by Ella Fields
The need to soothe and mollify itched at my clammy skin like a rash I wished I could scrape from my body, and I tucked my hands behind me, pulling back my shoulders.
As though sensing that, Dade’s head tilted. He sniffed, a cruel smile lighting his eyes. “While that may be so, this”—those eyes wouldn’t release mine as he pointed at my breasts—“that racing organ in your chest says you might have completed your mission but lost more than you’d bargained for, sunshine.”
“Leave,” I gritted.
His smile slipped into a slight sneer. “Gladly.”
Within minutes, they were clearing out of the city, our soldiers watching on in dismay.
I waited until he’d turned away before unleashing one loaded breath after another, my chest tight and aching no matter how much I tried to control each one.
I waited until his warriors had disappeared through the entrance to the city before falling back inside the empty store and to the glass-flecked ground.
Dade
Venom coursed through my veins with each step away from the moonstone fortress that held my crushed heart.
A game. I was but a leading piece in this game called war, and though my swan might have thought she’d played me well, it was I who’d decided I’d be used.
Her actions, her warring emotions, and those fucking eyes gave her away at every turn. I’d wanted her—a want so dire, so depthless and insatiable, that I’d accepted the role she’d thought she must play.
For I knew underneath that false bravado lurked my mate, a bond that suffocated all else. A tether of the soul that would outshine her ire and conflicted feelings until they were but a dim shadow I could erase with time.
She must have thought me no better than a brainless beast prone and often lost to baser desires, hungry for nothing more than her warm blood and body. At times, I was. Most certainly.
But not always.
That didn’t stop her parting words from doing the damage she’d intended. The hatred brimming those golden eyes, the disgust, not wholly with me but with herself, weighing each breath and step and staining the imagery of rolling green hills, the fields of lavender cutting through them, with darkness.
All too soon, we entered the forest we’d marched through and flown above a handful of times before. All thanks to my swan showing me the last remaining bridge, the hidden hollowed tree, upon which we’d first met.
Legion three had flown ahead, now nothing but dark patches swallowed by the starlit clouds atop the woods across the ravine. I’d chosen to walk. There was little point in making a hasty arrival home when that home would now feel like the tomb it had always been.
Without her, it was just a Keep, just a palace to house ghosts and monsters.
Legion two chatted amongst themselves, quiet for the most part as they tried to make sense of all that had just happened, and Fang doubled back to walk beside me now and then. He knew when to keep his mouth shut and wisely did not open it as we meandered through the trees toward the low-lying cave.
Entering that cave, spying the space in which I’d laid over her and felt my soul connect with hers, was akin to taking a blade to my own chest and swallowing fire.
“Dade,” Fang called, and I hadn’t realized I’d stopped moving.
I hadn’t realized everyone had left the cave, crossed through the aged trunk and over the ravine to Vordane.
Shaking my head, I prowled past him, deeper into the cave until the hollowed insides of the dead tree appeared.
Fang’s boots crunched behind me over the dirt. “You, ah, do you want to talk—”
“No,” I snapped, then stilled. Low, almost undetectable but growing in volume, howls entered the trunk.
We raced to the hole, climbed through, and while Fang took to the steep edge of the ravine to scale up the dirt and rock-packed wall, I shifted and shot into the air.
A myriad of violent curses flooded my head. Of course, they would. While I was gone. When they’d discovered over half of my best warriors were absent, too.
More calls sounded from the south, and I flew over the ravine until it spread into a river, then veered west, the wind a roar that threatened to overpower the ones sailing from there. I soared straight up the cliffside to the trees and shifted as soon as my paws slammed into the earth. I’d barely drawn breath before I warped to the other side of the forest bordering the river.
The first village I saw upon welcoming back my beast was lit up—burning.
The winged legion were almost there, having heard the calls for help far before us, and I willed myself to fly harder, faster, my bones rattling with the force of the wind pushing back against me, tearing at my fur.
A snarl was swallowed by the night as I realized just how well I could be played after all.
And now, it was my people who would pay the price for my arrogance.
Fire raged from cottages and treetops, warriors clashing upon the ground. Up ahead, as though someone was merely lighting a collection of candles—fire followed fire, a burning trail heading straight for the city and all its hundreds of occupants.
On the ground, his smug demeanor unmistakable as he gave orders to his generals, to the men stealing females and children from their homes and tossing them toward what looked to be a pen used for livestock, stood the filthy human prince.
Opal
Linka tapped on the bathing room door. “Princess, is everything okay in there?”
I sank deeper into the cooling water and closed my eyes. No. Nothing was okay in here or anywhere. “Fine,” I said and waited for her to enter, to offer me one of her feline smiles and a cloth to dry myself with.
There was only silence, and then the sound of her gentle retreating footsteps.
I could empathize with her anger toward me, but that didn’t mean I would chase after her and try to force her into empathizing with me. I hadn’t the energy nor the space in my bruised heart to fix anything when everything felt so irreparably… shattered.
This marriage was supposed to fix things. It was supposed to help us all come together. It was supposed to save and unite us—regardless of what it might have done to my heart.
But now he was gone.
My husband. My enemy. My unforeseen tragedy.
When I finally reentered my rooms, I eyed my wardrobe, the many gowns and nightgowns. Longing to create something more versatile, comfortable, I dressed in a pair of old leggings and a berry-colored shirt. In gentle pleats, the cotton fell from my breasts to my upper thighs, its capped satin sleeves puffy but not irritating when I turned my head over my shoulder upon hearing a creak.
My mother sat on the bed, her fingers clasped in her lap and her sharp eyes staring through the window.
The same window the king had sat by while studying the gardens and lost to his own thoughts.
The words left me without warning. “Why did you even bother allowing us to marry?”
Without averting her focus, as though she wasn’t really looking at anything, she said in a quiet voice, “I did not intend for you to marry him.” I walked closer, leaning against the bookshelves. “We just couldn’t catch him unawares until then.”
“So you admit to trying,” I stated, then chewed my bottom lip when it wobbled. He never said anything. He did not warn me nor tell the truth when I’d discovered he’d been bleeding. I could add that lie to his list of atrocities, but I knew he hadn’t done so out of malice or to protect himself.
He’d lied to protect me and the love I had for my mother.
“Your desire to see him punished was stronger than our family’s fear of the stupid prophecy.” I nearly laughed at the heartbreaking absurdity of it all. “So strong that I now carry his family name instead of ours.”
She did not answer, there was no need, but she turned on the bed and patted the space beside her. “Come sit with me.” I didn’t move, and she looked up at me. “Please, we are running out of time.”
“Time?” I moved then and hurried to take a seat beside her.
“What do you mean? It’s done.”
She noticed the space I’d left between us, offering a sad smile as she gathered my hand in both of hers. “You must understand, Opal. We saw an opportunity, and we took it.”
My mouth dried, giving bite to my voice. “An opportunity for what?”
“The human royals came through on their promise, though I do not know if it is to help themselves or us. They’ve curated an army.” She nodded as my eyes widened. “They are already here.”
“Here,” I repeated, but there was no attack, none that I’d heard of, save for that on the king…
My heart sank to my toes, launching me to my feet.
“They march on Vordane.” Though her words shook, her chin rose slightly. “The crimson king has been our enemy long enough that it would make me a fool to believe he’d arrive without an entourage, hidden or in plain sight.”
A fool, she’d said. Or in love, her eyes said when mine closed, my stupidity suffocating me once more.
Her voice softened. “We will gorge ourselves on lies to keep the magic that is love.”
No.
But my eyes reopened with a start. “Stars,” I choked out. “What have you done?” I raced to the window as if I could see the carnage, but there was only star-painted dark skies, quiet city streets, and the chatter of wildlife and flora upon the breeze.
But there, beneath it all, slight notes of ash could be detected.
I should’ve known. I should’ve known, yet I wouldn’t have thought she’d go this far. “You knew,” I hissed, glaring at her over my shoulder. “You knew he’d bring his legions, leaving the rest of Vordane with little protection against an attack.”
Tears glossed her eyes. “At the time, I wasn’t aware that you two had…” Again, her head shook. “I am still shocked, honestly, and I won’t say that I am happy.” Looking me in the eye, she said with too much calm, “I hate it for you, for us, for our entire family, but it cannot be changed, and so now I am torn between what is right for you and what is right for our people.”
“Our people?” I nearly shouted. “We started this. Your father started this by killing his parents, and for what?” A crazed laugh left me. “Because they were scared of those more powerful than them.”
“Althon,” she croaked out. “Your father slayed Dade’s—he killed Vern Volkahn.” My head spun and spun as I tried to recall a time when Dade had told me so. He never had. “Vern was wild with rage,” she whispered, gaze unseeing as if she were back there amongst the start of it all. “My father.” Her lips pressed tight, then released with a wet sigh. “My father had just killed his mate, and we knew he’d never stop. He’d never rest until every last one of us paid the price for what my father stole in a fit of anger.”
My blood, my bones, chilled. “Why?”
“They were worried,” she said, though her words were weak. “They were intimidated. My father more than anyone else, but it was his ego—bruised with embarrassment from Vern and Maya’s refusal to submit to his terms—that ended Maya’s life. He was never supposed to kill either of them.” She spoke softer, lost to the past. “No one was supposed to die. He was a fool, and it cost him his life as well as that of my mother and my son.”
“Vern Volkahn killed Joon?”
“No,” my mother rasped. “Joon died from a fatal chest wound while in battle, and your grandfather while trying to protect him when he fell. I left your father’s side and dragged Joon as far away from the carnage as possible to try to save him.” She inhaled a shaken breath. “But Althon knew what must be done, that Vern had to be stopped, so he and our best soldiers cornered him so he could put the beast down. My mother,” she exhaled, “she passed from grief not two months after.”
“This is…” I shook my head. “All this heartbreak, and all because they were worried?”
“They were given information. That the king and queen’s babe, Dade Volkahn, would be the end to the—”
“To the Gracewood line,” I spoke over her, cutting her off. “Believe me, I know, but all these prophecies could mean anything.” I released a flat, humorless laugh. “Such extremes, and it came to pass anyway.”
She said nothing to that and sniffed, rising from the bed. “You love him.” Not a question.
I was tempted to refute it, to say I did not harbor any such feelings, but this pit of fear that’d yawned open inside me, that threatened to pull me under and swallow me until nothing but bleak darkness remained said otherwise.
I averted my eyes and clambered onto the window sill. “I need to go.”
“Opal,” she cried when she realized what I was about to do. “It’s probably too late.”
“We don’t know that.” I refused to believe that.
Her scream followed me as I dropped from the window into a swan. My wings flared feet from the ground, and I swooped between the trees in the gardens below, then startled.
Hidden in the darkness of a maple tree, a flash of red burned through shadow.
Silver nodded when I turned and landed before her. “You should hurry,” she said, her snakes still, so still, coiled around her shoulders as I shifted back. “I’ve got her.”
My mother’s sobs could be heard from my rooms, and I glanced back, knowing I’d have to leave her regardless, but… “You,” I said, a little breathless. “You were before… her another.”
Silver’s eyes narrowed. “Another?” I nodded, knowing I wasn’t making much sense but I was right. Her upper lip peeled back, but her eyes flicked up to the windows. “I am no one’s another, and that was the problem.”
No, I couldn’t imagine this female being anything but someone’s sole reason for breathing. Still, it remained. Whatever it was that her and my mother shared before my father came to Gracewood hadn’t left the sorceress.
Perhaps not even for a moment, as she confirmed, “Why do you think I remain in this stars-forsaken place when everyone thinks me a fate dealer of darkness?” She scoffed. “My gifts would not only be appreciated but revered elsewhere.”
“Yet you stay,” I said softly.
Her shoulders fell, and she sighed, gazing back at me. A heavy breeze rolled in, gathering my hair and bringing with it the scent of smoke and uncertainty but leaving the sorceress untouched. “Fly, my bright flame. The winds of fate wait for no bird, no matter how rare.”
Then she was gone, her words enough to have me shifting and shooting straight for the skies.
Hours crawled by while I wished for the ability to warp.
Treetops swayed, ash dancing above them, embers threatening to cross the river near the remnants of Old Bridge to create more carnage in Sinshell.
I continued southwest, spearing to the left to hide above the smoke-filled forest. My eyes watered miles from the first river village before it fully came into view. Black as night and red as deep as the setting summer sun, fire engulfed cottages and barns and small buildings.
I couldn’t see Dade. I could hardly see anything through the haze of smoke. A roar came from the north, and I dipped lower toward the trees as varying colored dots soon grew into fast-flying beasts.
Help had arrived, but the legion without the ability to fly… it would take over a day for them to get here, and that was if they did not stop running.
Fury swept through me, pushing me harder as I followed the wolves in the sky. Half of them dropped to the ground at the village, immediately falling into battle with human soldiers, soldiers who appeared to be heavily armored in head-to-toe metal.
The other half followed the flames to the next village, to the farmland that resided just outside the city.
Livestock moaned and scattered, and I chanced a look behind me. Pens. They were herding the females and their young into livestock pens—much like the king of wolves and his warriors had done.
Only, they were not released nor given the chance to start a new life.
Arrow after arrow flew, slamming into heads and chests, mothers and grandmothers falling around their waili
ng offspring.
I fell, in both horror and grief, turning and flying fast toward those pens.
I didn’t know what I would do, only that I couldn’t continue to look for Dade while innocents were killed.
He’d killed plenty of innocents—all of the warriors who clawed at metal-protected bodies, snapping necks and limbs, had killed innocent people. And I knew, no matter how different the circumstances, that none of it was right.
All of it was wrong.
He knew that now. He’d learned. I had to believe that much at least. I had to believe that no matter what, he would’ve continued to right those wrongs.
And now he was being made a fool for doing the right thing.
I dropped and spiraled into the arm of an archer, knocking the bow from his hands before he saw me coming, and tumbled over the next. “What the—”
We both fell to the ground, feathers splaying, my head ringing against a metal breastplate, but I forced myself up and back into the sky before the cursing soldier could curl his hand all the way around my foot.
Flying toward the flames, I banked and scooped up a burning branch. My eyes closed against the smoke and the heat traveling down toward my beak. An arrow whizzed, narrowly missing my wing. Screams sounded as more archers knocked their bows, the branch burning closer and closer, giving away my presence in the night sky.
A wolf howled and broke into a run, shifting and then snatching a tin of kerosene from a soldier’s hand.
And tore it open with his bare hands, spilling it over the grass in a semi-circle around the pen, between the occupants and the soldiers.
I dropped the branch, fire spreading in a climbing arc, the trapped females and their young running for the woods as the wolves clashed with the soldiers and forced them back, giving them time to flee.
I followed the villagers as they dispersed into the trees, my wings spreading as I circled a tree and hit the ground with a jarring thump. I shifted back, coughing as smoke filled my lungs, and raced after the escaping children.