“I’m Ellie,” I told her, trying my best to sound reassuring. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Ellie?” the girl repeated, staring even more intently at my face. “Then you’re the one.” Before I could ask what she meant, she wriggled free from the blanket. Reaching into a fold of her skirt, she withdrew a water-stained letter. “Cieran told me to give you this,” Neva whispered.
I frowned, not understanding. “Wait, you were at Prince Brendan’s palace? Well, I suppose that explains the carriage. If you’re from Amendyr, what were you doing there?”
A shadow fell over Neva’s face. “Cieran was taking care of me, helping me learn to use my powers. Then they came for me, and Cassandra put me in the carriage so they wouldn’t find me. I wanted to stay and help, but she said I had to go.”
I started to ask who “they” were, but Belle pushed away from the door and came to stand behind my chair. The fire cast flickering shadows over her face, hollowing out her cheeks. “Go on, Ellie.” She reached out to squeeze my shoulder, but even the warmth of her hand could not guard against my chilling sense of dread. “Open it. The message might make things clearer.”
I broke the seal, bracing myself for bad news.
Ellie,
You must forgive my brevity. There is little time. The girl I have entrusted into your care is Neva Velias, Crown Princess of Amendyr and rightful heir to the white throne. She escaped Kalmarin and her stepmother, with my assistance. I have kept her safe at Prince Brendan’s palace for the past several months.
Somehow, we were discovered. We woke to find an army of monsters at our door. A powerful Ariada controls them, and she seems to be proficient in more than one type of magic. Her creatures took the dungeons, and all the prisoners there have been turned.
Cassandra and I must protect Prince Brendan and his knights, but Neva cannot stay here. The safest place for her is with the Amendyrri rebellion. Please, take her across the border. Some of my friends will find you there. You must also use the journal I gave you to warn Cathelin Raybrook of what has happened at the palace.
Above all, be cautious. The Queen’s eyes are everywhere in both kingdoms.
Cieran
I stared at the message for several moments, jumping from line to line. An army of monsters…all of the prisoners have been turned...all of the prisoners. My fear became blind panic. The letter fell from my hands, and I clutched tight to the arms of my chair. If this Ariada’s monsters had taken the dungeons, it meant she was no longer locked away. Even though Cieran had not written it, I knew what he was trying to tell me. After three long years, Luciana was free.
“Ellie, she isn’t here.” Belle’s hand squeezed tighter, but I barely felt it. “She can’t hurt us.” I shrugged away from her touch, nearly knocking over the chair as I leapt to my feet. I wanted to run. To hide somewhere she would never think to look. But if Luciana had escaped the dungeons, nowhere was safe. She would find me, and this time, she would kill me.
I lunged for the kitchen door, but Belle caught my wrist. She pulled me back, and I collapsed against her chest, burying my face into the dark, safe space where her throat ran into her shoulder. I trembled in her arms, but no tears fell. I was too terrified to cry.
“It’s all right,” Belle murmured, stroking my hair. “Everything is all right. I promise.”
But I knew it was an empty reassurance. If Luciana truly was free, she would not hesitate to come after us. That was why Cieran had mentioned Cate. That was why he wanted us to flee for Amendyr. Not just to return this strange girl to her kingdom, but to escape from the woman who wanted Cate, Belle, and I dead. Something tugged at my skirt, and I tore my face away from Belle’s shoulder to see Neva standing beside me.
“You’re afraid of it, too, aren’t you?” she whispered. “The thing that’s watching us through her?”
It hadn’t crossed my mind, but old memories came welling up, images of a burning eye set in silver and gold rings. I gritted my teeth, struggling to shut them out. Luciana was terrifying enough on her own. I did not want to remember the tainted magic I had felt through her sorcerer’s chain. “What are you talking about?” I asked. “Who are you talking about?”
“You’ve seen it,” Neva insisted. “I know you have. The thing that watches me through my stepmother has been watching you, too. I know how its magic feels when it’s touched someone.”
Slowly, I pulled out of Belle’s arms and nodded. “Yes. I think so.”
To my surprise, Neva took my hand. Her fingers were still cold, but I clutched them tight anyway. “It’s already dead. It can’t hurt you unless the person it’s using hurts you. That’s why Cieran had to hide me.”
“How do you know all this?” Belle stared at Neva incredulously, but I knew she remembered the sorcerer’s chain. Its power had almost killed her. She believed every word this girl was saying, just as I did.
Neva shrugged. “I am Kira’baas, Daughter of the Sixth Son. When the dead speak, they speak through me.”
Chapter Two
Taken from the letters of Cathelin Raybrook, edited by Lady Eleanor Kingsclere
THE DARKNESS SEEPS INTO everything. It stretches through cracks between the stones, rises to the high, empty ceiling, reaches out over the floor in grasping fingers of shadow. Shadows need light to survive, but there is no light here. Only thick, choking darkness that clogs the air.
“Take the girl out into the woods.” A voice, low and soft, but resonant enough to fill the room. “Kill her, and as proof that she is dead, cut out her heart and bring it back to me.”
A cold beam of light pierces the blackness. It stabs through the dark like a lance of ice, falling on a man’s terrified face. His skin is sallow, sweat is smeared across his brow, and his eyes are wells of fear. “But, my lady.”
Another figure steps out of the shadows: a woman, tall, skin pale as snow. Her hair is equally fair, spilling past her shoulders in a shimmering waterfall. A crown of white gold rests upon her head, shining like a beacon in the black room. Her lips are a perfect cut of red in the landscape of her face, and they part, almost as if expecting a kiss. Instead, she speaks, whispering words that tremble like notes of music. “The girl cannot live. As long as she does, Amendyr will remain divided.”
The man’s eyes glaze over. The irises swell, but his breathing remains shallow, and his heartbeat batters his chest. He is terrified. “Yes, my lady.”
“See that it is done.” The woman moves away from the cold light, shifting aside to reveal its source: a mid-sized, oval-shaped mirror hanging against a stone wall. Its glass swirls with grey fog, and dark, fuzzy shapes shift behind its surface. She turns, running her hand over its smooth surface, and one of the shapes steps forward. A body? No, a face.
The face in the mirror was beautiful once, a lovely heart shape and a proud jaw. But her chestnut hair is rough and matted, and her eyelids are scarred shut, twisted over empty sockets. The lady’s hand comes up to rest on the mirror’s glass, stroking along the eyeless woman’s cheek. “If you fail to kill her, I will find someone else who can. My shaper will make someone else who can.”
The mirror flashes, and the face transforms. Her skin cracks, peeling around the edges like an old painting, and the color of her lips dulls to a putrid black. Her teeth sharpen, grazing the surface of a purple-grey tongue. The sickly sweet smell of rotting flesh clouds the room, cutting off the air to my lungs.
I woke with a start, jerking upright and clutching the covers to my chest. My heartbeat pounded heavily in my throat and my chest burned with each breath as I tried to spit the foul, lingering taste of rotted meat from my mouth. Although my eyes were open, it took me several moments to see where I was—still in bed, naked and shivering except for the wolfskin belt around my waist. Sweat rolled down the middle of my back, but my skin felt ice cold.
Fragments of the vision lingered at the edges of my mind, always present, but just out of reach. The longer I remained awake, the more disjointed the sounds and pictures s
eemed. I groped blindly, trying to recapture them, but they slipped away before I could fit the pieces together. Only one image remained—the face in the mirror. It swallowed my thoughts and seared behind my eyes. Her name had not been spoken, but I already knew who she was. The woman with no eyes, the same face that had destroyed my days and visited my nightmares.
The mattress dipped beneath me, and I looked down, regaining a little of myself as I stared into a pair of soft, familiar brown eyes. Larna. My Tuathe. Her angular face replaced the one in the mirror, and I sighed with relief. My pulse stopped racing as I let the covers fall around my hips. “I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”
Larna sat up beside me, stretching her arms over her head. “Aye, Cate, but it doesna matter. Morning’s already come.” She pulled apart the curtains behind the headboard and sunlight filtered in through the window, banishing the shadows to the far corners of the room. She turned to me, forehead furrowed with concern. “What were you seeing?”
I shifted closer, curling beneath one of her arms and tucking my head against her shoulder. My fear had retreated to a dark corner of my heart, but I still needed to be close to her. “I’m not sure. I saw…” My tongue tripped, and I swallowed before trying again. I needed to convince myself that I could speak her name. “I saw Luciana’s face. But it wasn’t her face. She was something else. Dead, but not.” The sweet, rotting smell from my vision filled my nose and mouth again, and I had to grit my teeth to keep from gagging.
Larna stiffened against me. My mate held a special hatred in her heart for the woman who had raped and abused me. Still, her first instinct was to offer comfort. She kissed my forehead, brushing away the damp strands of hair that clung to my cheeks. “Someone canna be dead and alive together, Tuathe. Maybe that part of your vision was only a nightmare.”
I was not so certain. Luciana had seemed frighteningly real to me, and I knew Larna would not understand. She always believed my visions, but she had not seen them, heard them, tasted them. She was not Ariada. “Luciana wasn’t the only person in the vision. There were two others, a pale blonde woman with a crown on her head and a man attending her. The woman told the man to bring back her heart.”
Larna looked at me in confusion. “Whose heart?”
“She didn’t say, but I know she wanted it badly. No, wanted isn’t the right word. She needed it. Needed it like breathing.” The fact that the blonde woman wanted the heart was terrifying, but not surprising. It was a common ingredient in shaping and necromancy, a fact I knew through personal, gruesome experience. But the need…the hunger she had felt…that was something I did not understand.
“I am thinking I prefer your old visions. At least we could be understanding them.”
I let out a snort, trying to ignore the tight coil of fear in my chest. “You mean the ones where I watched you die over and over again? No, thank you. These visions are terrifying, but losing you every night was even worse.”
“These?” Larna eyes narrowed, and she gave me a searching look. “You mean this isna the first?”
“This was the first, but I’m certain I’ll have more.” I untangled myself from her arms. “The important ones usually come several times.” Once I was free, I headed for the wardrobe against the far wall, regretting my decision to sleep naked. The cold no longer bothered me since becoming a wyr, but I felt exposed anyway. At Baxstresse, I never would have dared to walk around without my clothes.
Larna sighed, abandoning the bed and following me to the wardrobe. She had stubbornly refused to remove her own clothes from our travelling packs, but mine were hung and folded neatly inside. She folded her arms around my waist from behind, preventing me from reaching for my leggings. “Is there anything you might be doing to change what you saw?”
I shook my head. “No. I could tell the vision happened long ago. I can’t prevent it.”
“Then what will you be doing? Waiting?”
“Yes, I don’t have much choice.”
Larna caught the waver in my voice, felt the tension in my body. She had always been able to read me. Her hands trailed along my sides, cupping the swell of my hips, but she paused before going lower, waiting for me to tell her what kind of comfort I wanted. Normally, Larna had an open invitation to touch me however she liked, but with Luciana’s memory still hanging over us, I was grateful for her caution.
My head fell back against her chest, and I laced my fingers with hers. The vision had left me shaken, but the longer I spent in Larna’s arms, the more relaxed I felt. Being close to her helped ease my fears. “I can’t decide whether I want you to take me back to bed or not,” I murmured.
Larna dipped her head, and I gasped as the warmth of her mouth found my throat. My pulse raced, but I did not push her away. She was the only one my inner wolf trusted near such a vulnerable place. “Whatever you need,” she whispered into my shoulder. “If you want to forget her touch with mine, I will be helping you. If you want to cry, I will hold you until the tears dry up. If you are needing anything…”
Tears of relief burned in my eyes. I turned in Larna’s arms, but as I tilted my face up to kiss her, someone started banging on the door. I drew back in surprise and scurried to find my clothes instead. “Who is it?” I called out, balancing on one foot as I shoved the other into a fresh pair of leggings. Larna did not bother looking for her own clothes. She simply sighed at me, shaking her head in disappointment as her view disappeared.
“Ailynn. May I come in?”
The door swung open before I could give an answer. I whirled around, clutching my tunic to my chest to preserve some of my modesty. Just as I had feared, Ailynn stood in the doorway, gaping at us in surprise. Even worse, she was not alone. Her lover Raisa stood beside her, but thankfully, she was too busy glaring to see us. “Ailynn! What’s the point of asking if you’re going to barge in anyway?”
Ailynn seemed to come to her senses. She clapped a hand over her eyes as a vivid pink blush spread across her face. “I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I’m not used to sharing space with other people.”
“That’s no excuse,” Raisa insisted. She kept her eyes fixed on the floor, but I caught a hint of a smile on her face. “I’m so sorry, Cate. Sometimes I think she was raised in a barn instead of the same cottage as me.”
“It’s all right.” I shrugged into my tunic, stealing a glance at Larna as I did up the belt. She had wandered over to our travelling bags, completely unaffected by our embarrassment. At last, she selected a shirt but seemed in no hurry to find a matching set of pants. “Just pick something,” I begged. “I know the pack doesn’t care if you’re naked, but Ailynn and Raisa aren’t wyr. You’re embarrassing them.”
That got through to her, and she hurried to finish dressing. “Sorry,” she said, grinning slightly.
I sighed, reaching up to smooth her messy black hair. Larna always found a way to ruin it, short as it was. “There. You’re mostly presentable now.”
Ailynn uncovered her eyes, and I noticed her blush had crept all the way to her collarbone. “I really am sorry. I thought the two of you would be awake. Most of the liarre are already gathered in the grand theater, and I didn’t want us to be late.”
I glanced out the window in surprise. Sure enough, the sun was already high in the sky. “It’s nearly midday. How did that happen?”
“The same way it is happening every day,” Larna teased. “The birds call the sun up, and…”
I bumped my shoulder playfully against hers and took her hand. “Come on. I don’t want to be late for the meeting.”
“I admire your enthusiasm,” Raisa said as we joined her by the door. “This is the sixth day, and the council still hasn’t decided anything. I can’t believe they don’t realize the danger.”
The mention of danger called up my vision again, and my smile vanished. “They’re frightened. The Queen’s forces are already slaughtering their way through Amendyr, and the liarre don’t want to bring the war to their doorstep.”
“That’s exactly
why they should fight,” Ailynn protested. Her embarrassment shifted to anger, and the heat in her cheeks rushed to light her eyes. “If the Queen takes over Amendyr, what’s left? Liarre territory. Joining the rebels is in their own best interest.”
“We know that, but they haven’t seen what Mogra’s army is capable of.”
Guilt tugged at Ailynn’s face. “I should have made sure she was dead instead of running away. She’s probably still out there, shaping the Queen’s army. If…no, not if…when they come here, it will be my fault.”
My heart ached for her, but before I could offer comfort, Raisa ran a soothing hand along the stiff line of Ailynn’s arm. “It’s not your fault, Tuathe. There wasn’t time. We nearly died.”
Ailynn let out a deep sigh. All of the anger drained out of her, and she turned to face Raisa, resting their foreheads together. It was a surprisingly intimate gesture, and I almost felt like an intruder in their world as she rested her hands on top of Raisa’s swollen stomach. “I know,” she murmured. “But she was my mother. I had a thousand chances to stop this, and I didn’t take them.”
I shared a glance with Larna, and she cleared her throat. “There will be other chances, Ailynn. If Mogra lives, we will be finding her, and you will be having an army at your back. And if the Queen’s demons are coming here…” She smiled, and even without her fangs, I could see the predator underneath. “They burn as easy as anything else.”
A little of Ailynn’s confidence returned. She removed her hands from Raisa’s belly and folded an arm around her shoulder instead. “I suppose you’re right. Now, let’s hurry. I’ve already made us late for the meeting.” She and Raisa turned for the door together, and I followed, still holding Larna’s hand in mine.
The four of us stepped out of our building and into the sunlight. The council had given us shelter right in the middle of Ardu, nestled among the flat, stacked-stone buildings, but the main street was empty and all the shops were closed. Everyone had already made their way to the grand theater to watch the debate.
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