Chapter 36 HE DOES NOT LIE
Chapter thirty-six
HE DOES NOT LIE
Amira
Iwoke up with a start, my mind racing with panic while my body felt strangely disconnected like it was floating. The air was humid when I gasped in a lungful so I knew that I was no longer in the mountains of Thíva.
“She is awake,” noted a vaguely familiar male voice.
“Paws off!” Ornella warned him, and the sound of her voice brought everything suddenly back to me.
I groped desperately for the tethers that connected me to both of my mates, but there was nothing but silence in the place they usually lived. The last thing I remembered was Ares and Helena going up in flames, an awful crunch that altered my world, and then Riordan screaming.
Orion. I could not unsee the way he had fallen limply into the damp leaf litter at Ornella’s feet.
“Please tell me…” I began, my voice choked off by a sob I could not hold back. “Please tell me that you didn’t just leave him lying there in the dirt.”
I held my breath in the silence that followed because every inhale felt like razors in my rib cage.
“Who?” asked the male voice.
“Orion,” I wheezed, his name like a knife in my heart. “Sofia. Helena. Ares. Please just tell me that you didn’t leave their bodies lying in the dirt!”
Another telling silence finally broke me, and I curled up tighter when it seemed like I might split apart from the anguish bursting in me. The thought of Riordan finding Orion left like that invaded my mind, and I could not stop a wail of utter grief from erupting out of me.
“Oh, enough! We did not leave them there in the dirt,” Ornella spoke up in exasperation. “Your companions were given a message for Riordan. And Orion is here.”
“What?” I choked, finally lifting my head to see that they had brought me to a tent.
I was lying on grass under a canopy made of dark animal hide, and the only furniture seemed to be a table and chairs on the left.
But it was the wall of darkness in the other corner, wavering in the lamplight, that drew my eyes.
Now that all of my senses seemed to have returned, I noted a hint of a metallic tang.
Blood. My intuition said that people had been tortured and likely killed in this very spot.
I looked around but did not see Orion until the male fey waved his hand at the wall of shadows in the corner. They dissipated and darted under the table and chairs.
“Orion!” I gasped, surging up toward him. But I was jerked to a stop by the vines I had not noticed tethering me to the ground by my ankles and wrists. I could not pay any more attention to that though because Orion was alive and just out of arm’s reach from me. Except…
He was shaking, and when he raised his eyes to mine, there was a world of pain in them. I was unsure what was wrong until I saw his wings.
She broke his wings.
The gorgeous feathered limbs lay on either side of him in bloody, mutilated angles that made acid rise up the back of my throat.
That had been the horrible crunch in my mind, the shattering of his wings, which must have been so fucking painful that he had instantly passed out.
And the whole situation suddenly reminded me of another prison when I was chained and forced to watch as Jade levelled a knife at Riordan.
I turned to Ornella, magic surging defensively under my skin only to be diffused by whatever magic had to be muting my bond to Orion. But she only looked satisfied by my fury when I glared up at her.
“Now you know a little of how it feels,” she told me.
“Is that all you know how to do? Inflict pain on others when you have been hurt?” I snarled at her.
She surged forward so fast that I had no chance to dodge before she seized me by my throat. She lifted me effortlessly to my feet, but then she hesitated like maybe she was realizing the truth of my words. Then she pushed me back down to my knees and away from her.
“Yes,” she said bitterly. “I should not have to tell you after all this time that I am not a nice person.”
“I don’t believe that! Heal him! Please heal him!”
Ornella raised her head with a familiar stubbornness to look at me down her nose.
“I wonder what those monsters are doing to my mate. How is he suffering right now?”
“Hurting Orion does not mean Sage is hurting less! Please, Nell!” I cried at her, making her blink in surprise at the affectionate nickname that I’d given her in spite of her distaste for it. “Heal him!”
She narrowed her eyes on me before looking at Orion.
Her nose scrunched as she took in the miserable state of his wings as if maybe she was considering how painful it must be for him.
Then she finally rolled her eyes and marched over to walk around him.
He was in too much pain to notice that she was there as she knelt to hover a hand over his trembling wings.
They began to shift across the grass and back into their natural form as the bones were realigned.
But his sharp cries of pain almost made me regret demanding that she heal him.
His hands dug into the earth, arms shaking and shoulders tensing as he grit his teeth to weather the agony.
I thought he might pass out again, but he managed to stay conscious until his wings were fully healed.
Ornella stood and stepped back around him like it had meant nothing to heal him.
“Thank you,” I gasped through a soft sob, my eyes on Orion who was slumping onto his forearms in relief.
“Do not thank me! I did not do it for you or for him,” she growled at me.
Before I could ask who else she could have possibly done it for, the curtain door opened and a man I instantly recognized strode inside with a confident authority.
So Rian was alive.
Ornella’s blond companion straightened from where he had been leaning against the table and flipping his knife as if bored. Even Ornella gave Rian her full attention as the Autumn Prince nodded to each of his riders before he tilted his head in question at Orion.
“Riordan’s skiá and taíri,” Ornella supplied. I guessed Orion must not have been part of the plan when they had been ordered to bring me to their master.
Rian nodded before those striking green eyes landed on me with unmistakable intention.
I tensed as he walked toward me and knelt with a preternatural grace.
It should have been impossible for someone with such dark power to be so distractingly beautiful.
He could kill me so easily, and yet it was pathetically difficult not to stare at him.
“Do not hurt her,” Orion growled, his voice a raw rasp, but Rian ignored him entirely.
“We meet again,” Rian noted in such dulcet tones that they seemed to caress all my fears away.
“What do you want?” I whispered.
“What do I want?” Rian laughed at me. The sound was so tantalizing for my mortal senses that I almost smiled back at him even though I knew better.
I had always been frustrated by the stories my mother would tell me of how men and women could be so easily corrupted by the fey.
But I could understand it better now. This man was dangerous.
Not just because he could sip the magic from my bones and veins and devour my flesh, but because I had the sudden sense that he was a seducer.
Minds. Bodies. Souls. All of it was for his taking.
“What I want, little witch, is for my people to be safe,” Rian continued with a sharper edge in his voice, which reminded me to pay attention. “But war does not suit me, and I have been forced into it for far too long, so I want to try something new with you now.”
I opened my mouth to point out that his power meant he was absolutely suited to war, but I hesitated. They had managed to dampen my fire magic and my bond to Orion, but I still had my Ktínos intuition. And my instincts told me that Rian really wasn’t a warrior at heart. He was…
Tired. War truly did not suit him.
“We want peace too,” I assured him quietly, still not sure if I could trust this creature that seemed more like a god than a fey male.
“And yet, you destroyed an entire world and murdered millions of fey in moments. I may get a bad name because of my power, but not even I have ever accomplished such a monumental atrocity,” he pointed out coldly.
I lowered my gaze from his accusation as all that guilt threatened to choke me.
I would never forget the screams. Never forget the way the mothers threw their children to other fey closer to the portal to save them.
Never forget that moment as the void swallowed the last of their world and everything went dark and silent.
“I know that we made a grave mistake trusting Balor. And believe me, with what we now know, we would not have offered him sanctuary. But we cannot unmake that choice now, so I would venture to make any recompense the fey deem appropriate. If such a thing is possible.”
“Amira,” Orion tried to object, but Rian ignored him again while he seemed to consider my offer with interest. It was clearly not what he had expected from me.
“There are two offenses. Neither of which are yours to atone for. You were brought here to ensure King Riordan is not tempted to make any more deals with the monarchs that would collapse our courts. And we thought that your death might also serve as a little justice,” Rian revealed.
“But,” he added significantly, just as my heart started to sink and Orion growled, “it would be a shame to kill you when I suspect you may have other uses. Perhaps you can help me ensure that the parties truly responsible are held accountable,” Rian suggested.
“I will never help you hurt Riordan. No matter what you do to me.”
“But you can give me Balor. If I am to rebuild from your ashes, then I will need both Balor and his daughter for the Spring Court,” Rian insisted firmly.