CHAPTER ELEVEN
Verena
SOMETHING HAD FOLLOWED ME.
A shadow that moved a breath before I did, a warmth that collapsed the chill of twilight.
It crept up the back of my neck like fingers tracing the column of my throat. A heat that didn’t belong.
A sense, a knowing, before it was smelt—cinnamon, sweet at first inhale, savage once it settled.
I followed it. Hunted it. But right as I had felt it take its next breath, it had disappeared.
I pulled my hood down, the rusted sign swinging into view on its chains, groaning against the wind. The name has long since worn to nothing, but everyone in Csolenia know’s it.
The Lion’s Den.
Where mortals and Fae alike come to trade their shame for ale, their virtue for sweat and sex.
The air inside hit like a fist, thick and sour with stale drink as bodies pressed close and Callum and I slipped into the dim.
A man sat high atop the oak bar, shirt plastered to his sunburnt chest, drenched in ale and sweat both. His tuneless voice carried over the clamor, pint after pint already sloshing down his throat. His rounded ears gave him away as mortal.
If not that, then the tales of his voyages did—the sorts of stories sung only by those too stupid to keep their lives.
My boots stuck to the warped boards with every step, each one tugging me down as we wound through the staggering crowd, past crooked tables and drunken limbs, until we found space at the bar.
Behind it, shelves of glass bottles climbed the wall. Some empty, some brimming, waiting to spill secrets.
The barkeep filled two glasses with a dark liquor, its amber burn catching the lantern’s glow from above. He slid them toward us, some of it already splashing down the sides.
Callum flicked two coins forward, but the man waved him off, already moving on. He tucked them beneath an empty glass, leaving them there anyway.
“That was generous.” My lips pursed as the drink burned down my throat. I hated ale. But no one survived a place like this sober.
“He owed me a favor,” Callum said, just as a girl drifted toward him.
She was petite, wearing a dress that was more a suggestion than fabric.
It dipped low around her chest, clinging high at the apex of her thighs.
Lace framed both the edges like a prayer holding it together.
Another strip crowned her tawny knotted hair as she twirled it, flirtation wrapping between her fingers.
“Hey, handsome.” She slid her hand up Callum’s arm like it already belonged to her. “Want some company?” Brown eyes skimmed to me, narrowing and edged with challenge while her lips curled into a smirk. “Better company, at least?”
I choked.
A full, humiliating cough clawed at my chest until my ribs ached.
Wiping the foam from my chin, I set the mug down with a little too much calm. “Careful now—”
Callum held out his arm, likely expecting me to snap. I couldn’t blame him. Though, I wasn’t going to hurt her. I knew what she was, just a girl surviving, snatching coin with what men would pay for. Still, that didn’t mean she got to insult me.
His mouth brushed the rim of his cup, eyes tracking down the length of her before he swallowed half of it.
“Appreciate the offer, but I’m unavailable.
” He angled his head toward a corner, where a cluster of men stood, pretending not to stare.
“They seem...unwise. You’ll have a much better evening if you try your hand there, I’m sure of it. ”
She blinked, then huffed a little laugh. “You’re loss, flame-boy.” Then she bounced away, hips swaying to the music, already smiling at someone else.
I lost it.
A laugh ripped out of me before I could bite it down. I doubled slightly, hand pressed to my ribs, wheezing.
“Flame-boy,” I repeated, tears gathering. “I’m stitching it onto a banner and framing it. Then I’m telling everyone.”
His jaw ticked so hard I thought his teeth might crack. “Don’t.”
Which, of course, only made it worse.
He dragged a hand down his face, lifting his chin at the barkeep, who had finally spotted the coins he’d left behind.
“Verena—" He cleared his throat. “If you embroider that slander on anything, I will personally set it on fire. And then,” he finished off his ale, motioning for a second, “I will tell everyone you hissed at a tree once.”
I froze; he smirked. Damn. Why had he stored that memory?
His smile fell the second Reve slid up beside me, already reeking of ale. “You came!”
His grin was wide, eyes drowning in glass as he nearly stumbled into me. Judging by the way he swayed on his feet, he’d been here for far too long.
“You promised free wine,” I said, lifting my arms at my sides as if that explained everything. “Also, I brought Callum.”
Reve’s dilated eyes slid to Callum, who gave a two-fingered wave.
He cleared his throat, cutting through the mortal’s latest song as he sat still perched on the bar, singing now of Liraern’s— creatures of the endless waters who needed no claws or chains, their faces and voices were so beautiful, so persuasive, there was no thrashing, no struggle, you simply dove to your own death.
A shiver of awareness ghosted over my skin.
How Reve and his crew had ever sailed past such creatures untouched was beyond me.
Maybe they sang louder than the sea. Maybe they huddled in silence, terrified of what stirred beneath the waves.
I vowed to never find out.
“Pretty sure I said ale,” Reve corrected, slurring over his own laugh. “Not wine.” The look I shot at him was honed to kill, but he only chuckled harder. “Don’t worry, I’ll find you some.”
He stood, barely, swaying ahead, leading us through the crowd, ale sloshing over both our boots. We reached a scarred four-cornered table, the wood carved and battered by too many knives, too many drunken hands.
I slid onto the bench beside Callum and a man whose name I wasn’t given, my fingers brushing the cool bite of my dagger as I sat.
Reve thudded two mugs down, liquid slopping over the edges.
No wine, then. Just the same brown filth.
“You’re just in time.” He tugged at his tunic, sweat slick across his brow. “She’ll be here any minute.”
She. The infamous village-hopper who sold gossip as prophecy. The one who claimed to know me.
“Who paid her to sing tonight?” Callum asked, swallowing half his drink in one careless gulp.
Wonderful. No wine, and I’d be dragging him home over my shoulder.
“Everyone,” Reve slurred. “Even the pub shelled out coins this time. People will buy any story when they’re thirsty enough.”
The tavern swelled around us, bodies swaying, voices raised. The promise of a stranger’s song hummed in the air like static before a storm. My gut twisted from it.
Why would Obrann allow some wandering stranger into our lands—let her belt out songs of a creature who he himself hunted and wanted burned from existence?
The steel toe of my boot cracked against Callum’s shin beneath the table. He hissed, golden eyes flaring like struck flint.
Explain. My glower speared into his, voice threading through his mind.
He leaned closer. Too obvious.
So, I kicked him again. Reve’s bleary eyes darted between us, suspicion sharpening.
He’s watching.
Understanding, finally, flashed across Callum’s face. She presented herself to the king a few days ago. Brought him a generous gift. He was pleased. She said she was a traveler from down south, near the Feyglades.
My stomach sank lower. The Feyglades lay perilously close to Morrhold, the witch queen’s domain. This girl could be a sorceress, steeped in blood magic, come to poison us from within.
Is that how you already know her?
A muscle flexed in Callum’s cheek before he smoothed it away. I was in the throne room when she arrived.
The brew was bitter, but I forced it down anyway, nearly spewing it across the table when Callum’s boot found my shin. It was a sharp kick, subtle only to anyone not sitting at our table.
His chin dipped toward Reve and I followed the gesture, resting my chin in my palm, elbow propped against the table as if bored. I tilted just enough to catch their voices.
“He’s sure he knows where they are?” Reve murmured, suspiciously coherent, to someone beside him.
The man, the one who hadn’t even been granted an introduction, nodded once. Another at his opposite side was already slumped over, face mashed into the wood, his snore rattling the whole damn table.
“He said they’re collecting soldiers,” the nameless one whispered. “Heading out within the next week or two.”
The tavern’s dim lanterns shuddered in their hooks, shadows jerking along the walls like they, too, were eavesdropping.
Reve noticed, eyes sliding up to find mine. The careless blue of them darkened as he folded his arms across the table. “Excited?” His brows arched.
I sighed, dragging my gaze away. “Sure.”
If the Den had windows, I’d be staring through them, glancing at how close to nightfall we’d slipped.
When we had arrived, the sky had turned to a golden sepia. A canvas of blush and ember clouds. In here, it was always the same. A haze of flax and smoke, blurring and endless.
A place where time didn’t move.
I jabbed Callum with my elbow, leaning closer. “How much longer? I can’t choke this swill down, and we’re fifteen minutes away from this turning into a full-blown orgy.”
To prove my point, I nodded toward a girl with midnight hair on her knees with a man’s fist tangled in her strands, his cock buried down her throat.
Reve’s pupils blew wide as he turned and watched, his mouth parting as the tip of his tongue danced across his lips.
Disgust, or worse, warped my insides.
Callum’s freckles caught the lamplight like rust igniting as he motioned toward the door. “She’s here.”
I looked over my shoulder—
The Fae woman who stepped through was a tempest wrapped in flesh. Her skin was a rich sable, her curls thick and untamed, spilling down her back in a dark cascade. The arc of her cheekbones sat high and severe; brows arched above eyes of dusk-stained seas.
She moved like the chaos in them, all measured and ominous.