Gold, page 26
His tone shifts to something softer, his eyes carrying an impassioned honesty within their depths. “They kill us. Turley sympathizers, Oreans, any fae who dares go against them. At the first spark of magic revealed, our children are stolen and forced to work for the monarchy. They keep the dissenters starved and tax us down to our teeth. They keep their boots on our necks, cutting off our very air. More fae and Oreans die every year. More of our magic and land dies too. We have to do something,” he says, his tone distressed, insistent. “We have to stand against this. Who better than a broken-winged bird to show everyone how to rise? Who better than the Lyäri Ulvêre to remind them that the darkness can’t stop the dawn?” His eyes flick between mine. “We need your help, Auren. It can only be you.”
His words pile on top of me like the bricks of his torn-down wall, each one stacking over my frustration and uncertainty until it crumbles beneath the weight of his plea.
I blow out a long breath, the rest of my anger tumbling out like dropped pebbles left to scatter. “Okay. I’ll help you. Because I know what it’s like to live under the thumb of a controlling, oppressive king,” I begin. “But I’m looking for someone, and he’s my priority. I can’t promise I’ll be here forever. I can’t even promise that I’ll be by your side when you get to Lydia. But in the meantime, I will help you try to unite the Vulmin. That’s what I can do.”
He sucks in a breath, surprise and renewed optimism flaring through his gaze. “Okay.”
“But from now on, no surprises,” I add with a sharp edge to my words. “If you have a plan that involves me, you talk to me about it first.”
“Deal,” he says, holding out his hand.
Our palms meet, and we nod to each other, the weighty significance of our truce settling between us.
“Deal.”
The many rivers of Fourth Kingdom curve below me, and I fly over the watery lines as they bend through the glittering city. I direct Crest toward the dark, massive shape of Banded Mountain that stands behind Brackhill, its presence looming over the castle like a shadowed guard.
The moat seems to bleed black, its thick trench slashed deep around the castle. Brackhill itself is an inky presence, its tall, smooth walls shining in the night, its pointed turrets as sharp as a quill’s tip, writing upon the dark sky with ominous warning.
I fly around to the back of the scrawling spires, to the flat-top roof of my private entrance to the castle. Crest lands, and the watching guards immediately come up to bow. “Your Majesty.”
I give them a nod and begin to dismount, but I’ve barely gotten both feet on the ground before I have a scowling, furious man in front of me. Gray hair and beard disheveled, brown eyes torn through with bloodshot veins.
“Digby.”
“Where is she?” he demands. “Where’s Auren?”
He looks far better now than he did before. The beating he took at the hand of Midas took a toll on his body, but he’s healed since then.
On the outside, at least.
I see a fury and desperation in his expression that’s similar to what I feel in my own chest.
“She’s gone.”
I see the punch coming, but I don’t even try to deflect it. I welcome the hit that lands on my jaw. My head snaps to the side, an ache bursting through my face, but I welcome it because I deserve it. Because she deserves the loyalty and love from someone who would risk punching King Rot in the face on her behalf.
When he raises his fist to hit me again, another hand shoots out and grabs it, stopping Digby before he can swing again.
“That’s enough,” Ryatt commands. “You got one hit, but you can’t beat the shit out of my brother.” His dark green gaze moves to me, trailing up and down. “Although, it looks like somebody else already did that. What happened to you?”
“Nothing.”
My brother scoffs but lets the matter drop. I’m still bruised and sore from the fight at Breakwater, but the pain has moved to a duller ache, the marks faded.
Digby yanks out of Ryatt’s hold and shoves away. The man paces, still limping slightly, though he tries to hide it. “This is your fault.” He hurls the accusation right at me like another landed hit.
“It’s not,” Ryatt defends. “I told you what happened. Slade saved her. It was all he could do.”
“But she’s gone. Without anyone around to make sure that he actually did save her. Without me there to protect her. So it is his fault. She was taken while staying under his roof, under his protection, and instead of getting her back, he shoved her somewhere none of us can go! Who’s going to protect her? Who’s going to make sure she’s okay?” His voice cracks.
The man cracks with it.
A ragged breath leaks through that he can’t seem to stop. And behind those rifts, I see the insurmountable grief and fear that he feels for her. See just how much she means to him.
I wish he would punch me again.
“Enough, Digby,” Ryatt tells him.
“No, he’s right,” I say. “His anger is pointing in the right direction.”
My brother shoots me a glower, but Digby looks dubious. “What?” I ask. “You think I don’t agree? You think I haven’t realized how thoroughly I failed her? I know,” I tell him, the vehemence of my own self-loathing clear in my voice. “I know I failed her. I’m not going to ever forgive myself for allowing this to happen, and I’m also not going to stop trying to get to her.”
His lips press together, his gaze tracking over my face. “Good,” he growls before he turns and storms across the open roof and disappears down the spiral staircase.
We both watch him go, and then Ryatt sighs. “He’s been torn up since I told him.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
He gives me a look, and I realize he’s shaved his hair so it’s right at his scalp. His jaw is clean-shaven too. He looks less like me and more like himself.
He walks over to Crest, but the beast snaps his teeth, making Ryatt stop and roll his eyes. “Mean thing, isn’t he? He seems to have done well for you, though.”
Crest huffs and then turns his head to look at me. He leans over and nudges my arm until I lift my hand and give him a pet. Ryatt chuckles. “Every single fucking timberwing looks at you like you shit out fresh meat.”
I shrug and then pat the beast on the flank. “Go on for a hunt and then rest at the Perch. You did well.”
Crest nudges me one more time and then turns and leaps into the air, feathered wings outstretched, probably already lifting his nose and darting his eyes to search for prey.
I can sense my brother’s gaze rolling over my face. “You let him get in a good one,” he says, motioning toward the mark on my jaw.
I shrug. “It’s deserved.”
“And it looks like you let someone else get in a lot of other good ones.”
“It was days ago.”
He pauses. “Did it help?”
“A bit, yeah.”
I let my eyes drift to the mountain, its silhouette bathed in night’s veil.
“It’s not your fault,” Ryatt finally says. “Auren, Drollard, our mother… It’s not your fault.”
I say nothing.
Fault is there whether someone wants to claim it or not.
At least Twig wasn’t in Drollard when the rip closed. At least the boy’s here and safe, because I can’t say the same for his family.
“Slade.”
I look over.
Ryatt chews on his question before spitting it out. “The rip power?”
My teeth grind and I give a terse shake of my head. “Not yet.”
I don’t have that power back yet. I can’t open a rip yet. It hasn’t worked yet.
How long until that yet disappears completely?
My hand delves into my pocket. Fingers pressing around the cut piece of ribbon.
“You saved her life. That’s what you need to focus on right now. The power will come back, and as soon as it does, we will get Auren and our mother back,” he says fervently. “And Digby would rather have Auren alive and somewhere else than dead and here. He’ll come around.”
“Those shouldn’t have been her only two options.”
He blows out a breath. “You’re just as stubborn as he is.”
I take my hand out of my pocket, let it hang defeatedly at my side. “I’m going to bed.”
He doesn’t try to stop me as I walk past him across the roof, my boots echoing down the steps of the spiral staircase. At the bottom, I pass my gray-haired guard, Marcoul, his pose confident, his expression one of dependable familiarity. “Sire,” he greets as I enter the corridor. “I’m glad to see you back.”
I don’t feel like I’m back. I feel like half of me is so far gone I’m about to snap from the stretch.
I stride down the dark corridors, and even though I pass more guards along the way, the castle feels empty.
Or maybe that’s me.
When I’m shut into my bedroom, I fall into bed fully clothed and attempt to sleep. Except her scent is still clinging to the bed, an echo of her warmth leaving me feeling cold. I instantly delve my hand back into my pocket, fingers twisting to that piece of ribbon. If it were just fabric, it would be going threadbare by now.
My chest stabs. Rot gnaws like teeth chomping through my veins and snapping at muscle and sinew. I have her scent, her ribbon, but not her. And this is the last place I saw her. Felt her.
I tear myself from the bed, abruptly getting back to my feet. When I walk in my closet, I yank on fresh clothes, pausing when I see the feathered coat hanging up—the coat she wore when we first met. When her golden aura softened from the glaring beacon that shot up into the sky.
Calling me to her.
Auren’s golden glow is all I see when I close my eyes. This cloying, agonizing poison stretching through my chest is all I feel. My mother’s voice, speaking a single word, is all I hear. Her very last word before she went mute forever. It all echoes through me, threatening to drive me mad.
The goddesses are cruel.
All those years, Auren was here. Right here, in Orea. That kills me the most. The fact that she was just a couple of kingdoms away all that time, and I never knew.
Now, she’s in the fae realm without me.
My shoulders go tense, veins snapping at my jaw, feeling the suffocating emptiness of her absence. Spikes threaten to stab through my spine, punching against my skin in punishment, while the room tilts. It’s only once rot seeps through the floorboards, making them creak and sag, that I manage to yank myself back together with the clench of my teeth and pull the rot away.
I can be in constant motion. I can mete out punishment. I can go without sleep. What I can’t do is sit here a moment longer in this quiet, motionless loathing.
So despite the tiredness dripping down my bones like tar, I stride out of the room with renewed determination. I can’t stop. I won’t. I will keep going. I will keep trying. Because I will tear a rip through this fucking world so I can get to her…
Or die trying.
I claw into my depths like a beast raking through my innards with ferocious urgency. Every raking swipe is agony, but I keep trying to demand that the raw power unearth. That it spill out from my hidden depths.
But it’s empty. Dried up.
Every time I reach for the dregs at my core, I’m only met by a barren void. A hollowness where I was once so full, so capable. An enraged bellow escapes my mouth, the anguished sound bouncing off the mountain and echoing back like a taunt.
This place reeks of shit droppings and blood. That’s all I’ve been smelling for the past three days, every time I come down here.
Here on the dark side of Banded Mountain, where Brackhill Castle can’t be seen and the horizon is crammed full with a thick forest, the timberwings have claimed this as their favored hunting ground. Shoved up against the base of the mountain where moss-covered boulders and felled trees litter the ground, it’s the perfect spot for the beasts to protect their kill. There’s always at least one timberwing here in the shadows, lording over their catch as their maw chomps through flesh and cartilage, picking carcasses clean until all that’s left are the bones.
Right now, with dusk fast approaching, there are two of them, one already settled behind a cluster of boulders, sharp teeth crunching through its meal. I can hear the other one every so often too, either stalking prey on the thick forest floor or flying above the trees, the air whistling through its wings. Crest left earlier with a buck bound in his bite.
Every time I hear flapping wings, I half expect Argo to burst through the trees and land in front of me. But he’s probably still on a ship somewhere in the fucking ocean, and I don’t know what any animal mender will be able to do for him.
Yet another thing out of my control.
I’ve tried to pour out power here every day since I got back, and still, nothing. Rot boils in my veins, fueled by my rage, but the well of raw power stays empty.
It just makes me even more infuriated.
I feel exhaustion tugging at me as incessantly as the wrongness of my separation from her. But I stay fastened to the base of this mountain, failing over and over again. Because failing is better than giving up. Failing means I’m still trying.
At least there’s no one around to see it—to see this pathetic attempt to stop failing. No one else comes here. The timberwings won’t allow it—not even their preferred handlers or riders. The beasts are far too territorial over this feed site to tolerate anyone else. The only exception, apparently, is me.
Which is why it’s really fucking stupid when I hear a timberwing land behind me, and then my brother calls out, “You need to rest.”
I sigh, dropping my hands down to my sides. “You shouldn’t be here.”
The female timberwing past the boulders lets off a guttural warning growl that vibrates through the air. My brother’s beast lets out a responding one, both equally bristled. At least Ryatt has the good sense not to dismount. He doesn’t, however, have the good sense not to irritate me.
“Judging by the amount of sweat staining your shirt and the pissed off look on your face, I’m going to guess that you’ve been out here for hours. Again.”
“You know what I like about this side of the mountain?” I say. “There’s usually no one around to say stupid shit.”
I hear him sigh behind me, and then the trample of his timberwing steps forward, talons scraping over the rocks, its shadow casting over me.
“Any improvement?” he asks tentatively.
I snap around on my heel with a snarl on my face. “What the fuck do you think?”
His lips press into a grim line, hands loosely gripping the reins. “I’ve been trying to give you space since you got back, but your refusal to sleep, to eat, your constant presence here, your revenge crusade… You murdered the Merewens. Rotted half of Third Kingdom. Fucked up Fifth, and none of that made you feel better. You even locked up Queen Kaila’s brother.”
“He fucking deserves it!” I snarl. “He kidnapped her.”
Ryatt raises his hands placatingly. “I get it. I do. But everyone is panicked. All throughout Orea, monarchs are dropping like flies and there’s unrest in every corner. You’re tipping the entire world off the scale.”
“Let it topple.” My words are dark, every bit as black as my withering soul.
His eyes flare. “You don’t mean that.”
I give a humorless laugh. “You don’t think so? Nothing, and I mean nothing, matters if I can’t get back to her.”
“Your people, your Wrath?”
He still doesn’t get it. So I yank up my shirt, exposing my torso.
Letting him see.
I hear him suck in a breath, watch as he takes in the mass of black centering around the organ in my chest. A sickly, poisoned heart, with a snarl of veins staining out of it like dripping ink. It looks even worse in the daylight.
“What is that?”
“My rot,” I say roughly, letting my shirt drop back down. “It’s like it’s rotting me from the inside out. Rotting out my fucking heart.”
“Has that ever happened?”
I shake my head.
“So…why?”
“That piece of rot that was left inside Auren…the piece that I couldn’t get out? I think somehow, she’s using it through her own power. I saw some of it in her gold at the Conflux.”
He gapes at me. “She’s using your rot?”
“I sensed it inside of her before, but as soon as she went through the rip…it felt like someone dug inside my chest and scooped something out. Like there’s a chunk that was ripped out. I’m bleeding out rot. It’s infecting me, affecting my magic, and I swear to fuck, sometimes it twinges, like I can almost feel her. And all of this, it’s just a physical manifestation of what I already knew.”
“What?”
“That I can’t live without her. I won’t stand for it, and neither will my rot. The separation is killing me, Ry. In more ways than one.”
The blood drains from his face.
When he says nothing, I turn back around, cracking my neck to the side before I stretch out my arms again and try for the thousandth time today to call up the raw power that’s abandoned me.
I grit my teeth, my eyes narrowing. Hands shaking with the strain. I feel scales beneath my cheeks scraping beneath the surface of my skin like they want to surge out. But I dig down with intense focus, trying to uncover the magic that’s been eluding me for weeks. I pull on the invisible force, but it’s like trying to pull up the rope in an empty well. No matter how many times I toss in the bucket and try to drag something out, there’s nothing there.
Dizziness suddenly slams into me, and black dots appear in my vision. I feel myself slipping to the right, body ready to fall just like the toppled-down trees around me. But Ryatt somehow gets to me in a flash, catching me beneath my arms before I can collapse. Slugging his shoulders beneath my draped arm, he forces me upright and pulls me toward his beast. The other timberwing that’s still protecting her fresh kill gives a roar of warning that rumbles the air.
