Chapter 25 #3
He nodded, that piercing silver gaze never leaving her. Finally, the hand fingering her hair pushed the locks back over her shoulder before pulling up the hood of her cloak. It was almost tender. Or it was tender? She didn’t know.
“Are there some places that are worse than others for touch?”
She hated this. Hated admitting to a weakness. Hated being so vulnerable. Especially with a male who she knew would take advantage of them to gain what he wanted.
Swallowing thickly, she admitted, “My stomach, but really it’s more…the prospect of being restrained. Held down.”
He nodded again, darkness flickering in those silver depths. “Not being able to defend or free yourself.”
She nodded, averting her gaze to where she spotted Razik coming out of a building. He whistled, waving them over, and Cethin gestured for her to go first, falling into step beside her. But he didn’t touch her, and shouldn’t he be? If that was what she’d said they needed to work on?
Razik pulled the door open when they reached him, and they stepped into a dimly lit room.
Sconces held dripping candles that cast shadows across the stone floor.
There were tables scattered throughout, with a bar running along one end.
Far across the room, someone with a hood pulled up over their head was huddled over a table, a tankard between his gloved hands.
Male, if she had to guess based on the build she could make out.
If there were others here, they were hidden in the dark corners.
Razik led them to a corner booth on the opposite side of the room, the shadows here seeming to writhe. They weren’t the heavy inkiness of Cethin’s power. They felt more graceful and lithe, less chaotic.
Kailia slid in first, Cethin sliding in on her left.
“Ale good for everyone?” Razik asked, looking at her.
She nodded. It wasn’t her favorite, but from the looks of this place, she wasn’t sure there were many other options. She wasn’t sure they should be drinking anything from here.
Razik returned with mugs, placing them down on the table. He slid one to her, then to Cethin, putting more force behind his, liquid sloshing over the side. Then he slipped into the booth on her right.
“Did you find sleeping accommodations?” Cethin asked, his voice low.
“I figured we’d go to Tenebrae Halls. I think they’ll make room for their king,” Razik said before taking a drink.
“Yeah,” Cethin said, fingers clenched around the handle of his mug. “I just prefer to give more than a few hours’ notice of my plans.”
“They’re going to have room. It’s not as if people are clamoring to visit Shadowfen.”
The fingers of Cethin’s other hand drummed on the tabletop, the sound jarring in the otherwise silent tavern.
“Does anyone actually live in this town?” Kailia asked, her hands in her lap. Closer to her daggers.
“It’s not a large population,” Cethin answered. “But yes, there are people who live here.”
“It’s barely past sundown. This is when Avonleya is most active, and yet there wasn’t a soul on the streets.”
“They were out there,” Razik said. “They just stay hidden. You should know all about that.”
That would explain the constant unease and feeling of people watching her.
Cethin took a drink of his ale before he said, “Now that you’ve seen the lie of your origin, care to share where you’re really from, wife?”
Razik paused, his mug halfway to his mouth, suspended in the air. His sapphire stare was pinned on her. If she’d learned anything about the male these past weeks, it was that he loved knowledge of any kind. Hoarded it like he hoarded his books.
She needed to offer them something. She was supposed to be trying here, and sharing personal information helped build trust. At least that was what she’d been told.
“You already know I came from across the Edria Sea,” she said, eyeing the mug before her she had yet to touch.
“Only a handful of ships have made it through the Wards,” Cethin mused. “Something I’d love to discuss more with you, but not right now. Where across the Edria are you from?”
“Various places,” she answered. “I moved around a lot.”
“That’s not surprising considering your gifts,” Cethin said with a small, encouraging smile.
She didn’t return it.
“Did you prefer one place over another?” he asked after a moment.
“The farther north, the better,” she answered. “I spent some time in Pyry with the Shifters there for a while.”
“And then?”
“And then I went somewhere else.”
“Any other continents besides Pyry?” Razik asked, both of them entirely focused on her now.
“The main continent,” she answered, watching a drop of condensation slide down the mug.
“Novum?”
She nodded. “No one calls it that though.”
“Were you raised in the Fae Courts then?” Cethin asked.
She pursed her lips, fingering one of the dagger hilts at her thigh. “No.”
His brows crashed together, but it was Razik who said, “Surely not the mortal lands? I thought magic wasn’t accessible in those lands? Were you with the Shifters in Novum before going to Pyry?”
“No,” she answered tightly.
“The Witches?” Razik pushed.
“No,” she ground out, suddenly finding the room too stuffy. Too hot. Too enclosed. “Can we go? I’d like to see more of the town.”
Her hood was still in place, shrouding her features, but she still felt like they could see her clear as day. Cethin was watching her too intently, and even Razik’s mask of boredom had slipped at this topic.
“Kailia—” Cethin started, but she didn’t let him finish.
“Please,” she pushed, feeling beads of sweat at her nape.
“Of course,” he said, sliding across the seat, his mug still half full.
She moved fast, pushing past him and making her way to the door. Shoving it open, she stumbled into the dark night, sucking in a deep breath. But the air stalled in her lungs at what was lingering on the streets. Not the people hiding in the shadows, but translucent beings hovering off the ground.
“Fuck,” Razik muttered, already summoning his dragon fire when he came to a stop at her side.
She could feel Cethin at her back, taking everything in.
Gold swords raised in unison. There weren’t many of them though.
Sweeping her gaze over them again, she counted ten as she summoned her bow and three arrows.
Then she made the first move, releasing the arrows and taking out three.
The remaining phantoms scattered, trying to surround them.
Razik had pivoted, his dragon fire incinerating one to ashes that got too close.
Kailia released two more arrows at the one nearest her, its keening wail filling the night. That left five, and if she could—
Ashes fluttered around her, trying to take her with them.
She was trying. Trying to move among them.
To let them carry her like they had nearly her entire existence.
If she could, then she’d be able to end this in moments.
She could move faster. Be quicker. Find her targets before they could even see her.
Instead, she shuddered as she stayed put. Her essence almost flickering as her power tried and she tried.
And failed.
With a growl of frustration, she summoned more arrows, shoving them at Cethin before she turned and released another. A second later, another wail of despair joined the first until a chorus was filling the night as they took out the last of them.
Her chest was heaving when she turned to face the males.
Not from the fight. No, that had been exhilarating in the best way.
She’d needed that outlet, but not being able to access her full power was slowly draining something inside her.
Something primal and necessary. A piece of her she needed to survive.
A fine layer of ash covered the males from the beings Razik had incinerated, neither of them bothering to brush it off. Instead, they both left her standing there while they moved, bending down to gather things on the ground.
Her arrowheads.
It wasn’t necessary, but she couldn’t exactly tell them that. Not when they believed she needed them to create more weapons.
Dropping them into her palms, she closed her fist, feeling the skin break and blood seep.
“Tenebrae?” Razik asked after a long moment.
Cethin nodded.
No one said anything while they walked, Razik leading the way, and Cethin at her side. Too lost to her thoughts, she hardly noticed the buildings or the mist or the flickering candles in windows. She could still feel eyes on her, but she didn’t care.
She needed to figure out what was wrong with her power. None of it made any sense. She could summon weapons, create them from her gifts. It made no sense that this part of her power had suddenly stopped working.
But she was running out of time. If she didn’t figure things out, all of this was for nothing.