AllFreeNovel
Share Us
They nodded and left without another word.
I tied my horse to a post and carried my bags inside the inn. I laid some coin on the desk in front of the innkeeper. He was a middle-aged man, short enough that I could see where his hair had thinned to nothing on his scalp.
“The same room as last time?” he croaked, eyeing the silver sword at my neck. He swallowed hard as he swiped the coins from the desk.
I cut across the hall and marched up the stairs, ignoring the scent of fresh wine and cooked meat drifting from the kitchens. I pulled out the vial and placed a single drop of black liquid on my tongue before my throat could even begin to burn. I had better things to be thinking of than wine.
Like the Shadow and where he had really taken those Halflings.
I didn’t know much about the Shadow, but I knew enough to know that he hadn’t murdered twelve Halflings in their sleep. If there was no sign of them left, it was because they were no longer there.
They weren’t dead, but free.
The real question was why create the scene at all? I thought about what the Shades had said. They would make haste for Volcar. I wondered how many Shades Hildegard had reassigned to the western city. The entire weight of the Order coming to search for the Shadow.
I threw the letter into the hearth and watched it burn.
They wouldn’t find the Shadow in Volcar. In all the months he had been working against the Crown, he had never left a trace. Sometimes it was days before his thefts were discovered, and even then, the only thing that tied him to it were the whispers of his name in alleys and taverns nearby. He had never made a spectacle of himself. Not once.
This wasn’t a show of strength. It was a diversion.
The Shadow wanted our eyes on Volcar so he could wreak havoc someplace else. I needed to discover where that someplace was before he laid another attack against the king. My hands gripped the mantel of the fireplace as I watched the flames dance among the logs.
Until now, the Shadow had always been one step ahead. I’d trailed his movements across the kingdom, collecting bits of information long after he had walked back into the shadows, and waited for him to reappear to start my search again.
I smirked at the flames. That had been good enough when I spent my nights drowning in wine. Now, I had all the time in the world to ruminate on the Shadow’s plans. For the first time, I felt likeIwas leading the dance between us.
I didn’t know if the Shadow would be waiting for me in Aralinth, but I was confident he didn’t want me there.
All the more reason to go.
There was only one northern pass into the Faeland. It cut through the Burning Mountains, the range that split the Faeland from the rest of the kingdom. I restocked my stores in Caerth and rode toward the foothills at first light. White clouds covered the peaks, blending into the snow that already began to pile among the highest mountains.
Thankfully, Wiseman’s Way weaved through the cliffs, avoiding any elevation too high to pull a trading cart through. Even with the flat ground, it took days to cross the mountains. The first three were easy rides, the even fields outside Caerth gave way to the thick forest that lined the base of the range. The tallest of the trees were an ancient kind of birch. Their white trunks only grew close to the Faeland. The nearby peasants said their roots needed magic to survive.
From afar, the forest looked like it was consumed in flame as the blazing leaves fluttered in the wind. The sight is what gave the mountains their name, but inside the forest, the trees didn’t look like fire. Instead, their crimson leaves reminded me of blood. Dark red veins lined the rounded leaves that fell onto the trail. In the sunlight, some of them even looked amber. It sent a chill down my spine.
I knew when I reached the midway point through the mountains because the forest changed. The tall birches still grew, but their trunks were larger, wider than my horse. Their branches weaved together in a canopy of gold instead of red. The underbrush changed too. Plants of every size and color sprouted between the birches. Trees that only existed in the Faeland shot through the brush, some of their trunks twisted together in an everlasting embrace.
The forest was rich with magic. I had officially crossed into the Faeland.
My twin blades were holstered at the side of my horse rather than my back. I wore my bow and quiver instead, readying it each time I heard a noise. I wasn’t worried about running into Fae this far from Aralinth, but there were creatures in this wood that did not exist in the kingdom. Magical beings that walked unseen among the forest, their skin changing to match the fronds and thicket. If the stories were to be believed, some could even shift their skins altogether. Changing into deer or foxes, luring a horse into a false sense of security only to rip its neck open as soon as night fell.
I couldn’t sleep well in the forest. My skin crawled with every touch of breeze, sensing something in the air that barely existed in the kingdom. Magic. It was palpable. I could taste the tang of it on my lips. Even my horse grew unsteady at night. His ears flicked back and forth, listening to whatever lurked in the dark.
I would lie awake for hours next to the fire. Whatever sleep I did manage was chased away by my nightmares. They were getting worse. I didn’t know if that was because I hadn’t touched a drink in a month or because the magic set me on edge.
The book Prince Killian had given me turned out to be a good distraction. I was slow reading the Elvish scroll but found the words interesting enough. Some of the stories were ones I’d heard before: Elvish accounts of the Blood Wars, King Aemon’s descent into Elverath, and the destruction he had caused the Elves who lived there. The essays lacked the royal ministrations of the history I had learned. I recognized the king that existed in those pages, a brutal man with a hunger for power. So different than the version that was told across the kingdom. Of a man who sought to purify the lands from all abomination. Elves and Halflings alike.
Is that what the prince wanted me to realize? That the Fae—and the Elves they hid—had good reason to move against the king? I’d never doubted their distaste for the Crown. In fact, I shared it. But they got to live their lives almost entirely free of the king’s influence. They were not chained to serve the throne. Forced to work fields to feed Mortals and fill their coffers. Forced to hunt their own to please a conqueror.
No, that was the reality they had left to the Halflings. As much as the king abused us, the Fae had let it happen. They had taken their fraction of the lands they once ruled and left the Halflings behind. I wasn’t empathetic to their struggles against the Crown. From where I stood, they had won.
My sixth night in the mountains was longer than any other. Only one moon shone in the sky, casting a dim light over the trees that played tricks with my eyes. The wind whispered through the leaves loud enough that my arm flinched against my dagger with every snap of a twig. I wanted a drink to numb my fears and lull me into a deep, dreamless sleep.
But that was all. Wanted. My throat didn’t burn with yearning for a taste of wine. My brow had not sweat in days. Even thinking about the sweet scent of fresh wine did not ignite a craving. I let out a deep breath. A rogue piece of burnt wood turned orange against my exhale, rolling back into the fire.
My hand held the vial ofwinvraelixir, the liquid over halfway gone. I swirled it in the glass, lit by the flames dancing beside me. I realized it wasn’t black but a deep violet that clung to the sides of the vial. I put it back in my pocket without taking any. Better to save it for when the cravings returned.
