“Now,” she says, voice calm and final, “to Baev’kalath.”
None of us speak.
Ashen glides down in her wake, landing with a soundless thud. She doesn’t look back as she walks toward the cabin. Just reaches out, fingers slipping through his shadowy mane as he shrinks beneath her touch, small enough to follow her inside.
I feel it again, the cold. But this time, it’s not the void.
It’sher.
And I don’t know if I should fall to my knees… or run.
Chapter 27
Amara
Isee the way they look at me.
Never did I think I’d see fear in the eyes of the Fae. But I see it now.
They keep their distance on deck, stepping wide when they pass. They smile, polite, strained. Curious. I can feel the questions in their silence:How did you do it? How did you call them?
But it’s not something words can explain.
Not since the Souls infused me with their power. Ever since then, I canhearthe things that walk, crawl, or slither, and I think they can hear me, too. I asked for help, and the stormwyrms came.
I only hope their destruction marks the last I’ll ever see of the Ithranor Fae.
It doesn’t surprise me they came looking. Anethesis made it clear just how important I was to their cause. They couldn’t return home without me. Even without him to lead them, still they came, his absence proof enough that he’s dead, that he bled out in that cage.
But I am no longer their pawn. My life not theirs to gamble.
My family is returning to the Sundered Kingdoms. I have a life to build there. A future to claim. If this wind holds, we should arrive in a few days.
It can’t come soon enough. The tension aboard this ship is thicker than the air itself. Harder to stomach than the stale scraps they dare call food from the galley.
“Are we almost there?” Ronin asks as I descend the stairs.
“So eager to get off this ship?” I say. “You’re not worried Daed will kill you the second we hit land?”
He grins up at me. “I was never worried, Jewel. I’m just hoping to get some feeling back in my ass before then.”
I pace. He watches me with narrowed eyes, the chain around his ankle rattling as he shifts.
“Please tell me you’re not here to talk more about your marriage,” he says. “If you are, I beg of you, kill me now.”
“They’re treating me differently,” I say. “Since the night with the stormwyrms.”
“Going by the way you described it, I’m not surprised,” Ronin sighs. “Sounds like quite the night. Wish I could’ve been there. Does that kind of power come with being Awakened?”
I shake my head. “The Souls of the Forest gave me the gift to speak with beasts. But I thought it only worked on creatures of the earth. Maybe being Awakened made it stronger. Maybe that’s why Ashen answers my thoughts the way he does.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” he mutters, tugging the iron loop around his ankle. “I watched that cat walk us straight into demon-infested land, no matter how much you begged him otherwise.”
I snort. “Then perhaps the Father Below holds a stronger leash on him than I ever will.”
Ronin tilts his head, studying me. “The Father Below. That’s who that was? Some kind of Fae god?”
My stomach twists. My mind conjures the cloaked figure again. Tentacles writhing beneath a jawless face, fingers like bones stretched too long, like they were made to reach through nightmares. Whatever that thing was, it wasn’t Gygarth. Gygarth is smoke and shadow. But this… this had form. It looked almost human. Which somehow made it worse.
