52. Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Two
Kya
D eres was waiting when we arrived at the temple before dawn, hand in hand, bearing our mating marks.
He was, in fact, expecting us, having felt our merging of souls through the Spirits.
Theron and Odarum had appeared without us having told them.
They knew it as well. While it was unusual for others to be present during a marriage ritual, it had felt appropriate for our Spirits to be present during such a spiritual moment.
Deres performed the marriage ritual, reciting the sacred words, and our guardians bowed their heads. Then our bands were placed around our wrists and sealed seamlessly—unable to be removed or broken. Not even in death.
Ryker flew us back to the palace, holding me in his arms. I wore the top and skirt that I wore during Nailu and wrapped a blanket around my waist to stave off the cold bite of the wind, nestling into his body for warmth.
My hair was twisted up into a bun, the whipping air causing strands to come loose.
I glanced at the marriage band around my wrist and smiled.
The black metal was surprisingly warm against my skin despite the cold as it rested comfortably at the edge of my mating mark.
Ryker continued to carry me even after he landed on the balcony, through the corridor of the upper floor, and into the bedchamber.
He sat me on the edge of the bed and kissed me softly, longingly, lovingly.
My mate. My husband. Forever bound to me by the Gods and Spirits, through our hearts and souls.
Our sweet, gentle kiss turned into something more, and he took me. Then again in the bath before we washed each other. And I still couldn’t get enough of him.
“Will we tell everyone?” I asked as we dressed in the bedchamber. I pulled on my loose pants and tied them at the waist.
“Our mating is not meant to be hidden, and I have no intention of doing so. Regardless, it would be near impossible to hide it. Not only do we bear our mating marks and marriage bands, but for a while, it’s unlikely that we will be able to keep our hands off each other,” Ryker said, buttoning the shirt to his suit and rolling the sleeves up his forearm.
I huffed a laugh. “I’ve noticed. But I was talking about an announcement. To the people. Or do we just let them find out by word of mouth?”
He put his hands in his pockets and leaned against the wardrobe next to me. “They’ll be told. I’ll have Mav handle informing our people of our mating as well as our marriage. As far as the rest of the world, they’ll find out in due time.”
“I’d like to tell Nik and Eamon.” I laced my boots.
“Do you want to travel there or send a letter?”
“A letter will do for now. I’ll write one up and send it later.” I looked up at him.
“Whatever you want is fine with me.” He brushed my hair behind my ear. “I have a few things to take care of today. Are you still planning on meeting with Malina? ”
“Yes. We’ll continue our translations of the book and see what else we can figure out about the Glaev. I’m hoping that we can find some way to reverse it but so far nothing has come of that.”
Ryker kissed me before he left the bedchamber.
I twisted my hair into a braid and made my way down to Malina’s room.
I didn’t feel her in there, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t in there.
She could have been on her bed, still asleep.
When she didn’t answer her door after several knocks, I felt for her around the palace and still felt no sign of her.
I decided to go to the library without her and review my translations alone.
After reading over some of my translations and Rolim’s notes, something stood out about channeling the dark magic that didn’t make sense to me, no matter how much I tried to understand it. But I knew at least one way to find out.
Ryker will not be happy.
Deciding that I would deal with him later, I quickly left the library, making my way down the stone staircase and out the front doors of the palace.
The sun had just crested over the horizon, and lit the sky in hues of orange and yellow.
I followed the path that Ryker had taken me to the Noavo command station.
When I arrived, I asked one of the passing warriors where I could find Hakoa’s barrack.
He pointed me in the direction and informed me that he was likely still asleep.
I was too eager to speak with him to care about that, and I rapped on his wooden door.
A few moments later, I could feel the footsteps of two people from inside.
He wasn’t alone. I concentrated my terbis on the lighter footed person and my jaw dropped, awestruck at the feel of the familiar female’s steps.
Hakoa opened the door with groggy eyes, pulling a shirt over his head. His eyes widened when he saw me standing with a smirk on my face .
“Kya. This is an unexpected visit.” He glanced behind me as if looking for someone else. “Is everything alright? Where’s Ryker?”
“Everything is fine and Ryker doesn’t know I’m here. May I come in?”
“Sure. Let me just make sure that—” He glanced sheepishly over his shoulder.
“She’s my sister. I don’t care if she’s dressed or not. It’s freezing out here, please let me in,” I said curtly.
He stepped to the side to let me pass and closed the door behind me. Malina came in from the other room, half dressed in an overly large shirt that I could only assume was Hakoa’s. It wasn’t shocking that she had found someone to keep her warm at night but I hadn’t expected that it would be Hakoa.
“I thought I heard your annoying voice. What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I could ask the same of you,” I said dramatically with a wink, noticing Hakoa’s cheeks redden slightly.
“We haven’t left the bed since Nailu.” She leaned in to whisper, “I told you Orynians had stamina.”
I opened my mouth to respond with a quip but was cut off by a screech.
“What is that on your arm?!” Malina yanked my arm forward by my hand and pushed up my sleeve. I couldn’t hide my grin as her face lit up in realization and she screamed, jumping up and down and hugging me.
“You’re married? And mated?” Her shrill pitch made me wince. At least her reaction to this mark was better than the last.
“Yes, we wed this morning.”
“Oh shit,” Hakoa grumbled.
Malina and I both turned our heads and scowled at him.
“Is there a problem, Chief ?” she asked through gritted teeth .
“Udon’s balls… Yes, there’s a big fucking problem,” he said, running his hand over his face. “You’re recently mated, to a very powerful and possessive male might I add, and you’re in another male’s home. If you wanted me to die, there are more merciful ways.”
I waved him off. “It’s fine. He’s busy right now anyway. It’ll be some time before he realizes I’m gone.”
Hakoa leaned his head back against the door with a thump. “I do not like this.”
Malina and I giggled. I knew that Ryker would have lost it if he found me here, but I wasn’t worried since I didn’t plan on being here long.
“I came here to ask a favor of you actually, Hakoa,” I said.
He nodded for me to continue.
“I need you to take me to Voltaryn,” I stated.
He blinked slowly at me. “Why?”
“To speak with Vicria.”
“She hasn’t said a word except demanding to be released, despite our…best efforts. Why do you think she’ll talk to you?” Hakoa tilted his head to the side.
“For one, she has something against me, I don’t know what, but now that Ryker and I are mated, she would have felt it and that may just make her angry enough to talk. And two…” I glanced at Malina out of the corner of my eye.
Her lips spread into a wicked smile. “We have ways.”
He blew out a sharp breath and mumbled, “Ryker is going to kill me.”
“So you’ll take us then?” Malina asked eagerly.
“Us?” he balked.
Malina and I exchanged a look of confirmation before we said in unison, “Yes.”
Hakoa glanced from me to Malina and back again. “Fine. If it will get you out of my barracks, then yes. ”
Once Malina and Hakoa got dressed, he led the way toward Voltaryn, our boots crunching against the gravel path heading east, away from the warrior command station.
Malina pressed me for details of my mating with Ryker.
Hakoa had protested about hearing such details but I ignored him and continued to lay out the specifics and only left out certain descriptions for Hakoa’s sake.
Malina’s mouth gaped open farther and farther as I continued.
I didn’t miss when Hakoa’s eyes would dart to her when she displayed excitement about a specific detail.
Then I told her of the marriage ritual at the temple with Deres.
It was hard to believe how much had happened in just the few months since we had talked like this back in Morah before the Trial. I was Worthy, mated, and wed.
A pang of hurt rang through my chest—I missed Eamon and Nikan. Eamon would be happy for me and while Nikan would likely have never said it, he would be happy for me too. I shook off the thought of them.
“When were you planning on telling me about you banging the Noavo chief?” I leaned in to whisper to my sister with a smile. Malina and I had dropped back a few steps behind Hakoa.
The side of her mouth lifted. “It started as a one time thing when we got drunk that first night in the city but then…it wasn’t.”
“You have feelings for him?” My eyebrows rose and my mouth fell open in genuine shock. I had never heard of Malina sleeping with someone more than once.
She stopped walking, staring at the male walking ahead of us. I stopped next to her. The serious look on her face was rare when she wasn’t being a Roav.
“I don’t know. I don’t not feel something but we haven’t exactly talked about what this is or isn’t.”
We continued to follow Hakoa.
“What do you want this to be?” I asked carefully.
She shrugged and her long black hair fell behind her shoulder.
“I’m not sure. All I know is that I like what it is right now and I’m not ready for it to change.
He may look serious and cold all the time but when it’s behind closed doors, he’s actually very sweet and a big softy.
” She smiled. “Even on the first night, when it was supposed to just be some fun after getting hammered in the tavern, he never treated me like a quick fuck.”
Our conversation came to an end when Hakoa stopped at the edge of a small body of water.
“We’re here,” he said.
I gasped when I felt it. And Malina’s eyebrows bunched together, looking around. “There’s nothing here.”
“Oh but there is,” I breathed.
Beneath the water, I could feel a vast system of tunnels underground. Deep below my feet, the rock had been carved out and I could sense that it went underneath the city. The tunnels led to various chambers where I assumed one held Vicria.
Hakoa manipulated the water in front of us, parting it and exposing an opening to the tunnels into Voltaryn.
He held the water apart so that we could enter.
Once he was inside, the sound of crashing water above us roared through the tunnel as he released its hold.
It was pitch black. I had no issues seeing where I was going, using my terbis to guide me, but Malina and Hakoa needed light.
“Mal?” I pressed, my voice echoing against the rock.
“Yep.”
An orb of light appeared and floated above us, illuminating the rounded tunnel walls dripping with moisture.
“You can create light.” He marveled at my sister. I focused my attention elsewhere to give them some semblance of privacy.
“I can do so much more than that,” she said teasingly.
Hakoa growled and the scent of arousal filled the tunnel. “This way,” he said in a low, quiet voice that still echoed.
We followed Hakoa farther and farther down underground, at a slight decline.
I could feel us coming up to a large chamber, around a bend that connected to half a dozen tunnels, and footsteps filled the area.
We came to a wall of fire that blocked our path, encircled in metal embedded in the tunnel walls and floor, with four Noavo guards stationed outside.
“The Gate of Elements,” Hakoa said to us as we inspected the wall.
“The gate is composed of a layer of each of the elements and laced with lethal toxins so that no one may try to pass through. The gate is inside of these metal rings here.” He gestured to the dark metal lining the tunnel.
“One of each of the elemental wielders is stationed on either side to allow passage and if anything were to happen to one of the guards, one element is pulled and causes the metal ring to collapse inwardly. Like tumblers to a lock, the entire thing would come down. It keeps anyone from entering or leaving that is not permitted. This is one of three gates into Voltaryn as well as the smallest.”
It was smart. Metal was the only form of terra that couldn’t be manipulated with wielding. And with each element present, it would take four different kinds of welders at once to open the gate.
“So why couldn’t a terbis wielder just tunnel their way around the metal?” Malina asked.
But I already knew. I could feel the metal extending out in all directions, surrounding the prison within the mountain.
“By the time anyone would be able to dig far enough around the metal within the mountain, we would stop them. The metal is embedded around the entire structure, just not the tunnels,” he said.
Hakoa nodded to the four guards in front of us, and they each manipulated their part of the gate simultaneously, pushing and compressing the elements against the metal ring so that it didn’t collapse and allowing us to pass through. They closed the gate behind us with a wall of air at our backs.
Inside the chamber, guards were stationed at each of the tunnels and spaced down each of them as well as at the openings, where the prisoners were held. We continued to follow Hakoa as he headed down one of the tunnels on the right, the guards bowing their heads as he passed by.
“Where are you?” Ryker’s concerned voice rang down the bond.
“I’m fine. I will be back soon.” I planned on telling him of my whereabouts when I returned, not wanting to worry him before I had the chance to talk with the sage.
“Kya,” he growled in warning.
“It’s okay, Ryker. I know what I’m doing.” I caressed soothingly down the tether. “I love you beyond the bond.”
There was a pause.
“Beyond the bond.” His tone was far from happy, but he returned the caress.
Deep down the tunnel, we stopped in front of a small opening with two guards stationed outside the metal door. They moved aside for their chief, and we stepped inside.