Chapter 46
S he said as much to Garrik on their ride to the castle as she had on their escape from Telldaira. And when he had brought her into his mind to show her what had happened in that clearing, she hadn’t been sure if she should be fascinated, terrified, or pissed at him for his foolishness regarding his heart.
Dawned . Not hovered. Not flew. Not burst into flames. She dawned.
A sick, twisted feeling devoured her insides. It hadn’t left, not even when Garrik promised to help her train this horrifying and exciting and unimaginable thing. She couldn’t fly—but this ? When not so long ago, she had barely lifted pebbles off a table, but now could reform as flame and walk the earth like the stars ruled the night sky.
She lounged in a chair near Garrik’s fireplace, staring at her hands while the others talked. Surveying her fingers as if she could simply will them to manifest into that inferno lurking beneath her bones.
But a freezing calm enveloped them, tired and aching, and Alora blinked out of her state to find Garrik’s concern staring back.
‘Do not fear your power, darling. This is an incredible gift,’ he’d said in the forest. His face was now a picture of the very same.
So, she smiled at him through a nervous tremble, squeezed back, and turned to survey their Shadow Order. To listen as Thalon and Aiden decided to search Erissa’s chambers for Blood during the Red Ball that evening and Jade grumbled about wearing yet another atrocious gown.
A crimson haze filled the throne room.
Faelight chandeliers dripped with rubies, which resembled droplets of blood. Petals of red roses and smooth silk runners flooded every table, while glassware of scarlet candles reflected beams of light into the white-washed ceiling swirling with red gemstones. Sheer red curtains were draped and gathered beside the windows, offering views of the blood-red dusk falling as if the stars had planned the skies for the celebration too.
Not one body was dressed in anything other than crimson. Lavished in jewels that could feed an entire kingdom around their wrists, necks, ears, lapels, and fingers while the servants donned garments of less expense but in keeping with the evening’s color.
To an outsider, it boasted importance and wealth.
To Alora—warning. Danger. Death.
But not as dangerous as the two males standing before her, trailing their eyes down the strapless red ballgown Ezander had bought for her. Raking their gaze from the excessive magnitude of crystals that mimicked sun rays spurting up the bodice and down the skirt. The twin to the princeling’s attire.
Wicked thrill danced down her spine. Garrik will hate it . So why was she counting the minutes until he saw her? He and Thalon hadn’t arrived yet, but she imagined finding amusement in his reaction to another male’s taste in dressing her. She grinned at the thought.
“What has you so cheerful?” Jade huffed. “Certainly not these gaudy prisons.” And brushed a hand down her gown.
She chuckled. The vicious female hated these events and used any excuse to escape them. Alora remembered who she’d been spending so much time with and couldn’t resist asking, “You’ve become close with Deimon of late. Like a male with wings, do you?” She playfully quirked a brow.
Jade rolled her eyes and bumped Alora’s shoulder, nodding her chin across the room near the windows. “Ladomyr hasn’t stopped watching us since we walked in,” she growled, stiffening her shoulders covered by a long-sleeved gown so dark red that it was almost black.
Alora settled a challenge in her eyes and lifted her chin as she stared down her nose at an exchange of whispers between Ladomyr and … Lord Terious, if she remembered correctly. One of the lords presumed to own an auction house.
Ladomyr began walking. Normally swallowed by the crowd, the king possessed stimulated eyes instead. Taking notice of not one of his wives, he commanded his way across the floor and settled himself inches from her while Silas disappeared from his usual place in Ladomyr’s shadow.
Alora cocked a feline grin; Jade’s was practically reptilian.
“I’ve never owned a red-haired.”
Alora choked back vomit as the king steadied his weaselly desire over Jade’s gown. Not stopping until he met the melted coin and spine necklace on her chest before licking his lips.
Jade’s eyes darkened with something sinister. Speaking loud enough for everyone around to hear, “My heels are longer than your dick.”
Alora snorted, drawing the king’s attention. “Probably more useful, too,” she added.
Something she thought impossible happened: Jade laughed. But the king wasn’t as impressed.
“ How dare you ?” Beads of spit pebbled Alora and Jade’s face. A sweaty palm snaked around Alora’s wrist and squeezed hard enough to bruise. “Whores do not speak that way to a king .” In the absence of their High Prince, apparently Ladomyr found his spine. Out from the shadows he’d been lurking in since their arrival, now daring to lay his hands on her as he did for every servant living with scars.
Jade moved to unsheathe a dagger from the slit at her thigh, but Alora’s hand swayed out, palm to her stomach, stopping her. To Jade’s credit, that fiery rage didn’t erupt. She took a step back, nodded, and dangled her fingers near her blades. Waiting for Alora to make the first move.
Alora’s skin heated as a rush of memories ruthlessly battered her attention.
In Ladomyr’s hazel eyes, she expected to see mahogany. On that bald head, immaculately sculpted ebony hair. But nothing but a wretched vermin stared back, soiling her face and arm, which was fit to burst into flame.
Whispers stirred. The chattering of the privileged morphed from conversations about yet another auction house that’d burned the night before by this Night Stalker, and meaningless trivial things, to her and the king.
Every female there, including Ladomyr’s wives, who were close enough to hear, seemed to shrink under the shadows of the males who surrounded them. The way courts were expected to be.
The way she had always been expected to be.
Alora willed embers to remain dormant in her eyes as she wiped her face, then studied the sweaty hand of Kadamar’s monarch. Remembering she no longer shrunk into their brand of vapid and submissive female. No longer the doting and well-mannered betrothed obeying orders with silent lips and bruises hidden under lavish dresses.
She would no longer be easily digestible.
They could all choke.
Her spine reformed of steel. Head held high as death darkened her eyes. “Take your hand off me before you do not have hands.” Who was she to impart such an order to a king? And as if that wasn’t foolish enough, Alora viciously twirled a gemmed dagger from her hair, pressing it against the ribs of Land and Growth. Their king.
Ladomyr leaned in, his spoiled breath repulsive as he snarled, “ He may have the court fooled into bowing to your false authority, but neither of you fool me. Females are only playthings.” A serpentine smile contorted his ugly face. “I will teach you how to use those lips. I wonder. Do you have as talented a mouth as our High?—”
Strangled choking noises escaped him. His hand dropped from Alora, grabbing his throat as if he had hope of breathing air.
Something like the presence of endless nightmares and cold torment stood behind her. Alora didn’t need to turn. She felt phantom hands on her hips and the kiss of shadow on her neck.
It wasn’t Garrik who’d stolen the king’s air.
But none of the court would know. Because as Alora’s hands ignited with starfire and embers burst in her eyes, Garrik sealed an illusion.
She was going to kill the king. Her entire body thirsted for it.
Like the firestorm in an Alynthian hovel, Alora starved the oxygen from Ladomyr’s lungs.
Garrik held out his trembling fist, fed by the full might of his rage. The veins in his arms bulged from the strain of it. His fingers angled as if he crushed a neck inside of them as darkness wholly consumed his eyes.
Alora felt a gentle caress of power wash over her. Not to subdue, but merely a stroke of gratitude. She watched as Smokeshadows coiled around Ladomyr’s throat. An illusion. A perfect display of Garrik’s infinite power while the decision rested in her hands.
Easy, clever girl .
The mere breath of his voice calmed that unending wrath boiling her veins. It felt as if all of Kadamar would explode.
He touched you. Tears welled in her eyes. Not of sadness, but something much deeper. He touched you, she repeated, barely hearing her thoughts as she stared into those vile eyes, which were becoming more and more lifeless.
Ladomyr belongs to Magnelis. We cannot kill him today. His time will come.
Ladomyr dropped to his knees, face growing a pleasing shade of crimson, matching his tallest wife’s shimmering gown.
Alora followed him there. The knife still embedded in the outer layer of his jacket as Jade circled behind, gripped her nails into his bald scalp, and wrenched his head backward.
Smokeshadows danced around Alora’s hand. Their velvety kiss was enough to draw her back from staring at one of those responsible for Garrik’s suffering.
Fear locked the court in a chokehold. Those gathered didn’t mutter a single word. Ladomyr’s wives stood with unreadable faces, as if seeing the male who warmed their beds dying didn’t affect them.
But … one in particular. Her skin a glimmering shade of burned gold with a gown made entirely of rubies and silk… Her face flickered with pleasure for only a moment, exchanging a glance with a High Guardsman in the corner.
Alora . Garrik’s stern warning drew her attention to the sagging king calling upon Death.
I … can’t. The king deserved to die.
In her mind, Garrik wrapped her in his arms. He released a healing breath and whispered, Thank you, my… darling. But you need to release him now.
It felt impossible … impossible , but somehow, she loosened her power against her soul’s every protest. With a forceful jerk, Alora’s dagger found its home in her hair.
Then curling her lip in a snarl, she shoved her pointed heel into Ladomyr’s chest, pushing him on his back to the floor while Jade released him. Her veins smoldered as she relinquished the choking hold from the king’s lungs and allowed her fire to return the air.
Garrik contained his shadows simultaneously, like the two were of one body, a bond that nothing could break, and dropped his fist. He didn’t need to utter a single threat. It lingered in the air as Ladomyr choked on the marble stone.
Garrik’s mask of cruel indifference hadn’t wavered. Seated on his dragon throne, scanning the roaring lull of the court, he sat motionless. Reclined back as Erissa poised herself on the armrest while they waited for her father to finish the welcoming ceremony and stir excitement for the Cullings in three eves.
Stop staring. You are making me uncomfortable.
Alora silently scoffed and rolled her eyes. When they leveled, her attention settled on his chest, and she may have frowned unknowingly at it, imagining the way his heartbeat had felt so dangerously normal.
Garrik’s sigh snapped her out of it. I am fine, clever girl. You need not worry, he insisted.
Only she was worrying. She hadn’t stopped since she had dawned them from the cliffside.
A tendril of shadow formed a likeness of his hand and squeezed hers. I am fine.
Alora swallowed her concern and squeezed the shadows back, subtly nodding.
From then on, his eyes were all that moved. As if he were locked in a distant world until that blackened abyss landed on Ladomyr.
Erissa dangled her wineglass over Garrik’s lap and batted her eyelashes. Ignoring her father below the dais who finished his speech, bowed, then disappeared through a side entrance surrounded by High Guardsmen. The form-fitting bright red gown plunged deep down her neckline. The fabric on the back even lower. But none of that compared to the gemstones around her neck or the golden-rubied crown woven into her gleaming sunset hair.
She looked like a queen laying claim to her throne. To her male.
Chin raised, Erissa leaned back and crossed a leg over her knee. The silken fabric of her gown slipped enough to reveal the slender length of her porcelain thigh as she draped her arm on Garrik’s shoulder.
Alora steadied a breath. Two. Three. Kept breathing until her pulse returned to a tolerable thrum.
There needed to be more red in the room—Erissa’s blood preferably.
A shadow curled around Erissa’s arm, and Alora didn’t miss the panic in the princess’s eyes as it began to squeeze. She jerked away, nearly spilling her wine on Garrik’s black jacket.
Garrik still didn’t move. Scanning and scanning.
Are you truly okay? she asked.
Garrik swallowed. Lad—memories. And added, Enjoy yourself, clever girl.
Erissa caught Alora’s gaze and browsed Alora’s ballgown, the gemstones, and the jewels hanging from her ears, and smirked so viciously—so hatefully—Alora wasn’t certain she hadn’t burst aflame.
Noting the anger and revulsion and disdain plastered on Alora’s face, Erissa arched her back, never taking her eyes off her, and bent forward to offer Garrik the swells of her chest.
Had it not been for Ezander stepping between them, Kadamar might have ended up with cinders for a princess.
Ezander gave his sister a look as malicious and disapproving as Alora’s.
The princess merely rolled her eyes and called to a servant to fill her wineglass, dismissing them like a stench.
“When we were younger, Garrik and I released toads in my sister’s rooms and reveled in her shrieks when they jumped on her bed in the morning. Our mothers weren’t so amused.” He turned to her with an air of mischief. “Perhaps we could do something like that this evening.”
Alora snorted, shifting on her heels. “Maybe throw all her shoes off the nearest turret?”
The princeling snapped his finger and pointed at her. “That … is a terrible idea. When do we begin?”
Huffing a laugh, Alora peered over his shoulder. She glanced from Garrik plucking his tunic to Silas stumbling through a side door, his face of stone disturbed slightly. “Now seems like a perfect t?—”
Ezander whirled to the dais, fists and shoulders taut as Garrik, almost in slow motion, shifted his eyes to him.
One half-blink… One half-blink before the metal tip of a spear stopped inches from Garrik’s face.
Erissa shrieked amongst the gasps of the court and fumbled down the dais, shattering her wineglass before barricading herself behind the spymaster as High Guardsmen flooded the room.
For several beats, Garrik held the spear, never removing his attention from Ezander.
Bitter cold climbed over every surface. Crackling frost across the windows until they began to shatter as talons of Smokeshadows gauged the walls and crimson curtains. The faelights dimmed like they were a living thing in fear of the force shuddering the marble stone beneath their feet.
A terrible quiet overtook the room. No one dared to breathe. To blink.
His movements animalistic—so slow it was as if he wasn’t moving—Garrik narrowed on the treason in his hand. On the sharp sharp edge breaths from his black eyes. Cocking his head, he spoke in a murderous growl, “You missed.”
A merciless smile played on his face and the entire mountain, the entire kingdom, shuddered from it.
Deep rumbling, like from the depths of Elysian’s core, rattled the room as the Savage Prince simply sat there. Eyes trained on the multitude, Smokeshadows tendriled around the spear and burst it into splinters and dust and slivers of metal.
A fog of darkness descended. It swept from every corner, haunting the floor between the court’s feet. Like damned souls clawing their way out of Firekeeper’s realm, Garrik’s shadows tendriled up the legs of a hooded figure amidst those cowering until they were fully engulfed.
Shadow ripped the assassin forward. Dragged their legs deep into the marble until canyons were carved in the wake.
Bones snapped and cracked.
Inside the storm of shadows were distant screams, but Alora couldn’t take her attention off the dais.
Garrik prowled down the steps. She held her breath for what seemed a century until his boots met the crimson rug. Carrying a veil of night down his back as his obsidian crown sliced through his hair, Garrik turned his lethal attention to Ezander, who mirrored his sadistic expression.
Ezander raised his chin, not defiance like his father usually carried. No. That was decency and reverence, and Alora dared to imagine … brotherly affection.
The blackened veins on Garrik’s fingers were stark against his pale skin as he stepped breaths away from the princeling. The flaxen flecks in Ezander’s eyes glistened in challenge as the Savage Prince’s hand grabbed the sword by Ezander’s side, and with an excruciatingly slow pull, unsheathed it.
Garrik held Ezander’s stare as he positioned the blade between them. So close their breaths fogged the steel when he spoke low enough for only them to hear. “This changes nothing.”
Ezander’s magic, Alora realized.
The princeling bore a taunting smirk and dipped his chin when Garrik dropped the sword to his side. Angling his eyes through his upper lashes, Ezander retorted, “Where would be the fun in that, Your Highness?” And straightened, his smile growing more mischievous. “I rather enjoy protecting my neck. It’s the most fun I’ve had in decades.”
“Fun,” Garrik scoffed. And maybe she imagined it, but he smiled . “Mind your tongue or?—”
“Yes, yes,” Ezander dared to interrupt him, crossed his arms, and gestured vaguely. “Get on with the show, and then you can enlighten me on how you’ll use my skull to sip your bourbon or whatever.” Drunk. Ezander had to be drunk to be so carefree with his life. Maybe a flicker of the male he used to be around Garrik. A male who simply teased and taunted an older brother.
“Shut up,” Garrik lightly snarled, and Ezander snickered.
Alora felt a flutter of warmth, amusement that wasn’t her own. A hint of mirth rippled down their silver tether before a gentle caress kissed her mind, and Garrik said, Go with Aiden.
Alora furrowed her brows as he turned to the shadow-storm. Why?
Garrik’s jaw tightened as his eyes drifted to Silas, who had somehow appeared in front of the crowd. Something mollified his expression before it hardened to stone. Garrik burned his attention into the spymaster until that blood-gaze flashed toward the king, then to the shadows, and answered, Because I do not want you seeing what I must do next.
And Alora knew … knew that he couldn’t be anything other than who the Savage Prince was known to be for the treason enacted on him. Magnelis’s beast had done much more for less.
The darkness parted.
Gasps undulated around the room.
That male… Alora recognized him.
Had seen him sobbing over another male’s body when Garrik had first graced Kadamar’s throne room for dinner. Had seen him earlier staring at her while whispering to Ladomyr. And now, he thrashed in a fortress of darkness that sealed him by his legs inside that same floor.
“Lord Terious,” Garrik drawled as he took the male’s head between his palms. “Such a disappointment. And to think, my father so graciously granted you what little magic you possess to produce him weapons. I would have never imagined you to have used them to extend a treasonous hand.” The male couldn’t do anything more than scream as darkened abyss searched his soul. “It would seem in mourning your brother you have forgotten who I am. Allow me the pleasure of reminding you, Marked One .”
Alora schooled her look of shock and simmered at the reminder that nobles were the only ones who seemed to escape Magnelis’s jealous hand.
Take Soulstryker , Garrik insisted. Search for Blood. See if Life gleams .
The cold and lethal kiss of her blade dawned to her hip inside her gown. Aiden’s warmth drifted beside her as she met Thalon’s eyes from across the room, and then met Jade’s.
Choking, wet gurgles bubbled from Lord Terious’s mouth as Aiden gestured forward with his hand. “General,” he addressed her in his Shadow Order voice that was so unlike him. She hated it. Missed that fun-loving half-human temperament. “We must prepare the Marked One's escort to Galdheir once His Highness is through.”
And before anyone could speak up, Ezander curled his lip as he turned away. “I cannot stomach this. If you’ll excuse me, my lady.” He bent his waist and without another word, left the throne room as Aiden and Alora walked out to the sound of the male’s screams.