Chapter 43
ROOKE
Irolled up my sleeves, surveying the chaotic throne room one final time.
Usually a ridiculous waste of space, but for this—for today—the room was perfect.
The Rooke family throne, carved from a chunk of solid black quartz, and every table and chair was shoved to one side—courtesy of Ryland’s muscle—the blood circle in the center of the room was already drying, and the Rooke Ancestral Codex on the podium was open at the very beginning, to the spell that could potentially set me free.
Or kill me.
It had been on the top of my tongue to tell Lyrae the truth, that this ritual wasn’t always effective. That different Rookes of varying strength and abilities had attempted this over the millennia to varying degrees of success. Some never walked away.
In truth, I could hardly believe I was standing here right now.
The Triune—all three pieces—in the center of the blood circle.
That the moment I’d hungered for and obsessed over more than was sane had finally arrived. That I would have my vengeance, for my entire family, for the enemy we’d never seen coming, who had crept out of the shadows like a snake and stolen away my future.
And as desperately as I wanted to unite these three relics and feel raw power roar through my veins like fire…part of me wanted to be back on the ramparts, freezing my ass off, cupping Lyrae’s beautiful face in my hands, tasting her soft lips, staring into eyes the color of a perfectly clear sky.
“What more do you need from me?” Ryland asked, the faint scent of steel and old blood still clinging to him. “I moved everything that can catch fire, I noticed. Should I have Varian put Ariel in another part of the castle?”
"They aren’t in any danger,” I said, moving to the center of the room.
I raised my hand and called up the barest flicker of power, lighting the candles lining the walls.
The sudden illumination revealed the remnants of a once-great house, crests and shields and tapestries of events that had long faded from memory.
“When we left Evernight, the front of the castle and one of his tapestries was burning,” Ryland pointed out drily. “So I’ll ask again, should I have Varian move Ariel? Maybe to a different wing, closer to the water?”
“You seem to be having a lot of second thoughts, Ryland Storme,” I shifted the podium closer to the circle, “for a thief who couldn’t seem to keep his hands on the Crown, I’d think you’d have a little more faith.”
“The guard was huge; he took me by surprise.”
“Of course he did,” I agreed. “Incredibly huge.” I stared down at the three artifacts forged in the First Age of Fae civilization, long before we fractured into courts and houses. Long before we became three separate realms, divided by two vindictive brothers.
“Gods, you’re insufferable. Are you going to be this much of an asshole when this is over?”
If I’m not dead, then yes, probably.
“Of course,” I grinned. “I’ll make it my purpose in life to make your life miserable. Perhaps I’ll move to Tempeste, I’m assuming you and Varian have a couch I can sleep on while I get back on my feet?”
“You’re…what?” Ryland choked. “You’re not moving in with us. That’s…” he shook his head. “No. Absolutely not.”
“Why not?” I tipped my head. “Or I could see if the commander will take pity on me and…”
“I know what you’re doing, Kaden,” Ryland cut in, his voice losing all sense of amusement. “I’ve seen the way you look at her when you think we’re not watching. We both know you want Lyrae, we both know after this,” he tipped his head to the Triune, “neither of us will be a match for you.”
“That’s what you’re thinking about right now?” I searched his face. “The fact I want Lyrae? Of course I want her. She’s smart and brave with a heart as big as the entire world. She’s protective of her friends and family, she’s caring, even when she pretends not to be. Who wouldn’t want that?”
“You’re not denying it?”
“Why would I?” I pointed at the Triune. “These are the most powerful things in the world. Cities would be burned to gain this power, bloodlines had been extinguished. The Shadowlands—my home, and the only home my family has ever known—has been decimated for these.”
I extended my hand and my skin hummed from the sheer amount of power, from the way that magic made my blood sing.
“If I survive today, if we all survive Gravelock and his army, and what’s coming, then we’ll talk about jealousy. Until then, let’s just fucking get through these next…” I squinted at the hourglass, “five hours. Deal?”
“Deal,” he muttered, then stopped.
“Wait a minute. What do you mean if you survive? This is your family’s magic, right? Are you telling me you might…die?”
I shrugged. “Nothing in this life is a given, Storme. Anything in the ritual can go wrong, or…we could run out of time, standing here arguing like a couple of…”
“You knew this wasn’t a guaranteed success, didn’t you? Thirty years we’ve been helping you, and this whole time, you knew you might fail.”
“Die,” I corrected him pleasantly, moving the Triune closer together, my fingers burning, every time I touched one of the relics. “Not fail…die.”
“Don’t you think you should have mentioned this before? What’s the chance of failure? Five percent?” When I didn’t respond, he breathed, “Ten?”
“Fifty-fifty,” I lied, and then, seeing his face, added, “I’m only joking, going by statistics, it’s more along the lines of twenty percent, given the number of my ancestors who didn’t quite make the cut. The Rooke magic, it seems, is quite particular who it bonds to.”
For a moment, we stared at each other.
“It didn’t occur to me until a few years ago to go back through my family history and tally up all my ancestors who tried. Trust me, the failure rate was quite…eye-opening. But fortune favors the brave and all that bullshit, so let’s just move on, shall we?”
I hadn’t intended to tell any of them the truth. But Ryland Storme was the closest thing to a friend I’d ever had. I owed him something, even if it was just an explanation.
“Fucking gods, Rooke, twenty fucking percent? That’s like…” I watched him do the math in his head. “Those are not great odds.”
“No,” I agreed, stepping back, double checking the drawing in the Codex to make sure I had everything right.
“Not great odds at all, and yet, here I am, willing to take them. Just like you and Lyrae are willing to stand out there and face the Butcher and his army.” I swallowed past my suddenly tight throat.
“After all these years, I know I’ve never thanked you, but… ”
Ryland—my only friend in the world—threw his hands up in the air. “Oh, fuck you, Rooke. Unite the Triune and try not to die. We’ll hold Gravelock off long enough you can’t blame me for this shitshow because you ran out of time or some such bullshit.”
“Well, try not to die, will you?”
“You too, I guess,” he grunted. “I swear, you are such a fucking asshole. I don’t know why I ever agreed to help you in the first place.”
The blood circle was ready—a ring of russet stains that seeped deep into the pale stone, humming with the power of Rooke blood.
I knelt within the circle, careful not to touch the boundary.
The family grimoire lay open beside me, its yellowed pages covered in ink faded to the color of the skies outside.
My great-great-great-whatever's handwriting sprawled across the page in loops and whorls in a language that was no longer spoken in polite circles.
Or so I was told.
The Binding of the Triune, the header read, followed by a complicated spell, interspersed with detailed steps for the ritual, and so many hand written notes cribbed along the margins, there wasn’t a single blank space.
The pain was blinding…don’t stray outside the circle…do not allow the relics to touch.
I supposed if I survived and had any improvements to offer whoever came after me, I’d have to stick a note or two in between the pages. But I was the last Rooke alive, and this secret would die with me.
Of course, if I died today…
No, I wasn’t going down that road again.
This was the right path. My only way forward. And yes, eighty percent—and fuck Ryland for making me think this—weren’t the best odds, but far better than fifty-fifty, and the look on the arrogant bastard’s face had been worth the lie.
My magic was buried somewhere deep inside me; it had to be. The Rooke gift—the terrible, beautiful curse of my bloodline—had always run hot in my family. But in me, power raged like wildfire.
Or at least, it used to, before I’d been locked up in here, bound by wards and runes and ancient curses.
Before Gravelock sucked this entire realm dry, to keep me prisoner.
I positioned the Mirror flat on the stone floor before me, its surface rippling as it sensed the proximity of the other relics.
In the reflection, I saw faces—dozens of them, perhaps hundreds—all bearing the sharp cheekbones and dark blue eyes I saw every morning in my own reflection.
My ancestors, their power still trapped within.
I would give the Triune all of me—my blood, my future…everything.
But first, I needed something in return.
I closed my eyes and used my paltry magic to reach—past this room, past these walls, past the edges of the island.
My mind spun out to where the storm engulfed the approaching army, the Fae soldiers struggling through the black sand, to where Lyrae and Ryland watched for an army they stood no hope of defeating.
Then I rested my fingers on the surface of the Mirror.
Give me what I wish for, and I will give you my blood.
Use your magic to craft an illusion to convince even the most cynical mind. Grant me this boon, and you can take all of me, heart and soul and body.
Protect my friends, and you can claim me.
Something strange rippled inside the blood circle, nothing I could identify, but it felt almost like anger, and then…then the Mirror went perfectly flat for a moment, reflecting nothing but my gaunt face, framed by my hair, the dark circles under my eyes.
I had no idea if the Mirror had granted my wish, if the relic even understood what I’d asked, but now I had no choice. I had to move on with the ritual.
The Thorn came next.
I set it beside the Mirror, that delicate spindle of metal gleaming in the candlelight, deadlier than anything I’d ever been close to. Dried blood—my blood—still speckled the metal in dark, matte blotches, and I touched each drop reverently before moving the Crown into position.
A perfect triangle, three parts of a whole.
The second they were in position, a wave of power knocked me backwards, careening into something hard and unforgiving and I looked up…then blew out a shaking breath. My blood circle worked, the magic was contained, and hopefully, I wouldn’t bring this entire castle down around our heads.
Magic rushed through the air around me in wild waves, waiting for the spell, the ritual, the binding.
Inside the circle, each of the three relics were incomplete on their own—just one point on a line.
But when moved into this arrangement, the three magics connected, creating an enclosed space in the center, a defined area that didn't exist before.
A place for all three magicks to combine into one mighty power.
Remove any one relic, and the whole collapsed back into pieces. But add the final piece of the puzzle, and a mighty power would be birthed.
I lifted the ancient blade made from pure mithrium, the hilt carved with a rook’s head, eye set with a sparkling blue stone, and dragged the edge across my already-scarred palm, cutting deep, blood pooling slowly from the gash.
Too slowly, after yesterday.
Too slowly after creating this blood circle, but every step of this ritual required blood, and I would spend my very last drop to complete this final task, if it meant Gravelock would never sink his filthy claws into my family’s immortal legacy.
When my cupped hand was full, I tipped it sideways, the stream of blood dripping straight into the very center of the triangle…where it vanished, as if it had been transported elsewhere. I murmured the words I had been aching to speak for decades—
“With my blood I bind these three,
I mark the path I cannot see,
And etch my name upon the wall of fate.
Judge me worthy, or leave my bones to wait.”
While I bled, and prayed I was worthy, I grieved. My father had searched for these his entire life. His obsession, his dream that had never come to fruition. He’d still been searching when the Butcher and ten of his guards found him in the Ashenmoor.
Gravelock had tortured him for days, using his Bloodsinger magic, bled him almost to death until my father told him what he’d been searching every remote corner of the Shadowlands for—the weapon that would allow a monster like him to destroy the world.
The bastard and his soldiers carted my father’s mutilated body back here, then imprisoned both my mother and I on this island. I’d never left the place again.
I closed my eyes, letting the power of the moment wash over me.
“Gods, I wish you were both here to see this,” I whispered, closing my eyes, sending the thought up into the stars, hoping that somewhere out in the universe, they could hear me. That my father would know he hadn’t died for nothing. So my mother would know she hadn’t suffered in vain.
That the Butcher would finally get what was coming to him.
My hands trembled as I spoke the beginning of the incantation, the Old Fae tongue sounding foreign yet familiar, after practicing these words my entire life. A deep well was opening up inside me, waiting to either unleash a great flood of power…or swallow me whole.
"By blood and bone and binding deep,
By ancient oaths my fathers keep,
I call Rooke magic homeward now,
And seal this sacred, solemn vow.
By thorn…”
My eyes flew open as an unholy scream ripped through the castle, the sound of someone suffering pain—or incredible fury.
“Give them to me,” a sneering male intoned from down the hall and fear stole my breath, every thought from my head, the knife slipping in my sweaty, blood-slicked hands.
Gravelock’s voice. He was here.
All I could picture was Lyrae, her broken body lying before the Butcher’s army as the marched over her.
Bleeding. Dead. Gone.
I was a fool. I should have sent her away, sent her back to Tempeste where she would have been safe. I should have…
I took one lurching step, just one, hand outstretched. One word and this circle would fall, a word and everything would be for nothing, but what did it matter if she was gone? Nothing mattered, because why save a world that didn’t have Lyrae Antares in it?
That word was on the tip of my tongue, my fingers sizzling where they brushed the magic barrier.
Then Ariel was outlined in the opening to the throne room, silver hair floating around her like a cloud, eyes burning with light, an aura of power outlining her body in a pale glow, and I realized Gravelock was the least of my worries.