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The wind carried more than brine on its gusts. Guttural screams pierced the air, echoing out into the sea where they were consumed by the hungry waves. My bones froze, chilling my blood as Damien’s cruel smile finally appeared.
“I hadn’t planned on killing them so quickly,” Damien whispered, suddenly standing behind me. His ungloved hand trailed down my back, feeling the jagged scars he had cut into it. “But someone needed to suffer for the Blade’s treason, and you left them completely unprotected.”
A high-pitched wail echoed through the corridors. The sound hit me like I had dragged a blade across each one of their throats myself, their blood splattering my face.
Damien pushed me between the shoulder blades. “It’s time to see what happens when the Blade tries to cut the Crown.”
I took one step and fell to the ground. “No.”
I hated how defeated I sounded. I looked up at Damien expecting to see anger at being refused, but his good eye only flickered with delight.
He lifted his hand and the earth beneath me shifted to cold stone tile smeared with amber blood. “There’s no escape from this, Keera,” he whispered before the screams started again.
I woke with a skull-splitting headache that left me vomiting on the floor. The bile was black just like the elixir I swallowed. I hadn’t fallen into a dream, but the effects of downing thewinvraelixir were not worth it. My entire body ached, much worse than before, spurred by my misuse of the liquid. There was only one thing that could make me feel better and keep the dreams away.
My throat seared as I stretched along the mattress. The suns had already set and the city was quiet once more. I pulled myself to the edge of the bed and stared at the empty vial and scattered wineskins on the floor. Even without the dreams, I could still hear the Shades’ screams as Damien forced his new Arsenal to line them up one by one. He had made sure I’d witnessed every death, again and again.
I had tried limiting my sleep. In those first few weeks, I’d haunted the empty groves each night like a ghost, needing to stay in motion to keep the pull of sleep off my shoulders. But no matter how brief, no matter what time, when I finally succumbed, Damien would find me in my dreams and turned them into nightmares.
Worse than nightmares, into his memories. They were the proof that I had spent my life trying to protect the Shades and I had failed.
I lasted three weeks before I had my first taste of wine. It seemed to quiet the dreams. I had spent decades keeping my dreams of Brenna at bay with each sip and knew it would do the same once more. Desperate to sever the connection Damien had with my mind, it had become my only choice. I had already failed so many people, failing myself barely took any effort at all.
CHAPTERTHREE
“DAMN YOU, NIKOLAI!” I yelled, shooting a bag of flour across the floor. It dusted the kitchen in beige powder. My footprints trailed after me as I opened the bottom cupboards looking for a spare bottle of wine or ale. My entire body ached with fatigue, but I couldn’t fall asleep without something to keep the dreams away.
I had already checked the lower storerooms. They had been completely emptied. I suspected Lash and Nikolai had put all of it in the main pantry behind the kitchen but it was sealed with a rock too heavy and thick for me to move. My thighs burned from trying, even though I knew three of the strongest Elverin could not move the stone. Lash had used his touch of earth gift to seal it by magic.
My nostrils flared against the door. Breaking the seal that the Light Fae had cast to temper myValitheriangifts had not only increased my healing powers but had given me some control overthe wind too. I glanced down at my hip, where the scar of the seal was still carved into my skin. Perhaps I had also been given the gift of earth but it had yet to show itself?
I slowed my breathing and imagined roots climbing along the gray stone, clasping the boulder within their web before rolling the door back far enough for me to slip in. I focused on the warmth in my body and tried to extend that warmth to the boulder but nothing happened.
The door stayed shut.
I grabbed the nearest object off the counter and chucked it at the stone. The clay vase shattered against the rock. Its tiny pieces scattered along the floor, leaving long wispy trails in the flour.
“Rough night?” Killian asked from the entrance of the kitchen. He was leaning against the door, the perfect tableau of nonchalance, but his thumb was almost raw from where he had picked the cuticles around his nail.
“I can’t sleep.” I bit my tongue to keep any other truths from escaping. I was too restless and it was too loose.
Killian frowned. He had not cut his hair since that day in the capital. His blond curls hung low across his brow until his ink-stained palm pushed them back. In that first week, he had tried many times to talk about what had happened. Not just Hildegard’s death, but what Damien had revealed about my Trials. My body tensed at the thought of it, stiffening my loose tongue. I couldn’t tell Killian anything about that night and bring those memories to the front of my mind. What if Damien found out? If he gained access to my memories and discovered the truth, there would be no stopping his rampage. Damien had already proven how far he was willing to go when he felt bested.
“Nikolai stationed people at every nearby portal if you’re thinking of raiding someone else’s kitchen.” There was a touch of humorin Killian’s words, but it was false and hollow. He wore the same expression that everyone else in Myrelinth wore around me now. A vile combination of pity and disappointment.
I gnawed on my cheek. “How many guards?”
Killian frowned even more deeply. “We’re yourfamily, Keera. We will play the role of jailers if we must, but we would all prefer that you try to follow Nikolai’s regimen. There are other ways we can help you—”
“I don’t want your help!” I screamed so loudly my voice cracked.
Killian grabbed my arm and jerked me back to face him. “Even if you are right and all is lost. Is this how you would want Hildegard to remember you? Is this how you honor her death? With disdain and hopelessness?”
I wrenched my arm free and balled my hands into fists. I had no qualms about punching Killian in the jaw again. “Hildegard no longer has expectations for me. They died the day your brother slit her throat.”
I waited for Killian to flinch or back away. He had told me how guilty he felt for his legacy, that he thought himself responsible for his father’s actions. I knew that extended to his brother’s now that the crown sat upon Damien’s head. I had selected my words with purpose, sharpening them to fine points, before I shot them his way. But if they had pierced him as I’d hoped, Killian didn’t show it.
His face softened with his shoulders as he looked at me. “And what about Brenna?” His eyes fluttered to my forearm. He had gone months pretending he had never seen my scars, but his gaze betrayed him now.
