Chapter 13
Thirteen
Cara
The next morning came too early. Kiegan moved through the waystation before dark, past us and through the door, which I was vaguely aware of in that drowsy way when one is awake but deeply distressed by that fact.
He returned and nudged our feet through the blankets. “We should move.”
I was grateful that it was still dark enough that he did not see the way we were tangled together, with Fear’s hand pressed lower than was decent as he held me to him.
Or perhaps I was grateful that he did not comment.
We rose and dressed, and somehow that one orgasm had done nothing to reduce my frustrated desire for Fear.
Fear was still studying our route on the map when I slipped outside into the early dawn, where Kiegan was preparing the horses.
“They survived the night,” he said. “I worried about them in the stable, even with the wards.”
“Is that why you slipped out in the middle of the night?”
“No.” He stopped with his hand on a half-done buckle, then began moving again, decision made. “Nightmare.”
“You still have them?”
“My father’s still hunting me,” he said shortly. “Nightmares’ll stop when I kill him.”
“It’s not the curse? From the Trials?”
He gave me a strange look. “Almost no one believes in the curse, Cara. It’s just superstition and active imaginations.”
He moved past me, quick and curt, to continue saddling the horses. I wasn’t offended. He had revealed a vulnerability to me, and now he was annoyed at us both.
But I thought about his words as the landscape changed over the course of the morning. The nightmares had been proof of the curse, and the curse had driven me into the Trials. It had to be real. I’d felt as if I were burning alive before I stumbled into the Trials with Maura goading me on.
Unless…unless I’d been tricked into the Trials.
Fear’s arms were around me, and I wished I were not haunted by the possibility of who he was at his worst.
The road, such as it was, had stopped pretending to be maintained somewhere around mid-morning. There were no more mortal villages, no sprawling Fae mansions hidden behind high walls covered with ivy that rippled in the wind.
Kiegan, riding ahead, had gone quiet. Kiegan’s usual quiet was comfortable, the silence of someone who didn’t feel the need to fill space. It felt companionable to me, reminding me of working in the garden alongside my family or reading beside Tay in the firelight.
This was different.
I watched him from the horse. His shoulders had tensed.
“He must have grown up not far from here,” Fear said quietly.
I thought of Stonehaven with an ache, even though I’d never particularly appreciated the village. I wondered if he felt the same, especially knowing he could never come back—not truly. Not with his father seeking his death.
I looked at Kiegan’s back. The breadth of his shoulders. It was strange to think that his family looked at him and saw the shifter when the shifters always saw the orc.
“A dragon will claim him, won’t they??” I asked Fear, looking up at his face as much as I could from this angle. I couldn’t read his eyes, and even if I could, Fear lied to me with ease.
I hoped he was done lying now. I could not bear the thought of more deceit between us now there was no reason.
“I believe so.” His hand gripped my hip, his fingers resting lightly on my thigh, and I doubted very much he was unaware of the effect. “The orcs fought against the dragons long ago, but Shadowbane believes one will choose him.”
A dragon looking at Kiegan would see the body that announced his lineage before any other introduction was possible. The dragon blood was invisible. The orc blood was not.
“I’ve been afraid I would not be chosen because I was mortal.” But my fear was about what I lacked. Kiegan’s was what he had inherited from a man he hated.
Different fears. Same shape.
“Lightbringer has a tender spot for mortals,” Fear assured me. “Perhaps no other dragon would claim you. The queen has done what she can to make the Amber dragons afraid for their shifters’ sakes. But the very best one will.”
“Why are there no other dragon-marked mortals?”
“I imagine the queen would send her Nightwalkers if she had the chance to cut down a dragon marked mortal,” he said.
The vision of Nightwalkers emerging from the shadows in a cottage like mine sent a chill down my spine, and his arm tightened around my waist as if he had felt it.
“But they aren’t born, that I know of. Shifters are enchanted so that they cannot make a child with a mortal.”
I looked up at him sharply. “So I am the result of a failed enchantment?”
“Or a decision,” he said simply.
“Do you know which?” My voice came out sharp.
“Yes,” he said, and my entire world rocked on its axis. “You were not the result of a failed enchantment, but of love. You were a decision. A rebellion. A gift.”
I scoffed. “My mother does not remember love.”
“I don’t know their story. I only know that I heard you existed, and I’ve sought you ever since.” His lips brushed my temple. “And to me, you are a gift.”
I squeezed his forearm to acknowledge his words, but my mind was spinning, trying to make sense of the truth. “You know my father?”
“Yes. Do you want to meet him?” He said the words so quickly that I was certain he had thought through his conversation already.
“No.” My voice came out harsh. The thought of adding one more uncertainty into my life at the moment was overwhelming. Then, more softly, I added, “Not yet.”
Kiegan paused his horse, which pranced nervously. The horse’s eyes were wide as if it were afraid.
“There’s tracks, and low Fae don’t ride horses. Obsidian has gotten ahead of us.”
Fear cursed, but immediately settled, as was his way. “Perhaps it will work best if we take the knife from them instead of from its hiding place.”
“Not long now until we reach Nez’s castle,” Kiegan said, and he stayed close to us after that, as if we were entering a place of greater danger.
We dismounted when we were close. The horses threw their heads at being tied up, their eyes wide and rolling, as if they saw things in the woods that we did not.
We approached the rest of the way through the forest. Kiegan and Fear flanked me without discussion, and I had no complaints.
The trees thinned first, their roots breaking around old stone, and then the ground dipped into a shallow basin carved into the hillside.
“Old orc castle,” Kiegan mouthed, the words barely audible, though I saw no architecture yet. “To have taken it from the orcs…he would have had to be powerful.”
“He was. He ruled the low Fae as the queen wished.” Fear’s voice was also barely a breath. “Apparently his service is at an end.”
The castle sank into the earth. Half of it was below ground, the upper level low and sloped, its roofline hugging the earth. Narrow windows, iron-latticed, looked outward like watchful slits. The rest of the structure disappeared into the hill behind it, swallowed by moss and shadow.
Eight enormous horses stood tethered at the front.
They shifted restlessly, one stamping at the ground and then going still at a word from the Obsidian shifter watching them.
He had his sword drawn, and his posture had the ease of someone who expected no real resistance and was prepared for it anyway.
His attention swept the treeline. None of us moved. My heart beat too quickly in my chest. I didn’t turn my head, but I could feel Fear and Kiegan at either shoulder, tense and ready for a fight.
But if we did fight them, if we could not keep our identities from them, we would have to kill them. Fear had made that clear, though as a last resort. He preferred trickery.
Trickery, when he first set out the plan, had seemed as if it would be sufficient. Now I looked at the eight horses, and while I understood why Fear had wanted a small party, I wished I had the whole of Bismyth at my back.
The door opened behind the shifter. A mortal came out.
He gripped a tray in hands that shook as he carried it toward the shifter. He was enthralled and yet still terrified.
I glanced at Fear for an answer I didn’t need. This low Fae had bought enthralled mortals like those we had seen at the Night Market.
The Obsidian shifter took the tray without looking at him. Apparently an enthralled mortal didn’t merit a look. They were not threats, no matter who they served.
The mortal stepped back too quickly and moved back toward the door. He paused at the entrance, though, looking over the woods as if he was looking for rescue. But rescue from what? The low Fae who owned him or the Obsidian shifters who had invaded?
The door closed. The silence settled, heavier than before.
Fear gestured us back, and the three of us retreated through the woods.
“We either have to steal the knife from them unseen or take it from them by force,” Fear said softly when we were back at the horses.
“I vote force,” Kiegan said, surprising no one.
“I prefer trickery whenever possible,” Fear said dryly, also surprising no one. “They’ll recognize me too easily unless—”
“They won’t even see me,” I cut in. “They’re not looking at the mortals.”
I did not want to descend into that dark castle and search for the knife, pretending to be enthralled.
But I would do it for Tay. I’d do anything for Tay.
He worked through it, the calculation visible in the set of his face; he was moving pieces on a game board and didn’t love where they were landing. He didn’t want to send me in.
“Tell me how to do it, and trust me to get it done,” I said.
Fear’s gaze moved over my face. Whatever he was looking for, he found.
“The knife will be secured inside. Obsidian takes their time. They’ll inventory, they’ll verify, they’ll ensure what they have is what they were sent for.
They’ll also drink the owner’s wine and terrorize him a little.
There’s a reason the queen only lets them off their leash when she doesn’t care about the target. ”
“Fun,” Kiegan muttered. “Just where I want to send the kitten.”
“They’ll be inside for at least another hour. Long enough for a servant to move through the space unnoticed if they do not have all the servants secured somewhere. But they likely have put them to work, gathering whatever else they find valuable and serving food.”
“I’m well versed in serving,” I said, and Fear cut me a wry look, as if he remembered my questionable serving skills back in Stonehaven.
“You’ll need to blend in and pretend to be unremarkable.” He held my gaze, already having sobered once again. “You need to locate the knife and take it without being seen to take it. If Obsidian sees the theft—”
“They won’t see me,” I interrupted. “That’s the point.”
Fear inclined his head in acceptance, but would not be deterred from being heard. “If they do, you just need to stay alive until we reach you.”