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CHAPTERONE
ACOLD WAVE CRASHEDover me and drowned out my dreamless sleep. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the first time I’d been woken up, in a stable, by having a bucket of water poured on my head. “Do you have a death wish?” I seethed through my teeth as I reached for the dagger at my hip, but it wasn’t there.
Gerarda Vallaqar peered down at me with pure revulsion etched into her round cheeks and flat nose. If I didn’t feel like there was an ax sticking out of my skull, I might’ve found it unsettling. Gerarda was short for a Halfling; she hadn’t inherited any Elvish height from her immortal ancestors and was only as tall as a small Mortal woman. It might have been the first time she’d ever looked down at me in her entire life.
From her smug grin, I could tell she was enjoying it.
“This is pathetic, Keera.” She waved her hand over the stall that had been my bed for the night. I was propped against a watering trough with a saddle blanket strewn over my legs. There was no horse in the stall with me but the scent of its shit lingered on my clothes.
I rubbed my temples, which did nothing to quell the headache. There was only one thing that could. “You speak as if Imeantto spend the night in the stables.”
Gerarda folded her arms over her chest. There was no longer any hint of a grin on her face. Only a stern expression that she’d learned from Hildegard, our mentor when we had trained together at the Order. I flinched and looked away. I didn’t need any more reminders that Hildegard was dead. Or that her death had been my fault.
“That only makes it more pathetic,” Gerarda mumbled. “You drank yourself into such a stupor that you couldn’t find your way back to your room?”
Every muscle in my stomach screamed as I pulled myself into an upright position. I patted the ground, feeling for my wineskin. “I knew where my burl was. It didn’t move.” Even the sound of my own voice rattled the ache in my skull. It wasn’t finding my burl that had been the problem, it was my inability to get up the Myram tree without falling to my death. If anything, I had been responsible. Not that Gerarda would give me the credit.
My fingers rubbed against something soft. I pulled the cork free from the skin and hung it over my mouth. A few droplets of rich Elvish wine splattered against my tongue and the burning in my throat eased a little. I let the wineskin drop to the floor of the stall and pulled myself up onto my feet. I slipped and whacked my entire body into the wall of roots.
Gerarda took a quick step backward. She made no move to help.
I closed my eyes and ignored the pain radiating from my ribs. They weren’t broken and the bruise would be mended by my healinggift before it had time to fully ink my skin. “If I’m such a disappointment, why are you here?”
Gerarda glanced down the aisle between the two rows of stables to where the root-packed ceiling gave way to the outside air. “The Shadow is digging a hole around the Myram with his pacing.” Gerarda shrugged. “He may be too cowardly to say that you’re a pathetic excuse for a savior, but I’m not. Your sorrows are not bigger than this war, Keera. Even if you’ve given up.”
I scoffed and slammed my hands on the top of the stable door. It rattled hard enough to shake the others in a series of metal clanks that echoed down the corridor. “Given up? Welost, Gerarda. I may be a drunk, but I am not a fool. I attended the same meetings as you.”
Gerarda’s black eyes narrowed. “So youchooseto do nothing while our sisters are left at the mercy of Damien? Left to be farmed for their blood until they’re too weak to breathe?”
My shoulders sunk to the ground. Gerarda spoke as if being haunted by what had happened to the Shades wasn’t the very reason I needed to pull myself into that familiar oblivion each night. “The Shades haven’t been spotted since Damien crowned himself king.” Two moons had passed since then. I didn’t say the rest aloud. If Gerarda had any hope that the Shades were still alive, I would not be the one to take it from her. Even when I knew there was no hope to be found.
Their helpless screams rung in my ears. I shivered at the memory. My throat dried as I swallowed down the truth. Gerarda would come to accept their deaths in her own time. I didn’t need to give her the details.
She folded her arms. I could have recited the script of her argument before her lips even opened. I thought it was best if we skipped to the end. “What is there left to do?” I threw my arms into the air. “Damien has raised an army larger than this continent hasever seen and adds more swords to it still. The Light Fae are gone. They arenevercoming back, and neither is their magic. The Shades are—” I stopped myself and kicked the door of the stable. A strong gust of wind blew down the corridor hard enough that Gerarda had to grab a root to stay upright.
I took a deep breath and tried to get my newfound powers under control. “Any mission to free the Shades would only end with more lives lost. Don’t blame me for stating a truth you refuse to name.”
Gerarda stretched up on the tips of her toes but she still didn’t reach my chin. There was nothing but cold disgust on her face as she glowered at me. “Are you calling me a coward?”
I shook my head, already exhausted from the argument. “We can’t rescue the Shades with a team of two, Gerarda. So who would you ask? Who would you call to sacrifice themselves for a fruitless mission purely to assuage your guilt?”
She pursed her brown lips as she fell back on her feet.
I didn’t give her time to answer; my words were hot steam that I needed off my tongue. “I hope you never need to become as practiced at measuring the weight of people’s lives as I have, but I didn’t justgive up. The numbers are against us. We have no great army and our swords and arrows can’t match the weapons Damien has created. The best we can hope for is that he doesn’t try to take the Faeland to prove himself a better conqueror than his father. We must try to find a way to be content spending our days here.”
And forgetting what happens at night. I pulled a small vial of spare wine from my pocket and drank it in a single swallow.
Gerarda’s teeth snapped together. “But we havemagic.”
“Barely.” My eyes crossed as they adjusted to the sunlight peering in from the outer meadow.
Gerarda raised a pointed brow. The movement was so quick and precise it reminded me of the throwing knives she’d alwayscarried with her as the Dagger. They weren’t with her now. Perhaps she’d left them behind along with her title when we fled the capital. She jutted her head to the side. “We have a dozen magic wielders.”
Of course Gerarda was arrogant enough to count all the Fae when Feron had yet to decide to join the rebellion.
It took every ounce of will I had not to grab her by the arms and shake her. “We haveeleven. And that’s including me and a Dark Fae who can barely control our powers, let alone use them.” I couldn’t bring myself to say Riven’s name. Even knowing that he was outside somewhere in the city waiting for me made me feel sick enough to want to drown myself in the watering trough.
Gerarda lifted her hands in exasperation and yanked open the stable door. I didn’t know if she was letting me out or preparing to fight me inside. “You haven’t even attempted to train your powers!”
