Chapter 12
For a single heartbeat, I pray that I’ve slipped into a vision of Wrohelm. Into a place where I want to be. With my siblings and able to watch them, to see they are all right, even if I can’t speak to them. But when I open my eyes, my hopes plummet, and hollowness fills me.
I’m not in Wrohelm. I’m there again. There in the darkness, surrounded by stone.
Shudders roll through me as I remember what I saw the last time my mind brought me to this place: the army of the Rottings. Noleen. Gods, I don’t want to see this again, to have to tell Ruben that I saw his mother again.
I look around. I’m in a tunnel. I take a step forward, only to immediately stop again.
There’s a sound coming from somewhere. Low. Slow. A steady dragging broken by a scraping noise that makes the walls tremble ever so slightly. I can’t tell which direction it’s coming from. It seems to echo off the stone, impossible to place.
So I wait, my tiny heart pattering within me. I should try to get back to Kyor and Stefan and my training, but maybe there’s a reason I’ve been brought here, and if that’s the case, I need to stay and discover that reason.
For a second time, I inch my way down the tunnel, noticing the shift in the shadows up ahead. My stomach jolts when I see them – the Rottings.
They’re moving. That’s the source of the scraping sound.
Fear floods through me as I press myself close to the wall, my heart hammering in my chest as the first of them drags itself past me, and my breath catches at the sight of their mottled green skin.
With their eyes so dull and lifeless, it feels impossible to believe that these were once people.
Why are they here? And where are they going?
I’m scanning further down the tunnel, trying to see how many there are, when a familiar yanking feeling tugs me back.
‘Rose!’ The darkness vanishes and I squeeze my eyes shut against the onslaught of light. ‘Rose, are you okay?’ I blink my eyes open to find Kyor kneeling beside me.
Stefan is on the other side of me. He holds out a hand – which is surprisingly warm – and helps me sit up, although as I place my other hand down for balance, a shooting pain sears up from my wrist.
‘Fuck!’ I yell.
‘Are you hurt?’ Kyor asks.
I lift my opposite hand and squeeze my wrist gently. Nothing. I frown. Whatever the pain was, it’s gone now. I must have just landed on it funny.
‘Princess, what was that?’ Stefan demands.
My heart is still hammering in my chest – quickly, like that of the bird whose body I inhabited only moments before. I look at Kyor, trying to fight my own panic. ‘They’re moving,’ I say, my throat cracking.
‘Moving? What do you mean?’ Stefan’s forehead creases.
I clamp my mouth shut, cursing my stupidity. ‘Can you give us a moment, please?’ I ask him.
He looks uncertain but finally stands. ‘I will be just a short way away should you need me.’
True to his word, he stops less than ten feet from us.
‘She needs nothing from you,’ Kyor mutters a shade too loudly to be considered under his breath.
I sigh and make no move to modulate my voice. ‘I need training, Kyor. I need Stefan’s help. You know that.’
‘You need help, but not from him. Now, tell me what you saw,’ Kyor demands imperiously.
I lower my voice and turn my body closer towards him. ‘Something has changed. The Rottings… They weren’t in the chamber anymore. They were walking. Going somewhere.’
Kyor’s brow furrows. He shakes his head slightly. ‘No. That can’t be right. Ryne said—’ His words end on a choked sound.
‘Ryne?’ I repeat, confused. What the fuck did the soldier have to do with the Rottings?
I met Ryne the night we spent in Galreck. She offered Kyor and me her room so we would have a place to sleep.
With the heel of my hand pressed against my forehead, I try to recall what we discussed; Zelle and Fen – the fact we all thought he had died – are the only things I can remember talking about, but there must have been something else. Something I missed.
‘Kyor,’ I press. ‘What did she say to you?’
‘I— I—’ His voice stalls. ‘I’m sorry, Rose. I can’t.’
The vow. The binding. The force stopping Kyor from telling me his deepest, darkest secret. ‘I know,’ I say, pushing myself to my feet. ‘It’s okay.’
It isn’t, but what else can I say? Impatience and frustration surge through me, but I try to shake the feelings away. It’s not his fault he’s bound by a vow. That he can’t tell me what I need to know, even if he wanted to. But surely there has to be a way to break the damned thing.
‘Stefan,’ I call out. ‘I’m ready to continue. I almost had it that last time. I could feel it.’
Stefan looks sceptical. ‘We shouldn’t push it. I’ve not seen people faint like that in training before. And your eyes… They flashed white. Like an Issen. Yet now they’re green again.’
‘Really, I’m fine. I promise. Let’s continue,’ I insist, but he shakes his head.
‘We’re done for today,’ he says. ‘I have people to meet. Besides, I think your grandfather would like to spend some time with you this afternoon.’
My grandfather. It’s definitely going to take some time to get used to that, but I can hardly refuse a request from the king.
‘Fine,’ I say. ‘Can you take me to the library? I want to see my friends.’ As well as wanting to reassure myself that Caz and Thessa are well, I need to tell them what’s happened, and something tells me that Caz didn’t go to the library first thing this morning simply because she wanted to spend her day surrounded by the smell of leather-bound books and old paper.
Although it’s not completely beyond the realm of possibility, it’s more likely that she wanted to get buried in research.
We still have no idea what the hell happened to the Myrkr when I stabbed it or what makes my blade act the way it does.
Then there’s the Rottings themselves. Given that she’s the one who was pulled in by the roots of the Sannthrall and very nearly changed into one herself, I suspect there’s a lot there Caz wants to look into.
In fact, thinking about it all at once makes me wonder why I wasn’t in the library at dawn helping her.
‘Of course. The library, as you wish,’ Stefan replies.
Kyor stays close to me as we silently head back into the city.
I reach for Fen with my mind.
I am on my way to you now, Little Raven. Where did you go in your vision? I felt your fear.
They were moving, Fen, I tell him, relaying the conversation I had with Kyor, but this time able to give more detail. I was back in the tunnels again. With the Rottings.
The same place? he questions.
Maybe. It’s hard to tell when everything is dark and the walls are all stone. But they were moving. Slowly, but with direction and purpose.
Silence meets me from the other end of the bond. I don’t wait for Fen to fill it.
When I told Kyor, he said it shouldn’t have been possible. He knows more about what’s going on with them than he’s shared. I know he does. Can you not ask Elska? See what she can tell you?
I feel Fen’s answer before he even speaks it.
Vows bind wolves and their bonded alike. I cannot break it for her any more than you can break it for Kyor. Just as I cannot tell her about your brother.
The comment takes me by surprise. I’ve never once mentioned my brother being alive to Fen, but I must have had our channel open while thinking about him. Do not worry, Little Raven. I understand why you feel it is a secret you must keep from the prince, even if I disagree.
You believe I can trust him?
Again, there’s another pause before he speaks.
The prince is in Issen territory with you, and he has made no attempt to wage war. The prince has a great deal of care for his kingdom, but there is also strong love for you. I believe you can trust him. Though, he admits wryly, perhaps that is only my desire not to have secrets from my own mate.
It’s true that if Kyor and I could finally speak the truth to one another, it would offer complete clarity between Fen and Elska as well. The fact that there’s a disconnect between them because of us causes me to wince.
But while everything Fen has said about Kyor’s behaviour in Isthyr is true, it’s different out here than it was back in Wrohelm.
When it’s just us against the world, it feels as though we’re invincible.
And yes, inevitable. But as soon as Kyor’s father enters the equation, everything starts to crumble.
As it did that day. The thought of the way Kyor turned his back on me then is still enough to cut me to the core.
‘Brida,’ Stefan says as a figure strides towards us. His tone is not warm, but rather a warning.
We’ll speak later, Fen. I’m fine, I assure him, placing the block between us so that I can focus on the conversation unfolding here. I don’t trust Brida as far as I can throw her, which means I need to keep my wits about me.
‘Mother said I was to take over chaperoning,’ Brida says. ‘Now that you are done training with the Morathkians, she wants to speak to you.’
The Morathkians. Part of me wants to demand she refer to me as ‘Princess Rose’, just to see the way it would make her face contort.
‘I was going to see her after I took them to the library,’ Stefan replies. ‘Two of the others are there.’
‘I’ll take them,’ she says. ‘Hesta is watching the ones in the library. I can pass them off to her.’
The way she speaks, and the moue of distaste that twists her lips, makes it sound as if she is handling dung.
I’ve dealt with mean girls before – namely Zara Duarte, my nemesis in the Retterheld – and it’s fair to say things didn’t end well for her.
But that’s not something I’m going to say to Brida.
Telling her that the last woman who pissed me off got a fire bead to the face and third-degree burns – and ultimately died with my dagger in her flesh – doesn’t feel like a way to build alliances, and that’s what I need.
I need allies, just like I did in the Retterheld.
I would have died without them, and the same feels true here.
‘Today was interesting, Princess,’ Stefan says, his eyes meeting mine before they shift to Kyor. ‘Definitely interesting.’