Chapter 64
D arkness was a perfect companion. A second to the arms holding her, moving along dreary, damp walls, and echoing stones beneath their feet.
Alora didn’t know how long they were in those tunnels. Her eyes had lost the war to stay awake shortly after leaving Silas behind. But by the flickering lantern light at the end, she was certain she’d missed most of the route.
Warm liquid seeped into her back, soaking through Garrik’s tunic wrapped around her. “You’re bleeding,” she breathed, fighting the heaviness in her eyes. It wouldn’t be long now. Exhaustion would overcome her again.
Silver glistened in the lantern light. Garrik squeezed her tight to his body. “So, that is what that viscid red stuff is,” he teased. A soft smile crossed his face.
Alora huffed a laugh through her nose. It was all she could muster. “I’m so tired, Garrik.”
That real, true smile lifted. “I cannot imagine why. You practically lazed for two days,” he taunted.
She was grateful for it. “How terrible of me.”
“Truly.”
Stars, she missed him. Missed feeling him this close.
Tears burned her eyes. But they burned less than the festering, bubbled flesh on her chest. Alora cried, “My mate mark… It’s gone.”
Garrik pressed his lips to her hair. “It will return,” he promised.
“But your death mark?—”
“They never allowed me to heal by my blood. Yours will return.”
Open mountain air bristled through the threshold ahead, disturbing the lantern on the metal hook. Its near-silent screech was as quiet as the leaves stirring in the oaks and evergreens beyond. Alora turned her head against Garrik’s mate mark and glimpsed a stone wall, hip-height, like a path guiding them home when a shadow pushed from it.
Cloaked in darkness, that shadow guided horses forward, one for each of them. But Alora knew she wouldn’t be able to ride Storm like this.
Garrik tensed the closer Silas’s surveillant walked.
Some far-off echo whispered in the night, ‘ Darkness and shadows are guardians. You should not be afraid.’ And Alora wondered if this shadow would be a guardian too as it stepped into the lantern light and lifted the cloak from their face.
Brimstoned fury shuddered the stone wall, the trees, and the night as Thalon roared a threat in one damning word, “ You. ”
Garrik beheld the faerie riding ahead of them as he did the last few hours, knowing two things.
The first, this faerie was more than she illusioned herself to be. The lack of wings. The Dragon-like demeanor of Jade. Strength like his mate. A damning eye like Thalon. She had not balked or cowered from the fiery wrath in his voice, nor that darkness in Garrik’s gaze.
That was … unlike most faeries.
The second, if this female was leading them into a trap, she would be the first to meet Thalon’s wrath. Garrik would not thieve him of the pleasure of that.
They would arrive at the territory of Tarrent-Garren Keep within a few hours. Dellisaerin’s ice wall towered high into the clouds, mere minutes away.
Garrik’s bloodstained arms toweled around Alora’s waist, gripping the reins. He adjusted the dark cloak over her battle leathers, warming her in her sleep, and pulled her into the heat he gladly, for now, could offer. If Ladomyr’s drugs were as potent as Galdheir, then their magic would not return until morning, at least.
Beside him, Jade shivered against Aiden, both in leathers, freezing against the wind. He did the same, cradling her within his cloak, pressing her cheek to his chest.
They needed rest. The dark circles under their eyes proved so. The way his eyes fluttered …
Garrik noted the horse in front of him, a twin of Ghost’s likeness. Led by Thalon, its shimmering white hair was drenched in the slow stream of blood dripping from Ezander hunched over it. With the injuries, what his father did, and the dungeon, he was not healing fast enough. Barely holding on as his body ruthlessly worked to keep him alive.
If they did not get him to a healer soon …
“We should make camp. There are caves?—”
“We continue to the Keep,” Thalon growled at the female.
Garrik stiffened from it.
The female threw a withering glare over her shoulder. “Need I remind you of who guided you from the castle when the whole of Kadamar wants your heads?” Before Thalon could answer, she snapped, “You are in my territory, brute. I suggest you remember that. There are caves ahead. We will make camp.”
Alora was right. Jade would like her.
If not for the fire, they would freeze.
Garrik stoked the crackling flames under an iron pot that Aiden filled with meat and herbs. He had no interest in it. And with the little they had in their packs, he would rather Alora eat to gather her strength when she woke.
Firelight danced around the cave, fluttering over Aiden and Jade, who were nestled near the flames. Garrik lifted Ezander’s cloak, inspecting the slow-healing wounds through his side, the bruises on his neck. His breathing was less labored, less wheezing than before thanks to a balm Silas’s female had provided.
It was enough. It would be enough until they could dawn to Ozrin.
Thalon never took his eyes off the female. Watching her as Garrik watched Alora, only the glare his brother held was much more critical. Lethal. That deadly stare tracked the female’s movement, burning into her back as she prepared her resting place near the flames, and curtly muttered, “So, you hide your wings only when it suits you.”
The female whorled. Gritted her teeth. “I do not have to explain myself to you .”
“No. You will explain yourself to Maker of the Skies.”
Garrik angled the split wood inside the flames and stood. This had the stirrings of a battle none of them needed tonight. He moved to step between them, but she was quicker.
Her cheeks scarleted, but not from fear. That was pure, unadulterated rage. The female lifted her wrist, tore a fox-engraved iron bracelet away, and shoved it in Thalon’s face. Pearly-white wings faded into existence, flaring the feathers wide as she stepped inches from his chin. “First, you chastise me for having them. Then you scold me when they’re gone. Are males ever satisfied.” That was not a question; she sneered it as fact.
Thalon was wise to hold his tongue. He merely tightened his jaw, chest heaving in anger.
“Keep out of things you know nothing about,” she snarled, before returning the bracelet to her wrist. Those incredible, feathery wings faded away.
Thalon flexed his back, squaring his shoulders as he growled, “It was you, wasn’t it?”
“Me, what ?” Miwa snarled.
“You who stole that female. That hit me and?—”
“By the bloody seas, some of us are trying to sleep,” Aiden whined from the ground. Jade grunted in agreement, rolled over under their cloaks, and sunk her face into balled-up fabric.
Thalon ignored them and stormed forward when the female turned to Alora. “ Stay away from her .”
“Alora is my?—”
“That’s Your Highness. You will address her with respect.” Fiery golden eyes flared with flames. Garrik rarely glimpsed his brother this way unless in war. It almost terrified him.
The female’s face lit up, and that amber gaze swept to Garrik. “She told you.”
“I did.”
Garrik’s chest tightened as he turned to Alora’s voice, sitting up, allowing the cloaks to pool on her lap. The cuts and brushes on her face and wrists were fading thanks to the healing balms. Only the wince on her face told him her internal injuries remained.
Weary sapphires blinked in the firelight, watering at the brightness before she squinted up at them. “Thalon, it’s okay. I trust Miwa.”
Thalon opened his mouth, but Garrik palmed his shoulder, stopping whatever rampage surely would ensue. “Come, brother. Time to speak,” Garrik insisted, and with little force, pulled Thalon to the cave entrance. “What the fuck is wrong with you? You are acting like a damned fool.”
Inked hands ran down Thalon’s beard. “I do not trust her. Believe her to be the one who attacked me and Aiden.” Then folded his arms over his chest as his back met the stone wall. Before Garrik could consider it, Thalon barked, “She is impulsive and hot-headed. Can’t follow orders or laws unless it suits her. Disrespectful and reckless and … and …”
Garrik raised a brow.
“ What ?” Thalon snarled.
A dark scoff. But Garrik would not say what he was thinking. He planted his back against the side opposite and stared into the moonlight glistening off the ice wall, beaming into the trees. “Have your powers returned?”
Thalon sighed at the distraction and shook his head, glaring at the mountains. “No. Yours?”
Garrik’s silence was answer enough.
Wind whistled through the opening, disturbing the fire. Crackling pops of embers and wood in the calm quiet as they stood unspeaking for some time.
When at last Thalon spoke, his voice had eased. He asked, “Think Ladomyr succeeded in alerting Galdheir?”
Garrik’s sigh was harrowing. “Ladomyr was a covetous fool. I believe he would have wished to deliver me himself instead of boasting in missives. Especially with something as considerable as the High Prince’s treason.” Garrik’s hair fanned around him as he dropped his head to the stones, crossed his arms, and grunted at the sudden skip of his heart. “Once my shadows return, we will know. And I do not doubt Silas’s skills. He has intercepted schemes from Kadamar for years.”
Thalon nodded. Silence followed until his face turned grave. “Erissa,” was all he said.
Garrik calmly closed his eyes and explained, “Silas has dealt with things such as this before. He will tend to Erissa. Make certain she does not take the mind-securing drug. When it is out of her body, I will dawn there and convince her otherwise.”
“And everyone else? The royals at the Cullings. Those at the Hunt.”
“It will be tedious, but Silas has the means to invoke a shield around Kadamar like the ring I gave you before Nevilier. No one can leave until I steal into their minds.”
Thalon’s mouth twisted, grinding his teeth in thought.
“All is handled, brother. Get some sleep,” Garrik insisted, opening his eyes.
“I’d rather keep watch.” Garrik didn’t miss the slow scan to Alora and her maidservant.
Taking on a quality of authority, Garrik ordered, “It was not a suggestion, Realmpiercer.”
Thalon rolled his eyes with Alora’s perfection. The two must be spending too much time together for his general to mirror her flawless annoyance.
Garrik stifled a laugh.
Thalon pushed from the wall and shook his head, replying, “Pulling rank on me, shit-spoiled High Prince?” Something reminding him of elder faelings flickered in those golden eyes.
“You can be High Prince anytime you wish, and then you can make the decisions,” Garrik joked, grinning.
“And get beaten to all-hell? No thanks.”
Garrik laughed as Thalon aimed for the fire and left him to the cold shimmer of the ice wall.
Morning glowed over the Wall in iridescent shards and light flares, turning the sky into dancing auroras.
Garrik rolled Blood in his fingers, marking the cut of the stone, the rounded top, the sharpened edge. Having not had a moment for them all to gather, to set the stone in Soulstryker, instead, he trailed his eyes along the ice barrier for the thousandth time that morning.
He shivered out a fogged breath, listening to the creatures in the forest stir as the sun offered warmth to those brave enough to withstand the extreme cold. Though Garrik had not minded it so long ago. His Smokeshadows preserved his body like a corpse. This wall’s cold affected him little. But now, without his magic …
The only good thing, though unlikely, is that he was so cold that maybe it helped slow the decay of his heart.
A dark cloak being draped over his shoulders startled him.
He turned to bright sapphires and a blistering touch along his cheek.
Pushing from the wall, Garrik pocketed Blood then slipped his hands around Alora’s waist, pulling her into him. “Your starfire has returned,” he rasped, the sound not as thrilled as he meant it to be, choked off by the dryness of the air.
Alora frowned. “You’re exhausted.”
Garrik brushed a loose hair from tickling her face, flinching at Ladomyr’s blood still covering him, and blinked away the heaviness in his eyelids. “Nothing I have not managed before. I am alright.”
A light scoff. “You’re a bad liar, mighty prince.” Alora rubbed her hand along his bicep where he had been bleeding the night before. Her attention drifted to his head, hand following until it laced in his blood-soaked hair, drawing a low groan as she traced where the glassy crown had been. “How are you feeling?”
He leaned into her touch. Voice breathy. “I should be asking you that.” Starsdamn , her touch felt incredible. He wanted to be engulfed in it.
“I asked first,” she retorted, massaging circles on his scalp. When he did not answer, she pressed, “Tell me?”
Eyes fluttering open, Garrik relaxed his shoulders that had been taut all night. He had not realized how badly he needed to hear those words and shivered, speaking honestly, “I am tired, clever girl. Tired of all of this. All this fighting. Pretending. Watching my family, my mate, suffer. Just … tired.” Then softly laughed. “And fucking cold. Never thought I would say that.” Wholly chilled to his bones, he shivered. A feeling unlike his Smokeshadows. It was becoming unbearable.
Through his leathers, Garrik felt her skin heat, saw the glow of starfire ripple across her shoulders to her hands. Before long, his entire body was engulfed. He placed his forehead on her shoulder, indulging in the delicacy of her hands in his hair, pulsing warmth into his neck.
“I have you, mighty prince. You don’t have to be strong right now. You can rest.”
“Once we are in Tarrent-Garren.” Once you are all safe.
Alora pulled back and lifted his face. “You’ve given enough, Garrik. You don’t need to be High Prince right now. Just Garrik.” She brushed his cheek with her thumb. “Who is exhausted. Whose body was tortured and hasn’t slept in days. Rest.”
The heaviness of his eyes, his depleting strength, pleaded for him to listen. He did not realize how much he needed to hear those words, either.
And for the first time in days, Garrik allowed his mind to fall silent with her—because of her—and listened to the ethereal hum of her voice, that calming melody, as his face returned to her shoulder. Narrowing on every brush of her fingers in his hair making him forget who he was supposed to be.
Her hands brushed over his scars, the old and new, the physical and those plaguing his mind. The memories he had fought all night, remembering his mother, what happened to his mate. Remembering Ladomyr’s face … what Magnelis allowed the king to do … so often.
Garrik was not ashamed when that tear slipped out—he was terrified.
If any of them woke. If any of them saw… For so long, he had held it all in. The entire time in Kadamar, he had lived as if being near the king meant nothing. When in his rooms at night, darkness could not convince him to sleep, even with Alora’s starfire.
His body went cold. Numb.
Not a cold created by the air but by the memory of what he had done to the king. Of Ladomyr’s blood still soaking his body. His hands around his mate.
Against his will, Garrik started trembling. He could not stop his hands— his blood-soaked hands ? —
“Garrik,” Alora breathed. It steadied him. Cupping the back of his head as if she knew—because, of course, she did. That mate mark on his chest. He did not know how, but he felt her as he did for months . “Garrik, come with me.” She pulled his tear-soaked cheeks from her shoulder and wiped them with her thumbs.
It took every ounce of his strength not to collapse as he followed her outside, inches from the ice wall, with Tarrent-Garren to their backs. Alora stopped at a fallen tree and lightly backed him to it, pressing his shoulders to make him sit.
He wordlessly obeyed, dropping back against the tree. Garrik dropped his head, chin to chest. Allowed his shoulders to lower and stared at the blood on his hands. Ladomyr’s stolen life may be what coated them, but Garrik remembered them all. Felt them all there as if he had only just slain the thousands. His hands would never be clean.
Alora collected frost off ferns and broad leaves, melting it with embers in her hands and cupping it until it steamed. She knelt before him, unflinching, as she tenderly took his trembling hand and poured water over it. Releasing long streams of crimson down to the dirt and moss.
Garrik’s mind barely registered the movement of her fingers as they scraped along his nails, between his bruised knuckles, along every callous and line on his palm. “I killed him. I … wanted to feel it—feel the moment he knew everything he had done… To you,” his breathing shook, “and to me…”
“I was going to kill him, too. Brutally. Kill them all—I still want to,” Alora cut in. “Does slaughtering a monster make me one?” Alora leaned beside them and gathered more frost. When her palm began steaming, she started on his other hand.
“No, clever girl. You are not a monster.”
“Then why are you?”
Garrik blinked, returning his focus to the hand she washed clean. Admittedly, he did not hold the answer. Though, he tried to reason with the truth she spoke as she lifted warm water to his head and gestured to tip it back. And as that water washed over his brow and she wiped away his own crusted blood and flakes of Ladomyr’s, he could not help but sigh at the feeling of it.
Thinking that maybe … maybe she was right.
“When did you ask the stars to be my mate?” she whispered and brushed a thumb tenderly across his neck scar.
Cupping her hand, his eyes warmed, remembering doing something like this to her so long ago. “When you first sparred with Jade. I carried you to my tent and washed your face.” He would never forget his terror when her face had paled. When he had heard blood dripping from her leg as she had collapsed in his arms.
‘ Easy… It is only cloth. I ? —'
“ I am not asking you to marry me ,” Alora repeated and shook her head.
He did not stifle the swelling smile. “Indeed.” Did not stifle the ridiculous chuckle, either.
Alora was still shaking her head, smiling brighter with every pass, when he collected frost from beside them and dropped it in her hand. When it melted and began to steam, Garrik dipped his fingers in it and began washing the blood speckled on her face.
“When did you?” he asked.
She dropped her hands to his knees; he was glad for the contact. Alora rubbed his leathers, pulsing warmth in his numb legs, and answered so cautiously, it was as if she never truly intended on saying it. “After you returned from Brennus’s camp. In … in your shower.” She swallowed hard.
“Back when you wanted to see me naked.”
A wet slap smacked his battle leathers on his thigh. “You’re impossible,” she snapped but laughed sincerely as he pulled her to straddle his lap.
Alora brushed her fingers in his wet hair, not entirely clean but enough that he did not suffer the memory of that damned glass crown anymore.
Her eyes softened, and she placed a tender kiss to his lips before angling away to survey his face. “Promise me you won’t hide anything from me. That when you need to break, I am your stronghold. That you’ll come to me even if I’m broken too.” She brushed hair from his face, meaning every word.
He resisted the urge to rub his tightening chest and looked into her enchanting eyes. As hard as it was, Garrik promised, “I will, Alora.” Saying her name, the only name, the only one he wanted to run to. The only one who would ever know everything. The one he promised, with that ring, to give everything. And said it again, lifting her hand, that ring full of Smokeshadows, “I promised you everything. Every part of me. I will not break it.”
Taking her palm, Garrik placed it over his heart—over the mark that belonged to Alora—and kissed her. Like a brand to skin, the searing promise of his lips against hers was sealed and sealed again.
Garrik gripped her at her thighs and stood, toweling her legs around his waist before he walked the short distance to the Wall and pressed her against the ice. Wisps of steam drifted from behind her body as warmth and fire met ice.
His hips ground into her as his tongue parted her, tasting her fully, devouring like he had the last morning in his bedchamber?—
“ Get away from the Wall !” Miwa shouted, running for them. “Alora, don’t touch—s top !”
But it was too late.
Something like freezing lightning shot through her, into him as … as Alora’s palm flattened on the ice.
Before it melted around her hand.
Before it shattered a hole in the Wall.