Chapter 17
“Idon’t see the issue. Whoever took it will have the same goal.
” I sink back on my heels, frowning at the unexpected devastation on his face.
There’s more to this than what he’s saying.
“Unless the only reason you’re doing this is to clear your name.
Or worse.” I narrow my eyes at him. “Is this something you could use against the Order? Against the people of Caer Draen?”
He huffs a bitter laugh. “One moment, you’re so alike it hurts. The next, your existence is nothing but an insult to hers.”
“My existence is an insult?” I push to my feet, hands balling into fists. “Well, I genuinely, with every bone in my body, hate you, Taliesin Wynn.”
“Your insult falls flat, necromancer. Seeing as you’re spineless.”
Without another word, he rises and brushes his hands together, dust shaking free.
He turns to leave, but I step in front of him.
With one hand, I grab his arm, and the other curls around his throat.
I glare up at him. He glares right back, his ice-blue eyes like a piercing shard.
I swallow, my pulse thrumming like wings.
“Go ahead and do it,” he says in a low, rough voice. “Kill the only person in this godsforsaken world who doesn’t loathe what you are.”
The insult lands hard, knocking the breath from my lungs. Everyone thinks you’re a monster. It burns me that he’s right. But I can’t let him see it.
I arch a brow. “Yours are the actions of someone who doesn’t loathe me?”
“Oh, I loathe you,” he says bitterly. “Just not in the way you think.”
He wrenches free. I could hold on, digging my fingernails into his flesh, but I let him go. For the second time.
How many chances will I get before I run out?
As he strides toward the mouth of the cave, Bryn scuttles in and darts up his leg before huddling into the crook of his neck. He glances outside, then shakes his head and drops his pack. He pulls out a bedroll.
“It’s too dark,” he says without looking at me. “We’ll have to wait out the night.”
Here? Together? After what we’ve both said?
But when I look outside, I find he’s right. It’s too dark to make out the path. The only alternative is to leap into the sea—and that thought is almost tempting.
Instead, I choose a place beside the fire.
While we’ve been bickering, the firebird—who surely deserves a name by now—has returned with another bundle of twigs that feeds the flames back to life.
I try not to think about Taliesin as I spread my bedroll on the ground, nibble on some travel bread from my pack, and let the warmth of the fire settle around me.
It isn’t long before I begin to drift, a song rising beyond my closed eyes. That of crackling twigs, the distant rush of the sea, and the hiss of a whetstone drawn against steel—until something else weaves between it. A soft hum.
I roll onto my side and open my eyes. Taliesin sits at the mouth of the cave with his head tipped back against the stone wall. He hums a quiet melody and taps his boot in time, Bryn curled in his lap and snoring softly. Firelight casts dancing shadows across his profile.
And I just listen.
I listen as something tightens and loosens in my chest all at once. I feel its pull, like a thread reaching out and winding itself around my soul. The tune is haunting in its familiarity. That should be impossible. It isn’t one of the Order’s sanctioned songs…so how does Taliesin know it?
How do I?
But instead of asking, I close my eyes again and surrender to the sound. It soothes the raw edges of my heart in a way I didn’t know I needed. And soon, sleep comes like a tide, drawing me into its depths.
I wake from a dreamless sleep. Always dreamless. My back aches from the hard ground, but the blanket tucked around my shoulders has kept the cold at bay. Wait, the blanket?
I stiffen, and my eyes fly open. I fell asleep in my cloak, and another lies over me now. It’s wrapped around my shoulders and cocooning me in warmth and the scent of leather and rowan blossom.
I press my nose into the fabric, and a tickling goes through my mind. It is rowan blossom. I’m certain of it now.
“Here.” A parcel of travel bread lands heavily beside me, spraying ash from the dead fire into my face.
I cough and roll onto my back to glare up at the silver-haired exile whose purple-stained eyes betray him. He looks like he hasn’t slept. Again. When was the last time he did? Not last night. Not the night before, either. At the inn?
Not my problem.
If he wishes to deny himself sleep, that’s his choice. Especially after how thoroughly he insulted me last night.
“Get up. Eat. We need to leave.” His tone is clipped, sharp.
I frown and push myself upright, suddenly aware of my messy hair tumbling around my shoulders. I may not have the bruised shadows beneath my eyes the way he does, but I must look a sight all the same. What I would give for a water basin and a comb.
I reach for my pack, but he’s already hauling it out of reach.
I sigh heavily. “You seem like you’re in an even worse mood than last night. Has something happened?”
“I spotted footprints on the path. Fresh ones. Whoever took what was in that compartment passed through days ago, if that. They might only be hours ahead of us.” He scowls. “Before we stopped. We’ve already wasted too much time.”
It takes a moment to for his words to sink in.
I’ve only just dragged myself out of sleep, in a place I don’t know, with a man I don’t trust, far from the comfort of Caer Draen.
I can almost hear the castle bells still, almost smell the warm bread drifting through its halls.
But only almost. Instead, I am damp and cold, and the man I’m meant to kill is glaring at me.
“I see,” I say. “You’re still chasing the thing you believe will bring back the stars. That’s what you’re choosing to focus on right now.”
He stares at me like I’ve grown a second head instead of making a perfectly reasonable observation.
“What the fuck else would I focus on?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I muse, pushing to my feet and flinging the cloak into his face. “Getting off this godsdamned ridge so we can go our separate ways? Avoiding whatever catastrophe my dream self—or whoever she was—warned you about?”
He huffs a dry, humorless laugh. “No avoiding it now, necromancer. We’ve well and truly met. The wheels are already turning.”
“I’ve had enough of your insults,” I snap, ripping my pack from his hands. “I’m getting off this ridge. We’re going our separate ways. And unless you want me to use my death magic on you, you won’t try to stop me. Because this time, you don’t have your fucking chain.”
“Fine with me,” he says, folding his arms. “Can’t say I’m surprised you’d turn your back on the stars. Seeing as you’re—”
“Nothing like her.” I roll my eyes. “Trust me, you’ve made that clear. Enjoy your obsession with a woman who doesn’t even exist.”
Anger heats my blood as I stalk toward the mouth of the cave.
I can feel his eyes on me, tracking my every step, counting down the minutes until he’s finally rid of me.
Leaving him here means failure. I doubt the High Swynwragedd will ever forgive me for returning without him. But I just can’t do it.
A full night’s sleep has burned the haze from my mind. I see more clearly now, and I no longer feel torn. I want no part in this. I won’t spend another day around the exile, all to get into his head, so I know him well enough for my magic to work against him the way the Order demands.
I want to go home.
At the cave’s mouth, I pause. The light catches on the stone as I glance over my shoulder. He’s still there, and that ancient darkness has returned his eyes. And while I didn’t see it at first, I do now. He’s every bit the exile they named him.
“Goodbye, Taliesin Wynn,” I whisper. “I pray to our dead gods we never meet again.”
When I step outside, the crack of a twig is my only warning.
Figures emerge from either side of the cave, cloaked in gray that melts into the stone. Traitor marks decorate every throat. Someone roughly grabs my arms from behind. A rope of iron coils around my middle while another wraps around my legs, trapping me in place before I can draw a single breath.
My heartbeat roars in my ears. The tracks Taliesin noticed were fresher than he believed. These rebels knew we were inside, and they were waiting. I walked right into their trap by coming out alone. If Taliesin had stepped out first, they wouldn’t have stood a chance.
Knowing him, he’s as likely to kill them—and me—than allow himself to be stopped.
A tall elven woman pushes to the front of the rebels, coils of red hair spilling over her shoulders like fresh-spilled blood against her pale gray cloak.
She sweeps the fabric aside to reveal the sword hilt at her hip, then taps it idly with one long painted nail.
Her brow arches as she takes me in from head to toe.
“You must be the necromancer,” she says, her deep voice rolling like distant thunder. “Can’t say you’re what I expected.”
I want to demand how she knows who I am, but I suspect she won’t give me a straight answer. Instead, I ask, “What do you want with me?”
She smiles. “You’ll see.”
Taliesin steps outside.
He’s practically vibrating with fury, sword raised, jaw locked tight, eyes blazing as they rake over the rebels, like he’s branding each of their faces into memory. So even if they best him today, they’ll never be forgotten.
“Taliesin Wynn,” the rebel says smoothly as she turns to face him. “How good of you to join us.”
“Let her go,” he snaps.
“We will,” she replies, “but we have an important matter to discuss with you, and I’m afraid we needed something to ensure your cooperation.” Her smile widens. “I’m sure you can’t blame us. We didn’t have a good feeling about your habit of disposing of people with your ice.”
“Then threatening me wasn’t a smart move,” he says, his voice dropping into a growl.
“We’re not threatening you.” Her gaze flicks toward me. “We’re threatening her.” The iron rope tightens around my middle. “And I can promise you’ll want to hear what we’re offering.”
His eyes snap to mine quicker than a heartbeat, something unreadable in his expression. Then they return to the rebel, narrowing. “You have one minute to explain. And if I don’t like what you have to say, my ice will be the least of your worries.”
A shiver rakes down my spine. I can’t imagine what could possibly be worse than his ice.
“We know what you were searching for in this cave,” she says, her voice carrying far enough to echo through the ridge. Cave, cave, cave. “The Ballad.”
Ballad, ballad, ballad.
The word itself rises and falls, like a song.
And something tightens in my chest so painfully I flinch.
I haven’t thought about the Ballad in years.
I…I forgot it existed until now. But the way the rebel spoke the word, and the way the stone echoed it back to her, it collides with the song Taliesin was humming last night, and it suddenly awakens something in me.
A gasp rips out of me. “The song of the gods. They sang it when an apprentice proved themselves, and they decided they were worthy of carrying magic.”
Every gaze shifts to me at once. Suddenly, I feel the weight of their stares, like all those judging eyes back in Caer Draen. Taliesin’s burns more brightly than the others, though I only see the surprise on his face for a second before the fury returns.
The rebel steps in front me, cutting off my sight of him, and peers at me like I’ve grown a second head.
I’m getting looked at like that a lot today.
“Yes.” She leans in close, sniffs. “The Order shares that with its puppets now?”
I meet her gaze, steady and unblinking. “I’m not a puppet.”
“You smell like them, Swynwraig. And that is not a compliment.”
“Tell me what you want. Your minute is almost up.” Taliesin’s voice carries such effortless command it’s almost easy to forget he isn’t the one holding all the power here.
The rebel sweeps her gaze over me once more before returning her focus to Taliesin.
“We took the scroll, or rather, the half of it that was there. And no, we don’t have it with us.” She lifts her chin, defiant. “Come with us. We know you have the other half. Together, we can activate the full Ballad and bring about the return of the gods—and hopefully the stars.”
A ripple of murmurs moves through the gathered rebels. Words of agreement, supported by nods of encouragement, like they might prove their leader’s words by simply making it so.
A moment ago, I might have dismissed them all as mad.
How could a scroll, much less a song, usher in the return of the gods?
But I can’t shake that knowing, as faint as it is.
The Ballad means something. Like my spellwork words, the Ballad holds command over magic, and the melody strengthens its power in a way I don’t yet understand.
These rebels—Taliesin, too—are on to something.
Does the Order know? This could change everything.
A burning heat sears through my neck where the talisman presses into my flesh, like my thoughts have conjured the attention of the Order. Instinctively, I try to reach for it, forgetting my arms are bound. The heat intensifies, and my skin twitches, alive with an itch I can’t scratch.
Then just as suddenly, the talisman goes cold.
And another thought grows wild in my mind. A certainty of something else, something I know somehow.
“The Ballad, even whole, won’t be enough,” I say. “There’s something else you need. An…instrument?”
The rebel whips back toward me, brow furrowed. “We know that. How do you?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper.
“She’s right. Do you know how to find it?” Taliesin asks from behind her, his sword lowered to the ground. The minute has well and truly passed now, ending any promise in his words. If he dislikes their answer, he will turn his wrath on them without hesitation.
“We’ve been looking for it,” she responds, though her gaze remains fixed on me. “And we’ll need your help, and possibly hers, to get it.”
“And why is that?” I ask, my voice barely more than a whisper, already certain I will hate whatever comes next.
“The Order has been guarding it for decades.” Her teeth flash. “To reach it, we’ll have to go through them.”