Chapter Thirty-Three
Avari
As the king walked me back up the stairs to my chambers, I couldn’t help but notice the shift in his mood. The light, playful River was gone; in his place persisted a gravity that unsettled me.
‘Emily said she’d leave it by your bed,’ he murmured, his voice low.
The spray. I had almost forgotten about it, my mind still burdened by the shadowy figure who had so clearly soured my king’s temper.
‘Use it, please.’
‘No one looked at me on the way back. Maybe it’s already faded?’ I argued, hoping it was true.
Stepping closer, he boxed me into the alcove by my door. His breath skimmed the hollow of my throat.
‘You smell of sunshine, and life, and everything in between,’ he whispered, and my breath caught under the weight of his gaze. ‘Unless someone’s sharing your bed tonight, you should use it.’
For a fleeting moment, I wished it were not the pheromones, but myself, that drew him so irresistibly.
‘Not planning that.' I forced my vocal cords to work.
'Good.' River’s voice darkened, low and edged with something feral. ‘I don’t think I would let you.’
‘And what is that suppose—’
He moved like a beast unleashed, mouth crashing onto mine in rough, searing strokes of passion I could not deny. I didn’t want to. I had dreamt of these lips for weeks, and the reality was sweeter and wilder than any fantasy my mind had conjured.
The unrelenting king deepened the kiss, his fingers tangling in the hair at the back of my head as he held me firmly against him. I found myself wanting to inch even closer.
My knees weakened under the onslaught; bliss threatened to overwhelm me—until, just as suddenly, he tore himself away.
Lingering close, his breath still on my lips, he whispered words I almost didn’t catch.
A low chuckle escaped him. ‘I need to go. You’re driving me mad, witch. Get inside, and lock the door.’
As he pulled away, the promise of more shimmered in his eyes, leaving me unable to move, let alone think straight.
Legs made of cotton, my mind remained scattered, and it took a long moment before I managed to gather myself enough to slip into my room.
Of all the things I had expected from the night, kissing him was not it. And of all the ways I had imagined his kiss, none had come close to the reality.
Rough, yet tender. Demanding, yet yielding. He gave, only to take it away again.
Then, cruelly, he left me aching for more.
My gaze fell on the gleaming crystal bottle waiting on my nightstand, the word 'repellent' scrawled across the label in thick black ink by someone clearly amused with themselves.
Spraying myself lightly, I smelled it to check whether it really carried no scent. Undetectable. But as it clung to my skin, I realised with a start—I wasn’t sure I wanted to repel the king at all.
Sleep didn’t come easily. When it finally did, it dragged the taste of him with it.
Waking after a night like that felt like a triumph for someone whose mind rarely slept, even when I did. It had taken me hours to drift off, and even then, my sleep was restless, haunted by fragments of memory. The kiss. The strange, shadowed man. The court whispering that I was a whore.
Mostly, though, I dreamt of our moment of passion. And each time I woke, a thunderclap of anxiety struck my chest. What did it mean, and did it mean anything at all?
When the clock chimed half past six, I was almost relieved to rise, shower, and slip back into my routine until I remembered that my routine involved a great deal of the king.
Did he think I was easy? I’d let him kiss me without so much as a stutter. I had no intention of becoming one of the king’s mistresses. My heart couldn’t bear it when he eventually found his queen, an inevitability his grandmother had already sown into my thoughts.
Classing the day as one when I would rather not stand out, I chose a dark grey sweater and loose jeans before heading to breakfast. With a little luck, the eager assistant from yesterday would be absent.
‘Good morning!’ Michael called cheerfully from his seat, waving me over.
Stepping in hesitantly, I asked, ‘Where is everybody?’
‘You wound me. Yesterday you said you never get enough of me, and today you cast me aside so easily…’
The theatrics clearly ran in the family.
‘That’s not what I meant, and you know it.’ My lips betrayed me, curving into a smile. ‘Where have you been lately?’
Michael sipped his tea before responding, ‘Here and there. Spy business. Digging up what I can about that evil mother of yours. But enough about me, I’ve heard the news…’
Shit. I assumed River had gone to sleep after our kiss, and we hadn’t discussed keeping it private either. But sharing it with his brother so soon? It felt premature.
I didn’t want to go into details. ‘Yeah… it just happened.’
‘Spectacularly as well,’ he sounded proud. ‘Grandma said they were vast enough to engulf half their house if you cared to.’
I nearly choked on my tea. ‘What?’
Michael’s eyebrows shot up as he clarified, ‘Your flames?’
‘Oh, yes. The land helped,’ I whispered, ashamed that my thoughts kept circling back to the kiss, one River probably wouldn’t even consider worth mentioning. ‘I finally have them. Now I just have to hone them.’
At my words, the power surged to the surface, eager to perform, thrumming with pride beneath my skin, as if it too wanted to impress the friend who smiled at me now.
Though eager to explore it, his demeanour shifted when his phone chimed. ‘Emily will be here soon. I have to go.’
‘What? Already?’ But he was gone before I even finished whining.
Though I waited for someone to join me, after a while it proved useless.
Upon finishing my usual avocado toast, I decided to keep busy until the afternoon session with River. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to do what I’d been meaning to for a long time—connect with the land.
I had a theory.
Technically, my fire had grown much stronger than my green power, but perhaps I could use it differently. What if I channelled my fire as a heatless source, pure energy, to expand the green? It might grant me the deeper connection I craved with the forest that healed me.
Though I had already thanked it, it hadn’t felt strong enough to lose myself to it at the time. It was also weakened by the healing I performed on the Prime battalion.
But now, with all that fire coursing through my body, I felt like a woman reborn and couldn’t wait to see how it could affect my witchery. If my experiment went sideways, I might try to cast a ring of fire around myself to strengthen the connection that way.
The energy felt inviting ever since the dam inside me broke, almost as if like drew like.
Reaching the courtyard, I veered toward the woods that had once saved my life. Then settling upon the earth, I let the vines of power wrap around me, greeting my presence and whispering their welcome.
I breathed my fire into the deep green, filling every hollow, every shadow, with its pure essence. The magic that bloomed was unlike anything I had known.
When my interwoven essences entwined with the forest’s energy, I felt the pulse of life and death, the rhythm of growth and decay, the dance of ascent and collapse, and the ballad of fire and witchery until energetically, I became a part of the forest itself.
It felt familiar, like finding family I didn’t know I had lost. Morning slowly gave way to afternoon before I finally let go, amazed that I did not feel the slightest fatigue.
Making my way back to the castle, I was surprised not to see River anywhere. I assumed he would have informed me if our training plans had changed, and a small, uneasy suspicion crept in.
One step, one calming breath at a time, I approached the doors to his office. Armed with the courage and confidence born from my successful connection to the lands, I knocked three times and waited.
The door opened almost immediately, and the king greeted me with an inviting smile. ‘Ava, missed me already?’
Newfound confidence or not, heat surged through my chest and cheeks as I fought to keep my voice steady. ‘I thought we were training you to conjure today.’
River stepped aside, allowing me a view of the room: a meeting between Michael and two men I had never seen before.
‘Actually, Ava, this is about your mother. Care to join us?’ River opened the door fully and offered.
Hesitation etched itself into my heart and, inevitably, my face. Still, I pushed myself forward. ‘Did you find what you needed?’
‘Not yet. This is my friend, Commander Aaron.’ He gestured to a bulky man who studied me with a calculating intensity, as if I were a threat he might need to neutralise. ‘He just returned from a battle on the Gem Fields, where half his team met a fate worse than death.’
The phrase chilled me, though it felt abstract. ‘What’s a fate worse than death?’
‘To live and no longer be yourself,’ the commander replied, the hardness in his voice almost mournful.
My stomach tightened.
‘No longer themselves?’ I challenged them, not understanding what they meant.
Though, as I looked back, only days ago, I had met a man who was no longer himself, and I had witnessed the ruin it brought—Emily’s quiet despair.
‘The Ortensian army have been cursing my people for some time now, Ava. I know you’ve met our brother Blaze…’ Tone solemn, hurt flashed in his eyes as he explained.
Michael’s brow furrowed, disbelief etched in every line of his face. ‘You’ve met Blaze? When?’
‘Recently. My witchery brought me down there.' My voice hitched. I had no words to apologise for the suffering my people had inflicted, for the fathers torn from daughters and the mates separated by cruelty.
A heavy ache pressed on my chest. Heartbreak blurred my vision. ‘I… I don’t even know what to say…’
River inched closer, our hands meeting beneath the table where only we could feel our small embers intertwining, offering comfort and a surprising clarity of emotion.
‘They’ve been using certain gems for their curses,’ River continued. ‘The war was never about the land. No matter what, we can’t cleanse the curses—they use what we call cursing stones, and we’ve been unable to find any information about them. I’ve kept one that they use most frequently.’
Unable to rationalise the Ortensian cruelty, I requested, ‘Can I see it?’
The commander and his companion tensed but said nothing, clearly trusting their king. River opened a cupboard near his desk and lifted a case; green light fractured through glass before I recognised the stone.
I sighed, ‘It’s a malachite… a stone of loss. My people use them to help release bad emotions and traumas. Now I understand what happens to them afterwards.’
All of them watched as if I were speaking another language. But when I saw hope spark in River and Michael’s eyes, I knew I would stop at nothing to cleanse their brother.
‘They’re using your people’s traumas to curse my people? That’s just…’ River’s fists tightened as his palms pressed into the edge of the table, knuckles pale, head bowed in a posture that seemed almost like surrender.
Placing a hand on his shoulder, I promised, ‘Any curse can be undone, River. Explain what you’ve tried so far.’
Whatever it took, I would help him end this.