Page 100 of The Edge of Darkness

“Could she have broken through if she’d been given the chance to?” Morah asked.

“The wards were infused long ago with a very powerful form of Old Magic. They cannot be easily broken. She may have pushed a shadow through it, but her body never crossed the barrier. I think, if she thought she could have crossed, she would have tried.”

Aremis drummed his fingers on the wooden table. “Be that as it may, I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Skadi.”

Niall tilted his head, as if recalling a memory. Then, he said, “That was the presence I felt a few weeks ago. It looked like a dark storm of shadows over Salterra. It was her.”

I remembered what he spoke of. The shadowed mass that had churned on itself as it tore across the horizon over The Wastelands, then disappeared as quickly as it came. “Do you think that was her . . . arrival?”

“Could have been. Or, it could have been the two of them preparing for something.”

Skadi . . . and Lyceius.

Niall worked his jaw, deep in thought. “Nivelle,” he said, “do not speak a word of this to Torin.”

The witch narrowed her gaze at him. “I wasn’t planning on it . . . but, why?”

“Because if she knows her sister is here, she may very well abandon her plan to help us.”

“But she made a bargain.”

“She’s a goddess. Do you really think she’s going to uphold a bargain with a fae for some land in the mountains, when her sister, who wages war in her wake, has found a way to show up here?”

“The gods are bound to honor bargains just as we are.”

Niall considered that for a moment, then said, “Regardless, Skadi’s arrival stays between us, for now. Until we figure this out.”

Nivelle dipped her head in agreement.

Roirdan leaned forward and met Niall’s stare. “Say the word, and I’ll have the army on standby immediately.”

“Do it,” Niall answered. “I want a patrol at the northern gate indefinitely. Remic, see to it that we are alerted to any movement in The Wastelands. If a bird flies in the wrong fucking direction, I want to know about it. Aremis, Nivelle, Auren, we’re headed east—now. Silas, I need you here, guarding The Keep and watching out for Maeson, Morah, and Fallon while we’re gone. We’ll be back before nightfall.”

Everyone nodded.

We needed answers.

If the wraith truly existed, all that we could do was pray she had the information we sought . . . and was willing to give it up without consequence.

The wraith was a mountain legend. A figure of lore—at best.

Or so we all thought.

The witch seemed to have labeled us as fools for thinking a wraith could survive in these lands, but I’d been watching her as we made the trek into the mountains. She was just as curious as we were.

And she was on edge. Every twig that snapped, every rustle of wings as birds took flight from the pines, caused the witch to whip around in search of the source. I half expected her to break her damn neck when Aremis stumbled on a rock and slid a few feet down the ravine we were climbing. She was probably still wound tight from what I’d heard was a rather spirited training session with my commander earlier.

In any case, it was reassuring that she was on high alert. Each of us needed to be, not only because of what had just happened at the northern gate, but because this area in particular, where the rugged eastern peaks of Calledan spilled over into Vahrenhall, was known for its treacherous moss-covered cliffs and damp cave systems—all thanks to the Highland Court’s wet climate and continuous cloud cover.

It was also not very far from the border, where, just on the other side, the Dreki were bred and kept.

“If you’re quiet enough, you might just hear a Dreki’s roar off in the distance,” I said, smirking as I glanced over my shoulder at Nivelle. Her frown remained, but her eyes flickered with something like uncertainty as her foot hesitated on its next step. “They’re excellent at camouflage. Some of them can even appear as a boulder. You’d walk right past one and never even know it, until its maw was poised to swallow you whole.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Auren said, giving me a playful eye roll while gesturing for Nivelle to keep moving. “He’s just being a menace.”

I touched my hand to my heart. “My love, you wound me.”

“The fault is yours.” She tossed me a playful grin. “Quit scaring Nivelle.”