The Reclamation (Shadowed Wings Book 3)

by Ivy Asher

  I sigh and wonder if I’ll ever be the same after all of this is over. Once these mate bonds are broken and this war is over, what am I going to? I guess I could live in the Eyrie, give all the houses there running hot water, or maybe I find a little patch of land and build a cottage and collect...fuck, they don’t have cats. I try to think of the alternative to a cat lady spinster, but I don’t know if there is one here.

  I pause, contemplating if fairies like to be kept as pets, and then internally facepalm because I’m an idiot. Wekun can travel between worlds, so he can take me home when all is said and done. If I break the Vow, then I’ll have done what I promised to do and there would be no point in staying in this world anymore.

  I could leave.

  The thought sends me reeling. I don’t have to be stuck here. I’ve been searching for a way to get back and here it is, standing in a pile of pillows. Astonishment rocks me, and I suddenly find the words to beg Wekun to take me home sitting on the tip of my tongue. I stop them from spilling out. The realization that I can leave all at once feels a little too counting your chickens before they hatch. First the mate bonds need to be severed, and then I need to actually figure out how to break the Vow. Once all of that is done, I can bring up my plan to Wekun. I’m sure he’d be happy to help, it’s what he seems to be all about.

  “Okay, how does this work and what should I do?” I ask, ignoring the nervous wobble I hear in my voice.

  “Lie down here,” Wekun instructs, patting the pillows in the center of his nest. “I’m going to put my hands on you in search of a thread of your magic. If I can find one, then I more or less tug on it and see what I can unravel—”

  “And if you don’t find a thread?” I interrupt to ask.

  “Then I may not be able to do anything. I won’t give up, but it would make everything harder,” he tells me solemnly.

  I nod and take a deep breath. Well, here’s hoping he can find something, because I have the sinking suspicion I’m going to need it if I want to help the Gryphons.

  “Wakanda Forever,” I exclaim quietly to myself, like I’m hoping somehow the words will pump me up and prepare me for what may or may not happen.

  Both options suck dirty dick, because if he finds a thread, I know this is going to hurt. I can recall the memories of when I first got the markings when I was little and what my dad did to take them away. I’ve never felt anything like that kind of pain. Well, not until Zeph knocked me out of the sky and smashed me into the ground.

  If Wekun doesn’t find hints of my magic, then everything I’ve been planning and striving for is about to get a little more impossible. I hope for the sake of the Gryphons who are about to destroy one another that I can find a way to put a stop to it.

  I scoot over and lie down in front of Wekun. His Narwagh-pant-clad knees rest against my side, and he bends over me with his hands outstretched. He closes his eyes as though he’s centering himself or perhaps praying. Maybe he’s whispering his own Wakanda Forever.

  My eyes trace the lines of the cream-colored tunic he’s wearing and watch as he takes a deep breath, releasing it slowly. I try to relax and stare up at the ceiling of the tent as his warm palms move up to rest on my chest. He pauses for a minute and then moves down my sternum, like his hands are a metal detector and he’s trying to listen for the right cadence of beeps to tell him he’s hit the jackpot.

  I become all too aware of my breathing as he skims slowly over my body. I’m nervous. Worried about what happens if he finds something, worried if he doesn’t. Pigeon sends me a wave of reassurance, and I give her a grateful smile. We’ve been doing so much better together; checking in, taking the other’s feelings into account. I haven’t been able to let her out to stretch too much, but as soon as Wekun gets us sorted—one way or the other—we’ll start training again.

  I try to go through the list of things we need to do in my head as Wekun’s hands roam over my arms and then move back to my stomach. Pigeon and I need to find the words to break the Vow. We need to convince the Ouphe and the Gryphons here to help us. And then we just need to win the war.

  No pressure.

  My heart picks up a little as Wekun’s searching palms dip lower down my abdomen. His skin skims the fabric of the thin tank top dress I’m wearing, and my body wakes up and heats, regardless of the platonic way my brain is saying it should react. He stops suddenly just above the apex of my thighs, and I try not to snort.

  Who doesn’t want a magical vagina?

  The rapacious little shit has gotten me in enough trouble though, and I don’t know if I’d trust whatever Wekun is obviously feeling to be the guiding light for Gryphon salvation.

  “Got it,” Wekun announces calmly.

  Fucking hell. Well, this just got infinitely more awkward.

  Pigeon makes that chuffing sound that she does when she’s amused, and I roll my eyes at her. I swallow down the wisecrack I have for Wekun, because he’s clearly concentrating so hard.

  A jerking sensation hooks through me. Thankfully, it doesn’t come from my crotch, but rather my chest, but I’m all at once overwhelmed by the feeling that something is being threaded through me. It’s as though each cell that I possess is the eye of a needle and Wekun is carefully fitting a warm, stinging string of magic through each opening simultaneously.

  I gasp as the slight burning sensation goes from uncomfortable to agonizing in less than a blink. My back bows off the large pillows I’m lying on, and just as I feel the bloodcurdling scream claw its way out of my throat, I’m ripped away from my body.

  I scramble to try and hold on to myself. I feel Pigeon’s talons scrape down my arm as she tries to reach for me, but I’m suddenly hurtling back through the star-filled sky as though I’ve been lassoed and I’m being drug to fuck knows where.

  My body crashes against stone, but surprisingly it doesn’t hurt. I work to pull oxygen into what I’m pretty sure is my incorporeal body and look around. Shock slithers through me when I immediately recognize where I am. I’m sitting inside the gazebo that Nadi brought me to, surrounded by the overgrown and long abandoned Ouphe city of Vedan. I’m back in the heart of where the Hidden used to live.

  Only it’s not Nadi glowing green and sitting next to me.

  I stare at the man for a moment and try to make sense of what I’m seeing. It’s impossible, and yet there he is. Black hair and lime green eyes take me in, patiently allowing me time to recover from the bewilderment he must know I’m experiencing.

  “Dad?” I whisper, still not trusting my eyes or the words spilling out of my mouth. “Am I dreaming?” I ask as his eyes light up with a familiar light and his lips spread into a joyous smile.

  I look around again, wondering if this is just another memory my conscious has become aware of, but that can’t be it, I’ve never been here with him before.

  “How?” I breathe out, barely audible, my heart hammering in my chest, and tears prickling my disbelieving eyes.

  He opens his arms and leans in to give me a hug. My first reaction is to flinch back away from him. I hate that my body immediately reaches for protection away from him instead of toward him, but I’ve seen too much to fully trust him anymore. I don’t know who he is. I’ve realized that I never did. Not him, not my mother, not my gran. I was left in the dark, thrown to the gryphons, my body and soul abandoned to mop up the mess that was left in my parents’ wake.

  My dad is shocked by my reaction, and he pauses, studying me for a millisecond before dropping his arms. I don’t miss the sadness that bleeds into his lime green eyes, but what does he expect? He’s supposed to be dead.

  “Falon,” he finally speaks, my name like a worship-filled prayer floating on the air between us.

  The sound of it breaks me in ways I didn’t know possible. I clutch my chest as a sob bubbles up out of it. Flashes of my memories, new and old, move through my mind, and I have to fight not to see him through the five-year-old lens that I used to know him through.

  “How are you here?”
I demand, my tone laced with bone crushing sadness.

  “I am, and I’m not,” he tells me cryptically.

  My brow folds with confusion.

  “Your magic called to me when it tried to awaken. I bound a piece of my magic to yours so if this ever happened, I could explain, make sure you were okay,” he tells me, and I’m surprised by the explanation.

  “Make sure I was okay, or try to stop it?” I ask, wishing accusation wasn’t dripping off of my every word.

  “Falon,” he chides quietly, and his eyes drop from mine and look down at his hands. “I can imagine what you must think of me, but I swear to you, I was just trying to keep you safe, keep you alive.”

  “But what you did to Gran...to me,” I counter.

  “I know it may look brutal, but she was too trusting, she thought her people would keep you safe, but I knew that wouldn’t be the case. If she had told anyone, they would have hunted you down and slaughtered you, like they did…” He pauses, pain taking over his sadness, and I try to read his features to understand what’s causing it.

  Agony and guilt pour out of him, and I watch as my dad, my hero, wipes tears from his cheeks and breathes deeply as though he’s trying to piece himself back together one inhale and exhale at a time. His hurt calls to my own, and sorrow leaks down my face as I reach out and thread my fingers with his.

  “Your mother and I had a little girl before you,” he confesses on a tormented sob. “She didn’t...they didn’t allow her to…to live. We barely made it through alive, the damage they did to your mother, we didn’t think we could have more, and then you.”

  My dad partially folds in on himself as his words rip open wounds inside of him that are incapable of healing. I wrap my arms around him, instantly feeling guilt and sorrow and shock at what he’s saying. I suspected a miscarriage or something, but this…

  “If Sedora had told anyone, if somehow the Sentinels and Gryphons found out that you existed, they wouldn’t have stopped until they ended you. I couldn’t let that happen, Falon. I know what we did was wrong, that if our line ended, it would shatter all the wrong that we had enacted, but you were too precious. I was too selfish. I loved you too much. I’m sorry,” he tells me brokenly, his tone pleading.

  “It’s okay, dad. I’m so sorry,” I offer, my attempts to comfort him feeling flat.

  There are no words that could ever make what happened okay. There’s no saying or anecdote that will soothe the continuous ache and loss that I can see rippling through him right now. I instantly feel horrible for how angry I’ve felt at him, and my mom, and gran. They were all just trying to do the best that they could.

  “I’m sorry, dad,” I tell him over and over again, until he wraps his arms around me and we trade places in our efforts to try and console each other.

  And then it dawns on me what he said.

  If our line ended, it would shatter all the wrong that we had enacted.

  My heart hammers painfully hard in my chest, and I pull back so I can look my dad in the eye and see the truth.

  “Dad, are you saying if I die, then the Vow will break automatically?”

  His lime green eyes answer before his mouth does when they fill with shame and resignation. I watch as tears spill out of his black lashes, and they feel oddly like a death sentence. I pull in a shuddering breath and reel at the truth of that. My hands come up and cover my mouth, like that will hold in any selfish objection.

  I don’t want to die.

  My dad takes in the horror pouring out of my watery gaze, and he quickly starts to shake his head. “It’s not the only way, Falon,” he tells me in a rush. “You have the ability to break the magic.”

  “No, I don’t,” I argue, pulling back even more. “I didn’t even know what I was. I fell into this world blindly, and I’ve been fucking up ever since. How do I have the ability? Wekun doesn’t even know if he can reverse what you did to me,” I tell him, feeling bad for pouring more anger and hurt onto his already bleeding and open wounds. But how could he think I could still do this when I’ve been blocked and impeded at every possible turn since before I even knew this world, and the Vow, existed?

  I’ve been set up to fail from birth, good intentions or not.

  I shake my head and stare at the dead city around me. Will this world claim my body like it has this place? Cover it in moss when my soul is gone and pepper flowers across my hollow shell? Will it honor the sacrifice being asked of me? Mourn my loss and grieve for the impossible legacy being laid at my feet?

  “Falon, you know the words. They’re ingrained in who you are, in the magic both your mother and I passed down to you. I know you can do this, I know you can remember our lessons and find exactly what you need to make it right,” my dad tells me, cupping my cheeks as his fervent eyes hold mine. “You’re stronger and better than the Sept whose magic flows in your veins. I know it’s not fair to put so much on you, but My Heart, if anyone could do this, it’s you.”

  The strange pulling sensation that brought me here starts again in my chest. Panic flares inside of me.

  “Dad!” I cry out, suddenly scared and not ready to be stolen away.

  “I love you, Falon. I believe in you. You’ve been pure light and love even before your first breath.”

  He wraps his arms around me, and I hold tightly to him as though somehow it will anchor me and I won’t be pulled away.

  “I don’t want to go,” I plead with him, and I feel him kiss my tear-stained cheeks.

  “I don’t want you to go either, My Heart, but we’re always with you. You’re never alone.”

  I’m yanked from his strong hold, and I cry out and thrash against the force that’s tearing me away.

  “I love you, dad, I’m sorry,” I scream at him, sobs ripping out of my chest as though I’m watching him die all over again.

  “No, I’m sorry, Falon. All you have to do is remember, My Heart! Just remember!” he calls after me, and then just like that, I’m pulled out of Vedan and staring down at the cliff castle that served as my first home in this world.

  I’m once again surrounded by the night and its teasing, unfamiliar stars. I race backward, but in the distance, I see looming purple mountains and a bright light that almost looks like a spotlight shooting up into the sky. It’s radiating out of the base of a mountain that almost resembles a fist. It’s surrounded by two, taller, triangle tipped peaks, and I don’t know what it means, only that the strange manifestation of light is burned into my mind as I’m flung back and slammed into a body that’s drowning in pain.

  I’m so overwhelmed by the agony that I can’t even speak. I open my mouth to scream, but only a hoarse crackle exits my throat, and I realize I’ve already screamed my voice away. My skin burns like someone doused me in gasoline and took a match to my sodden existence.

  “Falon, your magic’s awakening. It will be over soon. Are you sure you want me to break your mate bonds? I’m worried you can’t survive it,” Wekun tells me through the smoke of my melting soul.

  My jaw is clenched so tightly that I feel like the bones are going to shatter any moment, but I manage to unhinge them somehow and grit out, “Do it.”

  Wekun places his hands on my chest, and the searing sensation blazing through me morphs into something trying to cut out my soul and shred it into a million pieces. I feel Zeph, Ryn, and Treno, writhing in their own pain, clutching their chests, and gasping against the cutting of the threads that hold us together.

  My awareness of Treno goes first. He just blinks out of existence for me as though he no longer walks this world. Panic slams through me, and I can’t help but feel terrified that in doing this, I might have killed him.

  I claw at my chest as I feel Ryn’s threads start to shred. He screams as they do, and I can feel him reaching out to capture them, holding the threads to his chest like that will be enough to reattach them. In one torturous breath he’s there, and in the next, Ryn is gone.

  I scream at the loss of him, my voice gravelly and filled
with pain. I can taste the blood in my throat and the damage my cries are further doing to it. The absence of Ryn and Treno almost hurts worse than severing them did. I don’t understand the why of it, only that I know in this moment that I will never recover. I will never be the same after this loss.

  Pigeon wraps my consciousness up with her warm feathered and furred body, and I can feel her suffering alongside me as, one thread at a time, we ruin and reject what fate’s decreed for us.

  Zeph’s essence threads itself through my mind, and he takes a hold of me. I’m surprised by the strength I feel, and the questioning touch that caresses the threads between us.

  “Don’t, Falon,” I hear him plead quietly in my mind before the pain and trauma of what’s happening takes over everything, and I feel myself start to shut down in defense against it.

  I cling to consciousness, like I’m hanging off a cliff and I know if I let go, I’ll plunge to my death. The black abyss below me promises nothing but more loss and pain, and I know I can’t let myself fall. I call on every ounce of strength I have, and despite the disconnecting of threads that I felt before, power shoots through me and bleeds out, wrapping around Zeph, Ryn, and Treno and stamping ownership all over everything they are.

  I feel their gryphons, their fear, their hurt, their anger...their claim. Treno’s connection to his other half feels like mine to Pigeon. Ryn feels more braided and interwoven with his beast, and Zeph’s lines are so blurred I can barely see where he and his other half end and begin. His gryphon is so tightly wrapped around him it’s as though without it, Zeph could no longer be anchored to the world.

  Pigeon rears up inside of me, like she can’t help but peek at the pieces of them they would never show us. I feel her sadness and hurt, her desire for more, and then all at once it’s gone. I feel nothing but cold hard emptiness as the blackness I’m fighting works harder to claim me for its own.

  11

  “What have you done?” Treno demands, his voice pulling me from the in-between I’m floating in as my body adjusts to everything that just happened to it.