Chapter Five
KOLVAR
My chest heaved in deep, ragged breaths as we approached our destination, having run the entire way from the harbor to here. I wasn’t out of shape in the least, but my heart hadn’t stopped beating erratically since the moment Tristan burst into the room and announced Kyella’s capture.
At first, I’d been in complete and utter shock, unable to process his words.
My brain wasn’t able to compute how her capture was even an option—we had just been with her.
I couldn’t understand how it was possible for there to be enough time between the ship’s arrival and us leaving her side for her captors to make such a bold move.
How was this happening?
How had they taken our girl?
Time was of the essence to save her, and we weren’t going to waste a single minute.
While I generally tried to remain the level-headed member of the group—especially in high tension situations such as the one we were currently in—I was finding it fucking impossible to do that now. Not when it came to Kyella and her safety. No one was safe from my wrath or my suspicions.
Not even our Empress.
Elijah called out to the two private guards stationed outside the doors, “Out of our way, now!”
They exchanged looks of trepidation and he barked out, “I’m not fucking asking again!”
The Empress’s voice rang out from behind the doors, not needing to be told who was demanding entrance. “Let them in.”
With her command, they nodded and parted, leaving the way forward clear for us.
It was a good move on their part because I was two seconds away from using brute force to remove them from their post. As it was, it was a miracle we hadn’t taken our anger out on the guards that blocked our way at the harbor, but now our patience was running paper thin.
The doors of her private suite of rooms flung open as I smashed my hands against them.
We strode forward, my eyes roving the space for a glimpse of her.
Anger flared within me as we paced through the room, finding the Empress on her private balcony where she stood overlooking her city and the sea where Malakai’s lone ship sat.
Where Kyella was.
She didn’t bother to look at us, keeping her even gaze on the outside world.
My gut churned. It looked as if she was taking in the beautiful weather the day brought us instead of the reality of a war sitting at our doorstep.
A war which had been catapulted into action with their abduction of Kyella.
Myrin had a lot of damn nerve, cutting off our only way to get our girl back. Did she expect us to just sit down and have a warm cup of blood with her while crossing our fingers that Kyella was somehow returned to us? Fuck no. Absolutely not.
While she was our Empress and we respected her, if I was forced to pledge loyalty to one over the other, it would be with Kyella. Always. At this point, I was certain Elijah and Dakath would say the same.
There was no doubt Kyella had left the city. Her scent trailed out to the water and then disappeared, so the only option was that she had left the harbor. What was Myrin thinking? Who knew what Kyella endured each minute she was away from us.
Just the memory of seeing her fed upon in Malakai’s throne room had my blood boiling to an uncontrollable level.
“Why would you block us from leaving the harbor?” I snarled, heart pounding so loud and fast it felt like it was lodged in my throat. “You know we need to go after her! Every second is precious when it comes to getting her back. This is wasting time we do not have to spare.”
Dakath’s hand fell onto my shoulder heavily, stopping me in my tracks before I could get too close to the Empress. The fact that he was the one stopping me spoke volumes.
Fuck. This would forever be imprinted on my consciousness as one of the worst days of my life. The thought of Kyella being taken from us turned my stomach sour, but the thought of her being under Malakai’s thumb again…That made me want to burn the world down.
I would never allow her to be in his grasp ever again. I’d lay my life down to ensure that reality didn’t come to pass. The fact that we were being contained within the city, being prevented from even trying to rescue her, infuriated me.
Myrin’s head swiveled to glare in my direction, her gaze darkening with a mixture of anger and sadness. The emotion lurking there relayed how hurtful my words were to her. “You think I would make such a choice without reason, Kolvar?”
The gut-wrenching look, coupled with her words, gave pause to my anger. What did she mean by that? Was my fury misplaced, or was it just?
My mind raced, at war with what I knew in my heart.
The Myrin I admired would never place an innocent life at risk.
She would do everything within her power to protect her people, but I simply could not understand why she would do this.
It seemed like the exact opposite of what I would normally expect from her.
The exact opposite of what we needed to do to save Kyella.
“I…I don’t know what to think right now, Myrin,” I offered as my jaw clenched in frustration, shaking my head before running my hand through my hair and tugging on the ends lightly. I relished the slight sting of the pain. Fuck, this was all so messed up.
Lowering my gaze to the ground, my voice cracked with emotion as I whispered, “All I know is that I need her back. I need Kyella.”
My throat tightened with the admission, and I let my head hang toward the ground as I held back the tears burning in my eyes, threatening to come to the surface.
I didn’t give a shit if it made me look weak, but I had to hold the wave of emotion at bay.
We didn’t have the time for me to lose my shit right now.
Dakath’s hand rested on my shoulder, squeezing it at my emotional admission before pulling away and letting his arm fall down to his side. I lifted my head as he passed me, walking toward Myrin. “We all need Kyella back. Please explain yourself.”
Her shoulders and chest heaved as she took a deep breath and glanced back out to the sea. “I need you three to wait here while I employ a plan. I can’t risk anything messing it up, I’m sorry. I know that is asking a lot of you.”
She…she had employed a plan without consulting us? A plan that didn’t include us? How was that even possible?
We were the most skilled within her army, and thus should have been leading said plan.
And we had just been with her! How the hell did she have the time to come up with a plan, call for those that she needed to enact it, and send guards to tunnels and harbor to cut us off in such a short period?
None of this added up, and it drove me mad.
“I am trying to understand,” Elijah ground out, his temper beginning to surge to the surface ever so slowly, “but I need more information than that in order to not storm out of this castle and slaughter any guard that stands in my way, Myrin. You cannot expect me to simply trust in a plan that I know nothing about when it comes to Kyella and her safety. I need the details.”
His voice rose with each word, like he was working himself up the longer he spoke. I had been surprised at how well he had held it together until now, considering the rage he flew into at the mere announcement of Malakai’s ship in our waters. Perhaps his mood was about to change.
With an exasperated huff, Myrin turned to face us fully and placed her hands on her hips. “I cannot tell you, and even if I could, you likely would not believe me. I need you three to trust me, please.”
To hear the Empress saying please to us rattled me to my core, even more due to the tears gathering in her eyes as she tacked on, “I care about Kyella as well.”
I believed her, but Myrin’s plea didn’t ease the anxiety or restlessness torturing my mind and soul.
Based on what we’d seen while in their lands, I knew anyone from the Thaician Empire would be a bloodthirsty bastard, and those men had our girl.
Already, we knew that they had spilled her blood on the way out of our castle.
How were we supposed to just stand here and wait like she requested?
“No,” Dakath muttered quietly. “Kyella means too much to us to trust anyone else with her safety. I’m sorry, Myrin, but we’re taking a boat and going out there to get our girl.”
Flinging the bottom of her dress to the side to allow her to walk forward easily, Myrin spoke in a hard tone, “They are still in our waters. If they had everything they needed, they would have left by now. There is something else that keeps them here. While I hate to leave Kyella there for any amount of time, the plan I have enacted will commence any minute. If you cannot wait for that, I will have no choice but to detain you.”
A growl ripped from my throat at the mere thought of her detaining us.
Dakath let out a bone-chilling laugh. “I’d like to see them try.”
My sentiments exactly. We were a lethal group on a normal day, but add in the fact that Kyella was in danger? If someone wasn’t willing to forfeit their life, this simply was not the day to test us.
Winds began to gust through the open balcony doors, blowing Myrin’s hair around her shoulders. She raised her voice to speak above the howling sound, “Stay in this room and watch with me, or you’ll be escorted to the dungeon the moment you step outside this room. The choice is yours.”
With that, she turned her back to us and returned to the balcony.
I opened my mouth to argue but snapped it shut as I watched the sky morph from the picture of a beautiful day to an angry mixture of gray and black clouds.
The wall of clouds moved in at an alarmingly fast pace. This…this didn’t seem fucking natural.
The three of us exchanged worried and confused glances before rushing to the balcony to take in this phenomena further.
It was as if the clouds were being conjured at the speed in which they suddenly appeared, taking up every centimeter of the sky that my eye could see.
What was even more worrisome was the way they seemed to gather over the ship, swirling right above it.
What magic was this? This couldn’t be natural. There was no fucking way.
“What is going on, Myrin?” Elijah growled out, his hands on the banister tightening until the wood cracked under the pressure. “Is this part of your plan? And if so, why does it look like she’s about to be in a hell of a lot more trouble?”
True to his observation, the waters began to churn, the gentle, lapping waves from moments before replaced with tumultuous ones that crashed into the side of the ship.
Squinting to try to make out how it was impacting the ship, I tried to see if the vessel was faring well against the sudden onslaught but couldn’t make out those details from this distance.
Her voice shook, a thread of doubt sounding in her tone as she admitted, “That was not a part of my plan.”
The sky darkened further, but not from the clouds…swarms of bugs—no, bats—filled the sky, streaming in from what seemed to be above or behind our castle, their flapping wings and clicking sounds nearly overwhelming my heightened hearing.
“That, however, is part of my plan.”
“You have an army of fucking bats?” I half-yelled incredulously, in shock at what my eyes were seeing.
“Not my army,” she countered, eyes trained on the lone ship and the bats descending on it. My gut twisted as I noticed the ship begin to tip from side to side precariously. There was no way a vessel that size could withstand weather like this, no matter how well-made it was.
“Fuck it, I’m going out there for her,” Elijah growled, turning on his heel.
My jaw dropped at the sight of Myrin clocking him in the temple with a sharp movement, clobbering him with the hilt of the sword she normally kept strapped to her side.
Shit. She was so damn fast.
Elijah crumpled to the ground, and Dakath quickly crouched at his side, checking his pulse and glaring up at Myrin.
Her eyes narrowed on us as she warned, “I will not let your fragile masculinity jeopardize this plan. Contrary to all of your beliefs, you do not need to be the ones to save the day, gentleman. When I say I have it handled, you should understand that I mean it.”
Chills broke out along my skin as the temperature outside seemed to drop twenty degrees in a flash.
“I am the Empress of these lands, and I protect my own,” Myrin continued in a commanding tone before turning back to watch the scene unfold before us.
While her words were full of strength and her body language oozed confidence, I couldn’t help but notice the way her fingers tightened on the banister so intensely her knuckles turned white.
This had better work.