming like there wasn’t a decomposing body next to us. “ About thirty miles. ”
“How can you tell the limits of our connection?”
She switched paws. “ I can feel you. When I go too far, I can’t feel you anymore. ”
I stared at her and wondered what else she could feel through our connection that I couldn’t. While I could hear her when she spoke, I never knew how close to the fortress she was.
“ Well? ” she asked boredly.
The moon was bright enough to guide my path, not to fully see what was before me. With a weary sigh, I stared at my palms. I was far enough out that a flash of light wouldn’t be noticed if I could manage it.
I closed my eyes and reached inside my wheel for Aesta. White flashed behind my eyelids, and when I opened them, the center of my palm glowed. I took careful breaths as I watched the air shimmer around a palm-size ball light.
I squatted down, knowing I had only seconds before I lost control of the power in my veins and the light burst and temporarily blinded both me and Shera.
By the size of the body, it was male, though he had a bloody canvas bag over his head.
His throat was slit, messy and jagged. Just below his shoulder blades, a threadbare blanket was draped partly over his body, partially displaced by the elements or hungry animals.
The exposed skin I could see was bloody and covered in small cuts and bruises.
There was a deep knife wound in his left shoulder and bruising around his throat.
“Shit.” The power began to surge. I dropped my hand to my side, away from Shera, and attempted to hold it in.
But like the water in the showers two days ago, light burst from my hand in all directions.
A blinding flash painted the forest around us in pure daylight so jarring and violent that my vision needed ample time to recover.
Shera blinked away the shock before returning to grooming herself. I was relieved to disprove the one thing I’d feared the most.
Ezra had told me that the Butcher was a messy killer.
Perhaps he once had been, and the scary stories people told their children exaggerated what once was.
From what I’d seen with my own eyes, he was too good at killing to leave this kind of mess.
I’d never forget how peaceful Phillip and Oliver had looked.
The slits across their throats had been so precise.
Not like this man, who had struggled. If the Butcher had killed this man, there wouldn’t have been a chance for a struggle. I didn’t know who did this, but I was sure who didn’t.
“ Someone killed him. ” Shera spoke the obvious mind-to-mind.
“ I don’t think he’s an Insidion ,” I answered her. “ Though I suppose he could be a spy. ”
“ What if it’s one of yours? ” she asked.
Confusion and dread flowed through me. “ One of mine? ”
“One of your people.”
Despite accepting I was queen, I was unaccustomed to the idea of people being mine . It felt odd. Everyone on the continent was meant to fall under my rule, but I knew what Shera meant: This person could be a resident of the Caves or the Barracks.
And if that were the case, there was one person who needed to be immediately informed of this.
“Damn it,” I grumbled. I bent down, kissed the top of Shera’s head, and turned back toward the fortress.
“ I’ll try to come back out and meet you soon ,” I told her. “ Be safe and stay hidden. ”
“ I will ,” she promised. “ Where are you going? ”
I didn’t answer. I was already too mentally exhausted by the conversation I was about to have with Elias Winterton.