But they got none of it. No jinx or hex or nasty magic reached them. Astrid shook her head glancing back at the Lake. Something was coming and it was fairly not good at all.
By the gods, Astrid would have preferred to be chased by a giant squid than face an entire legion of White Beasts, ready to peel her tender flesh from her bone with their horrendous, primitive daggers.
No gods, no. She shook her head. She valued her skin too much.
Astrid’s horse halted and Arslan stopped his horse a few feet away from hers. He turned his head and looked at her. Astrid’s gaze was fixated on the mountains ahead, on the ice and toil that awaited them. Arslan was not strong with magic, but Astrid could flash them to Birilla if she was closer to the White Beasts’ caverns.
Getting closer meant greater danger of being captured by those creatures. Astrid would do anything to avoid a meeting with them.
Arslan huffed loudly and said, “Can you not flash us in?”
Astrid rolled her eyes. “No. I don’t know where Birilla is, but I can flash us close to where I think it might be.”
“So we are going somewhere that might not even exist?”
She turned her head and glared at him, pursing her mouth. “What is wrong with you, Arslan? I thought you wanted to help me gut the King.”
He bit his cheek. “I do, but isn’t it a bit risky to come out here, searching for something that might pretty well be a speculation?”
Astrid clicked her tongue and tugged at the reins angrily. “Cassia said it is out there. So there it is.”
“It’s not that I don’t trust her, but...” He shook his head. “I don’t trust her, Astrid. She has been killing men and elves for the King’s pleasure for far too long, nothing remains pure for... that long.”
“I don’t think I asked for your comments on the matter.”
Arslan grunted loudly. “Will you ever stop treating me like that?”
“How old are you, five?” Astrid dismissed the whole conversation with a motion of her chin towards a clearing. “We go there. I can flash us at the end of the sierra.”
She tugged at the reins and the horse sprinted towards the clearing.
+ + +
The cold winds meticulously reached about them, enveloping them in its icy clutches. The mountain row of Pegos was another desolated and isolated place in the Southern side of the continent.
They had let the horses in the clearing, concealed by the trees and had flashed there. The closest Astrid could get to where Birilla was supposed to be.
Astrid pulled her heavy cloak over her tighter. Cold winter and rains were nothing compared to the chilliness of snow and frost, the freezing of the blood in the veins and the pain spreading all over the body. The closest mountain to them was covered from head to bottom with a crisp white veil.
The sun barely touched the snowflakes, barely melt them. It was as if everything was magically induced to never melt, never yield.
The winds whooshed by them, by the mountains, travelling through the cracks on the earth, the white ground and the iridescent stones from which the mountains were carved.
The mountains stretched hundreds of feet behind them. Almost visible through the snowstorm, the mountains were concealed behind those white veils, like secrets to be kept arcane and never be revealed.
Astrid’s hair stood on edge. Whether it was the cold or the terror that ran wild in her blood she still didn’t know. Her heart pounded like a mad drum, mad and never missing a beat. Her blood chilled at the realisation that monsters and horrendous things inhabited that hostile environment.
Arslan beside her faltered a few steps away from the mountains. It was only natural, for a being so much younger than her to be scared and cower away. Astrid couldn’t blame him; he had hardly fought on a battlefield.
The winds whooshed again.
A loud drum reverberated through the mountain row. A beat and another beat yet again.
Astrid’s blood stopped, her heart ceased its mad pounding. She turned her head and looked at Arslan. He blanched, his lips palling, just as pale as the snow around them. The loud thrum went about the place again.
Astrid threw Arslan a look before she grasped his hand and chanted a concealing charm on both of them.
The mountain to their left winced and growled. The earth shook with unyielding force, almost shaking the snow off the mountain.
It growled again and Arslan wrapped his palm around Astrid’s firmer. She knew she should have nudged him off, but her charm would not keep him conceal that way.
The mountain seemed to snap. Shaking from side to side until the front of it, moving slowly came to open in two.
Astrid tugged Arslan towards the open seams of the mountain. He tugged back, shaking his head. She glared at him, her eyes gleaming with anger. They hadn't made all that way for anything, for Arslan’s cowardice.
He shook his head again and said, “We are not going in there, Astrid. We are not.”
She bit her lip madly, containing her anger. “Are you scared, Arsly?”
A muscle twitched at the side of his neck. Astrid might be his superior in the resistance’s ranks, but he wasn’t going to sacrifice himself for her foolishness. “If we go in there and the mountain closes, then we’ll be trapped.”
Astrid squeezed his hand tightly. “Then what do you propose to do?”
“We can camp somewhere here and observe when it opens, when it closes, what sort of things go in there, what comes out.” He shook his head. “If you want to learn what happens in there, we would have to wait.”
A growl came from the open slit on the mountain. A growl, not human, or from any known animal.
Their heads shoot towards the mountain. Flames burned somewhere in there, reflecting winged creatures on the mountain’s walls. The flames reached out of the slit, melting the snow and burning the ground. They didn’t need a lot of intelligence to understand that Birilla was a hybrid dragon breeding prison.
Astrid looked back at Arslan and nodded sternly. “That was proof enough. We’ll follow your plan, brainy.”
She raised her eyes up at the mountains opposite and summoned her magic flashing them at the top with a wisp of yellow magic.
+ + +
They camped for the night, deciding that building a fire would do them no good, but attract whatever creature lived in the mountains.
Astrid leant her back onto a rock and wrapped her cloak tighter around her. It was cold and somehow it affected her magic, whatever was down there.
She pulled her chin to her chest and bit her cheek. Whatever was in there, whatever the King was creating with his monstrous need for power, it was and couldn’t be good. Nothing was good, of whatever he did. She should have known better, a breeding place for hybrid dragons was just his style.
Birilla must have opened up years after she left the Palace otherwise she would have known. She exhaled soundly. At least Cassia was serious about betraying the Crown. The world would need a change, a change at the hands of the fiercely patriotic female.
Astrid hadn’t met her, but she wanted to, one day. Their fates seemed to intertwine with each other more and more with every passing minute. It was inevitable for them.
She shook her head. A monster prison should be the least of their problems, the King had greater plans, of that Astrid was certain. She heard he had begun his research for the Swords of Leondir. She shivered at the thought of what he could do with them.
The gods had a reason to throw them away and hide them all over Aethos to spare the world from a monster like the King. If he ever came to yield them, then the Underworld would seem to welcoming a place, burning forever in flames and being mocked for all the bad things you had done, would seem like nothing.
A faint gnarl came from somewhere in the darkness, concealed behind a young snowstorm. The black bird came down with impossible speed to softly perch itself on her shoulder. Arslan’s eyes rose to the bird and pursed his lips.
Astrid patted it and leant in,
whispering in Nature’s language that Cassia had been correct about the monster prison and they would wait to gather more information. The creature turned its head and glared at Arslan before it flew away again, its black feathers hiding through the darkness.
Arslan’s head rose and his gaze met across with Astrid’s. “It’s a wonder it finds you wherever you are.”
Astrid clenched her jaw. “He is a rather smart bird. He is going to convey what we saw today to the Adanei Council in Feremony.”
He shook his head and sighed. “I think we are fighting for a lost cause.” His gaze lingering on the mountain behind her, terror flashed through his features, his brows knitting.
She pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. “Maybe we do. Maybe we do not. It doesn’t matter, not as long as it spreads hope for a better life among our people.”
“It might seem stupid for me to think that, but I can’t accept Cassia being of much help sitting on her arse in an Adanei palace while we are here risking our lives.”
Her gaze snapped up at his and Astrid thought about the rightness in his words, no matter how much she believed in the future Cassia would build. It was then that Astrid contemplated Arslan with something more than annoyance. It was disturbing to finally unravel that Arslan indeed had a brain in his head. She grunted silently and threw her head back.
Annoying or not, he was quite handsome with his auburn curls and violet eyes, a strong jaw line and sharp cheekbones. He wasn’t ugly, no, he wasn’t, but Astrid couldn’t bring her self-righteous arse to see reason. She was and had ever been a hopeless situation whenever it came to her sentiments.
She sucked on her left canine with malice and rolled her eyes. That would not do, to bind herself over a male whose life was just as expendable as the rest of the rascals in the resistance. True, he had been with her through most of his life, but that didn’t grant him certain advantages with her.
She was a rutting warrior for Nature’s sake. Her sanity wasn’t dependent on the possible affections towards one, an auburn haired male who wasn’t her mate and had no claim over her. Astrid valued her freedom far too much to give it up for an elf.
“Maybe you are right, Arslan but I won’t let that ship sink to the bottom. I had been keeping the resistance together long before you were even born.”
His eyes glittered with admiration as he gazed at her, his violet eyes turned a deep shade of purple, orbs of pure amethyst. She felt an imminent tugging in her gut as he said, “Most of us,” he smiled softly, his features lightening up. “In the resistance, we’d prefer to see you on the throne instead of Cassia. We don’t trust her, not like you at least.”
If she had been any other female she would have swooned and thrown herself at the elf before her, probably kissing him and thanking him with every part of her. But Astrid only gave him a curt nod and dismissed the subject, not wanting to let him continue that dangerous path down her heart. She said, “I’ll take the first watch, sleep for now. I’ll wake you if the mountain gate opens.” She glanced away, up to the shining stars, gazing longingly at the constellations she had been forced to memorise as an elfling, back when she still had a family, a loving brother and elves to spoil her. Back when she still had a heart to give and to love. When she was not a monster when her name was not a terror story for unyielding children.
Astrid closed her eyes, savouring the cold breeze, letting it seep into her every pore and suffocate the flames of her past, of her hopes and what she should have been instead of that killing, murderous creature she had turned out.
Keep her safe, keep us all safe, she prayed as her eyes skimmed over the constellation of Einat, Goddess of Fire and Hope. Keep us all safe.
27
Cassia was agitated, to say the least. She couldn’t fathom the reason Griswold’s mate had entered her chamber unbeknownst to her. He had consented to this.
She shook her head slowly. She had more important things to deal with instead of contemplating over his actions.
The council room had been in a state of disarray for the past two days and a half. Papers scattered here and there, on the floor across the table, maps were drawn out, captains and commanders parading from morning to evening. It wasn’t pleasant, but it was a firm remembrance of war disciplines and the painful fate awaiting them.
Cassia shifted in her seat and glared at Griswold Blackthorn across from her, he only smirked in return. She swore under her breath, vowing one day to snatch his eyes from his skull.
His terrifying eyes.
She loathed those eyes. She did. They cost her, her sleep.
She hated him most out of the eight Lords in that chamber.
Beathan said something to her, but she was far too gone thinking of the many ways she could kill the Lord of Kypriantha. She turned and looked at Beathan.
“Your lands will remain to you as we agreed upon,” Beathan said and tapped his fingers on the glass. “After the information, you gave us about Birilla, I can only but rely on your words.”
She raised an eyebrow and tilted her head to the side. “Then you found the monster caverns?” She turned her head and glanced at the rest of the Lords.
Argoth nodded. “We did, our scouts did.”
“It’s impossible to flash into Birilla. Impossible apart from me and the King to flash into Birilla.”
“We didn’t flash into that beast place. Our scouts went in themselves and made it out of Birilla in time to come back.”
Her eyes were glassy reflecting the depths of fire in her soul. Birilla was not a pleasant place for anyone. The lands were too harsh and there were so many mountains caved to host beasts inside their bellies. The prisoners sentenced to death went there to become preys for the monsters.
She found solace in that place, with the beasts. She was a beast too, an abomination of the world and she belonged among those that were the same as her. Monsters and scum of the world, along with the sediments of Tassiera, she belonged there and the monsters seemed to enjoy her presence.
“Did they found Strigila?”
“Strigila?” Argoth questioned.
She opened her mouth to answer, but instead, Griswold voice sounded through the room, answering Argoth. “The Dragon.”
She cleared her throat and turned to look at the elf who now sat straight on his seat, his eyes narrowing on the table before him. She titled her head and set her jaw.
“How do you know of my Dragon?” Her words sounded sharp and she thought she saw him flinching for a moment.
His throat bobbed as he raised his eyes to hers. “The Lord of Feremony gave it to you as a gift after your...” He trailed and titled his head. “Time in his palace.”
She shook her head. “You mean his dungeons.” She gritted her teeth at the remembrance of that affair all those years ago. “I was kept there, tortured...” She slammed her fist onto the table sending a tremor through the length of it. Rage hot and violent ran through her vision. She could only feel the sweat on her brow and listen to the pounding of her heart. Her blood coursing lively throughout her veins. “I was raped, flogged, poisoned, belittled, humiliated, stripped of my dignity.”
It was enough. Enough, she had had enough of those people. She wanted to go back, back in the Citadel, back in her city, somewhere away from that room full of Adanei Lords and away from Griswold stoic gaze. Her breath came in short gasps and sweat overheated her skin. She wanted to get out of there, away and back to her home, to her castle. She wanted to fight those elves and confront them with her sword.
She rose to her feet. “It was a mistake I even came here.” She twisted upon her feet and moved away.
It was the rustling of clothes that made her slow down a bit and the hand upon her shoulder that stopped entirely at her steps. She refused to let her face twitch in sentiment. She was not a gentle born lady of the ton or a well bred female elf. She was a fierce warrior wrought from iron, she breathed ashes and bore flames. She was the most talented witch, the most infernal soldier in battle.
She did not yield to Feremony scum.
But...
But as Beathan bowed before her deep on his knees with his head hanging low, framed by his dark curls, hands held up before her, his palms facing the skies. He raised his head, eyes gleaming with the passion only a fierce Lord could show. Beathan glanced at her as if she was the only thread of hope in his life. He knelt before her, not as a Lord but as a humble servant of something greater than him, greater than Cassia herself.
She would have taken pride a few hundred years ago. if the Lord of Feremony had bowed before her.
Not this moment though.
He had come to her as a supplicant, trying to scavenge what remained of a glorious past. They were both worn out of their fate. Fed up of what was bound to happen in the future and they both wanted to fight, fight for something better even if it meant certain death on hateful hands.
“I offer you my service to pay for whatever wrongdoings my father had bestowed upon you.”
She debated whether she should humiliate him or not, but her thoughts were driven not by spite in that moment, but with the sheer judgement of a General, of a future Ruler, of the King’s Ambassador. Accepting Beathan’s offer was out of the way of her thoughts. She didn’t need a servant or a slave no matter his upbringing. She needed allies and friends and her pallet was running low of colours to choose.
She placed her hand on his shoulder instead and pulled him up, his eyes questioning her through those dark eyelashes. She cleared her throat instead and tipped her chin up, trying to look as intimidating as she could.
“I only need your trust and your faith and I don’t want you to confront me.” She swallowed dryly as she let her eyes linger on the floor.
“I don’t think we can, after all, we have agreed to each one of your terms. You are a Lady of the Adanei and we are Lords, I believe we are equals.”
“Then I will not linger on the past, but concentrate on the future.”
A War of Silver and Gold Page 24