CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Verena
AFTER A FEW MORE DAYS, ELVA WAS GETTING significantly better at almost holding up a sword. Her arms no longer trembled, which we all deemed a massive accomplishment.
I was starting to see some definition there now, faint but real. Even her ivory skin had begun to take on a deeper shade, kissed beige from the sun and travel.
Around us, the Khaos Forest glimmered in twilight. Every trunk and branch petrified into pillars, woven skyward like frozen streaks of lightning. Dusky light fractured through them, scattering shards of silver and pale gold across the ground.
Beneath me, the realm remained stone, too, unyielding as I let it support me. Its coolness seeped through my spine while clouds drifted across a sky bruising with night.
A root cracked beneath Ronan’s boot, only for the fracture to seal itself whole again, the forest refusing to break. The branches above swayed with the wind, their stone leaves singing a hymn, soft and otherworldly.
“How many of those are you going to do?” I asked Ford, loud enough to carry past the sound the stone absorbed.
He was midway through another routine, arms quaking as he lowered into a push-up. For three days now, he’d been stuck between Ronan’s training suggestions and Callum’s corrections. He had been doing both workouts every day, back-to-back, until he inevitably collapsed and would declare himself done.
It was, frankly, a joy to watch.
“Ford?” I called his name louder.
He grunted without looking up.
Nezra tilted her head, raven feathers brushing her cheek. “I think he’s put shields in his ears.”
His face flushed crimson, teeth clenching as he managed another five.
Killian tossed a handful of stone-berries into his mouth, crunching down with relish. “Let him burn himself out. It’s all the entertainment we’ve got.”
Extending his palm to me, Killian offered the deep plum ones nestled there. I took one, crushing it between the backs of my teeth, letting the rich sweetness bloom over my tongue.
Elva and Elysian continued a few feet away, her stance still clumsy, his corrections patient. They were almost getting cute to watch.
Callum’s glare spoke otherwise. His eyes dragged over the battered map splayed in his lap, though his attention never truly left Elva as she sparred with a white-haired thorn whose smile had noticeably broadened these days.
I wondered if he wanted to talk about it. I was the only one who knew the whole truth of how he felt.
I tried to catch his eye, even managing a small, supportive smile. The bond flared in my chest by instinct and I reached for it. Only to feel nothing but a void. Still shut out.
I opened my mouth to call his name, if only to just remind him, but I closed it before any words could come out.
He would come to me when he was ready. He always did. He always will.
Another day’s travel led us to the unexpected.
The camp before us glowed in a tide of fiery hues as a half-moon pierced the canopy where we all watched in silence.
The pixies moved among it, unaware of the dangers lurking beyond their grove. They danced with the fire, bodies twining with the rhythm, their voices lilting to music that seemed to come from the trees themselves.
Pixies had always intrigued me. Though they were normal Fae no different than Elva or Callum, they were barred from the three kingdoms.
Hunted, exiled, told where they could and couldn’t exist. Simply because they refused to bend their knee to the six gods.
Even after Queen Leora overturned the law, the pixies didn’t return. By then they had learned to thrive in the wild spaces they were forced into, many realizing they didn’t want to go back.
They found they loved the freedom more than the kingdom that cast them out.
Still, I couldn’t understand it. Evidence of the gods lived in our very veins. Our magic was proof of their existence. And yet, who was to say theirs were the only voices in the Aureveil?
Perhaps there were other truths waiting to be revealed.
There was no sense of evil here, no wrongness, no worry. Even the universe seemed calmer in their presence, the hush of the wind softer, the song of the branches gentler.
It was almost as if the gods had it wrong. It would not be kingdoms or thrones that healed us. It would be this—freedom, laughter, joy.
And I wanted it.
My body ached to run toward them, to taste the happiness blazing in their dance. Branches brushed my cheeks as I leaned forward, falling closer to their lure.
A hand clamped around my wrist. Another gripped my arm.
Ronan and Killian—both reaching for me in the same breath, their movements urgent, as though the forest might never surrender me if they let go.
I glanced between them, torn.
Killian’s grip was steady, Ronan’s hold, searing. It was him my eyes landed on.
And Ronan shook his head once. No.
No for no fun.
The pull of the pixies stayed despite it. I didn’t want to obey, but the weight of their holds dragged me back, tethering me to the ground.
I scoffed as they both released me. “You two realize I’ve killed for less hovering, right?”
Ronan rolled a dagger between his fingers, its blade slipping between night and reality, and laughed. “You’ve tried, remember? Didn’t take.”
My eyes flashed, pupils thinning, the blue of my eyes flickering to black.
Elysian stepped forward, white fur rippling across his neck as he moved between us, like he could sense the shift in me.
I let the Viper’s eyes flicker again, just for him, before they flooded back to normal. Elysian’s growl rolled through the air and my lips curved, voice cutting through the stillness with a purr—
“Oh,” I laughed. “And here I was starting to think you were all hiss, kittycat. I didn’t know you could growl.”
His nostrils flared. “It’s not my hiss or growl you should be fearful of.” A step toward me, and my brow arched as he said, “You forget how easy it is to snap something so,” he looked me over, “vulnerable in half.”
Vulnerable—
The curse consumed me then, slithering along my spine.
“Try,” I whispered.
“Alright.” Smoke curled from Ronan’s palms. “Enough.”
That sound that tore from Elysian next was warped, a rumble with every pitch of threat in existence blending between one.
Ronan only looked at him. “Enough.”
Elysian’s jaw tightened but he turned away first, a lazy smirk still playing on my lips.
“See? All bark,” I murmured, just loud enough for him to hear.
“Okay, new plan.” Ford leaned lazily against a tree, digging dirt from beneath his nails with a dagger far too small for show. “We stroll in, all smiles—lovely revel last night, sorry we crashed it without your knowledge. By the way, seen any missing heirs wandering about?”
“No.” Ronan didn’t even look up, rifling through his pack with a scoff.
The pixie’s fire had burned through the night, never once guttering, never once needed tending. I wondered if they had a fire wielder among them, or if Callum, his restlessness not unfelt, had lent his own power to keep it alive.
Killian let out a silent groan, rubbing his eyes before clutching Ford’s shoulder in warning.
“Just because they were drunk on their faerie-wine, doesn’t mean they’re unarmed.
” I pretended not to notice the subtle glance he cut my way.
“We come from Luamis,” he continued, “the last kingdom still ruled by a king.” His eyes slid deliberately to Ronan then. “No offense.”
Ronan flexed his fingers, looking back to Ford. “No one trusts us. And pixies? They don’t survive by dancing in pretty circles. Maybe they haven’t eaten in weeks. Maybe they’re just waiting for fools like us to wander in so they can string us up for supper.”
“That’s dramatic,” I muttered, bending to lace my boots.
The leather was stubborn, straps folding awkwardly as I shoved my feet back inside. I’d slipped them off to stretch and regretted it now. Shoving them back into the boots was miserable.
My tunic melted into my skin from the fire’s heat, sweat tracing down my chest, plastering the fabric against me. I left the deep slit in front untied, too hot to care.
Elva groaned beside me, rubbing her own sore arches. Her tunic, once bright and pristine, was dulled and dirt-stained. Yet even starved of her usual feasts, her frame was hardening, gaining strength. Her hair was swept back, elegant still.
Even thrown into the wild and forced to survive, she shined.
“Let me.” Elysian crouched, fingers brushing hers as he reached to tug on her stubborn boot.
Breath catching, her hand rose, clasping the pendant at her neck.
Her sea glass eyes eclipsed the blue in his like a wave.
It was nimble and quick, and he would feign innocence when I definitely threw it at him in the future, but I saw it, the current flowing between them.
A crack split the air, like lightning striking stone as Callum turned away, excusing himself with a brittle poise.
But I knew he saw exactly what I did. I knew what that sound was—
The final sound of his heart breaking.
Turns out, pixies love welcoming strangers. Thank the gods for us, because Ford had no patience, and decided that striding into their camp unannounced was the proper way to go.
He vowed he hadn’t thrown up a shield, but I could have sworn his skin shimmered spectral against their firelight.
That’s just my natural aura, he’d claimed, smug as Elva’s damn cat.
Killian corrected him with a single punch to the arm. The shield fractured, then fell away, proving me right.
That was over an hour ago. Ford was still recovering.
The camp itself glowed with a kind of enchantment. Their fire burned untended, dancing like a living thing. Cups refilled themselves with golden honey-wine. Music rose and fell, not entirely from pipes or flutes, but from the glassy leaves swaying in the cover above.
Beside me, Wells shifted, his fingers picking at the skin around his nails, his foot tapping restless against the ground.
“We’re fine.” I nudged him with my shoulder. “See? No swords, no spears, no one out for blood.”
He forced a laugh. “Yeah. Fine.”