Chapter 36
THIRTY-SIX
ARYELLA
During the ten days we were married, when I felt restless and overcome with worry, I just watched you sleep. You are the only thing that’s ever brought me peace, and you looked so peaceful in our bed. Safe. Happy. Heart-achingly beautiful in mind, body, and soul.
After four hundred years, I’m still in awe that you even exist.
—FROM THE BUTCHER OF NYRIDA’S LAST KNOWN LETTERS TO QUEEN ARYELLA I
I couldn’t sleep. Knowing I was about to spend a few days alone with Elias Winterton kept my thoughts constantly stirring.
It was odd of him to take me instead of Valda.
I’d worked tirelessly over the past months to prove myself, but Valda was a proven warrior, and they knew each other well.
Either he felt adamant that she needed to stay at the fortress in his place or he had alternate intentions with me.
I hoped it was solely the former.
The twins were sleepy but worried when I bid them farewell before sunrise. I promised to return in one piece. When I closed our cabin door, a small hand with nails a little too long wrapped around my wrist and pulled.
I gasped and had my dagger unsheathed and up to guard me within a second. She was taller than me, but not stronger. I dug my feet into the gravel so she couldn’t shove me against the cabin wall.
Golden-blond hair. Blue eyes. Red lips. Sophia Bruta. The woman who was always crawling all over Elias.
“You are a rat!” she hissed in my face, her breath and spit smelling like wine and something sour. “Vermin that they should have never let inside these gates.”
Her words struck a chord, but not a deep one. My skin had grown thick enough to ignore someone like her. I tore my arm from her grasp. I wasn’t shocked by the appraisal given the way she glared at me last night. But for the gods’ sakes, I’d never even spoken to this woman.
“You know the commander just wants to fuck you, right?” Her voice was grating.
It reminded me of one morning last summer, shortly after I woke up, when a rogue cockroach crawled over my leg while I was sitting on the floor of the Warrich cabin with Oliver.
“And trust me when I say that does not make you special.” She crossed her arms over her voluptuous chest and cocked her hip.
“You’re just a new, exciting toy that he’ll fuck a few times and shove to the side.
You mean nothing to him or anyone here, and anyone who says otherwise is lying. ”
And then she spat on my boots.
Mouth agape, I stared up at her. She towered over me in height and womanly form, but not in character. In that regard, she was floundering. I would never say to another woman—or anyone who’d never shown me a single ounce of ill will—the things that she was saying to me.
Her scowl made her even uglier than her words. She probably didn’t expect me to shrug and smile, but I did. “We’ll see,” I told her.
The moment I turned away, Elias tore past me in a fit of irritation.
“Sophia!” he snapped meanly.
I quickened my pace toward the center of the courtyard, where Valda had been waiting with Elias. Behind me, his voice dropped low. I couldn’t decipher his words, but it sounded like scolding.
“Don’t they get along?” I muttered to Valda, who held the reins of a large white stallion. She snorted, not bothering with an answer.
Elias’s body was bound tight when he returned. He fastened a bag to the horse’s saddle, then turned to me, eyes darkened by rage. “I assure you, she won’t be doing that again.”
I glanced back to find Sophia humiliated and even redder with anger than before. Maybe she wouldn’t corner me again, but I had a feeling she was plotting her revenge in some other way.
“You think he went to the ridge?” Valda asked Elias in a hushed voice.
He gave a firm nod. “She must be the reason. I’m convinced Cross discovered him, and that’s why he’s dead. Otherwise, Finch would have killed more by now.”
My eyes bounced between them. I was not going into this clueless. “Are you going to elaborate?” I asked, earning glares from them both.
“On the way,” Elias answered. “Is that all you need?” He gestured to the bag hanging on my shoulder carrying a change of clothes, a blanket, a sleeping mat, my canteen of water, and a few dry snacks I borrowed from the stash Mavic thought was secret.
He would forgive me later.
“Yes.” I glanced at the white stallion. “We’re taking one horse?”
“It’s safer,” he answered, but I wasn’t so sure about that. “Is that a problem, Fera?”
“Seems impractical,” I answered, though I knew better. The black mare that had carried Gavin and I most of the way from Tovick to Brinnea had been smaller than this stallion. It would manage just fine. I simply didn’t want my body pressed up against him. “But I’ll just sit behind you.”
We seemed past him trying to harm me—outside of training, at least—but I didn’t want to make myself vulnerable.
“Fine.” He gracefully mounted the horse then offered me his hand without making eye contact. I accepted it reluctantly, and we departed.
The stallion’s rhythmic gait through the forest combined with last night’s insomnia had my body begging for sleep, but that would require me to lean on him, and I refused.
Instead, I kept my hands on my thighs and focused on the verdant spring foliage, glaringly monochrome in contrast to last night’s flowers, but still vibrant.
We headed straight north. I cringed at the thought that we might be going to Warrich. I wasn’t ready to go back there.
“Tell me what you and Valda were saying about Finch,” I said, watching a flock of birds spiral just above the tree line. “If I’m going to help you, I need details.”
His shoulders stiffened at my demands, and he cracked his neck like I was grating his nerves, but he complied.
“Finch’s mother was a messenger. Four years ago, she went missing from a spot not too far from here, where we’re headed.
Finch visits the place every year on the anniversary of her disappearance.
” Elias glanced left and right, as if to ensure no one was nearby to hear.
“Days before Cross was killed, one of my soldiers witnessed a confrontation between Cross and Finch while on patrol outside of the Caves. When Finch left the Barracks two days ago, I took the liberty of rifling through his things and I found… some correspondence.”
“With who?”
Elias hesitated for a painfully long moment. “Molochai.”
The breath whooshed from my lungs. “Molochai himself?” I shuddered, overcome by the memory of jagged, ravenous shadows spinning and darting around me. Why would Molochai seek out Draven Finch? Or had Finch sought out Molochai?
“Yes. Short notes, but incriminating. Molochai wanted to make a deal with him. Inside information in exchange for his mother, who Molochai claimed to have captured.” Elias glanced back at me. “I think Cross caught Finch sending notes to the enemy. Finch killed him before he could speak up.”
I swallowed thickly. “What will you do with Finch now?”
Eli’s expression turned grim. My fear of Molochai was overshadowed by dread that the intent of this mission wasn’t just to find Draven Finch but kill him.
“A life for a life, then?” It was a grim thought that made my heart hurt. Finch had made a terrible decision, engaging with Molochai, but he’d done it to save a loved one, and that tugged at my empathy. Intent mattered. At least, it mattered to me.
Doing something terrible for someone you loved? That sounded a bit like someone else I knew.
“As it needs to be,” Elias grimly replied. But he had told me he wanted to be merciful, like the queen. This didn’t feel merciful at all.
“What can you tell me about the queen?” I hoped a subtle reminder might plant a seed and spare a life. “Why was she kept hidden for so long?”
Surprisingly, he didn’t sound angry. “We kept her in the north because until a few months ago, Molochai and his Insidions seldom went there. Fewer resources, fewer people, and cold climates are never ideal for armies.”
“What changed a few months ago? Besides the queen’s… death.”
His head dipped when he looked at his hands holding the reins.
“Simeon thinks Molochai could sense the power of the gods waking in her and drew north, along with his Insidions and some beasts. Until her, he didn’t have much reason to.
Occasionally he used to send some of them to try and break through the border to ransack some villages, make a stir, test us, but we have numbers on our side, and we’ve been able to neutralize the threats quickly. ”
“Do you have soldiers stationed in all the northern villages?” I asked, though I already knew. There were wards on Tovick and Brinnea, but the smaller northern villages could have used more protection.
“In the summer months,” he replied, “when conflict is more likely to occur.”
I bit my tongue to keep from correcting him as the wind blew a few stray black locks across my vision. I’d seen a northern village that had been ransacked in the middle of winter.
“We have to keep our numbers dense near the Caves and across the center of the continent,” Elias continued, gesturing with his hands like he was drawing in the air.
“You could draw a line from southern Avendrel to southern Wymara, directly below the Caves, and everything south of that line belongs to Molochai. He has the bottom half of the continent thoroughly in his clutches. Venturing fifty miles south of the Caves without the proper protection in both numbers and arms is a death sentence, and without Simeon’s wards… ”
The way he trailed off gave me pause. “Without the wards?”
“We have the numbers to protect the Caves against Insidions,” he answered. “It’s likely Molochai knows exactly where we are, but with the wards suppressing his magic, he can’t do a damn thing.”
But what happened if the wards fell? Could Molochai enter at any time? I couldn’t ignore that the last few times I’d left the fortress, I could have sworn the magic Simeon used to ward the walls had felt a little bit weaker.
While we rode in silence, I wondered if Simeon would teach me to make the wards with the magic I inherited from our bloodline or if he would withhold that from me, too.
Northern Avendrel was mostly flat forests, so the stallion kept an easy, steady rhythm that made me succumb to sleep.
The forest was quiet and calm save for the errant call of a bird or scuttle of a deer or critter.
I was exhausted, and my body betrayed me.
Each time I woke up with my cheek against Elias’s back, I jolted back, pulled my hands from his waist and put as much distance between us as possible.
Only to be mocked by amused laughter that set me aflame with embarrassment.
That evening, we found shelter beneath a dense crop of trees. When the sun set, the temperature dropped, and I had a difficult time hiding my shivering. Elias dismounted and offered me his hand. He’d been mostly kind to me today, if not a bit teasing, so I didn’t have it in me to spite him.
“There’s got to be some supper wandering around,” I said while he gathered wood for a fire. “If you’d like, I’ll go, and?—”
“You may be impressive, but you aren’t invincible.
And I may have been wrong about you, but I’m not stupid.
Look at your fingers. They’re cold.” He rose from a squat and gently gripped my wrists.
They were only a little pale. It was unexpectedly cold for a summer night.
“And you’re exhausted. You’ve got bags under your eyes. ”
“Thanks.” I stepped back. “But I think I can manage to find us supper.”
“I’ll hunt, Fera,” he insisted. His concern made me anxious. “Just sit by the fire and get comfortable.”
I didn’t sit while he built us a fire. I stood beside the white stallion and stroked its mane in thanks for a successful day of travel.
Dusk shone with an array of colors while the sun set, clear skies promising a peaceful night.
The sun would soon descend below the horizon, and Elias and I would be alone next to a warm bonfire below sparkling stars.
When he finished, he returned to his bag a few feet away and sifted through it.
“Fuck!” Elias leapt back and unsheathed his sword in a quick, graceful flourish. He struck something on the ground with the tip. A hiss sounded, then faded. I leapt up and rushed forward to see a snake, roughly five feet long, pinned to the ground at his feet.
“Fucker bit my arm.” Elias looked more aggravated than concerned as he peeled back his sleeve to observe the wound. “Well.” He picked up and tossed the snake’s body beside the bonfire with his uninjured arm. “There’s supper, I suppose.”
I started down at the serpent’s limp form. It had pale brown scales, a triangular head, and catlike pupils in its eyes. Inside its mouth were two long, hollow fangs.
It was ironic that memorizing every page of Gavin’s books would help me save someone he despised.
“It’s venomous.” I reached out to stop him from wrapping the wound. He’d already rinsed and cleaned it, but that wouldn’t be enough.
He eyed me warily. “How venomous?”
That I didn’t know, but I remembered the signs of a venomous snake, and the consequences of their bite. “It’s possible you could lose the arm if we can’t stop the venom from spreading. Or worse.”
“How do you know that?”
“I read a lot.”
He looked at me like he didn’t believe me, even as I cradled his bloodied forearm in my hands and studied the bite. It was deep. I had to act fast.
“It doesn’t look that bad,” he remarked.
I huffed out an unamused laugh. “You might think you’re fine now, but you probably won’t be within the next ten to twenty minutes.
” If the venom spread to his heart or other organs…
I bit the inside of my lip, because I only had one idea how to do this without revealing my powers to him, and it didn’t feel like a very good one.
I was going to regret this.
“I’ll suck the venom out.”