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Chapter Twenty-Five
Kade
She stood there looking lost, her hands tucked under her arms to keep them warm, her breath clouding in the chill night air. She spun to the sound of our steps as we approached her. Said nothing, just stared.
“Come with us,” I said to her, holding out my arm.
After a moment she threaded her arm through mine, shivering against the warmth of my skin. The three of us set off into the heart of the village. Even though it was late, there were soldiers milling about, huddling over fires, or drowning their worries in steins of ale. The village was nothing like I remembered it.
It was on these once barren streets that Finn and I grew into adolescence. I scowled at the memories catapulting to the forefront of my mind. The Fae here never really accepted us, and all but shunned us after the Alchemists slaughtered our parents at Mt. Ignis. No one knew what to say, or how to react.
We stayed for a year after they passed, until the change made us immortal, and we drafted ourselves into the Horde army—looking for any sort of escape from the dead-end place we’d once called home. It took only three years for us to become some of the best warriors the Horde had. And only a year after that Queen Enya took notice. Inviting us to drink of the waters of the Sidhe.
The nobles were outraged that we—two orphaned Draconian war dogs were given the right that was reserved only for nobles. But we’d earned it. And if we hadn’t been deserving, those who’d died long before wouldn’t have Graced us.
“Where are we going?” Liana asked, her voice monotone.
I tsked her, wrapping her icy hand in my warm one.
“You’ll see,” Finn answered, “It isn’t much further.
Once we’d passed the main part of the town and turned west into the sparsely wooded forest, the cabin came into view. Squatting amid the trees. The roof caving in. The front porch overgrown with weeds and vines.
As though sensing exactly what the place was, Liana jerked her chin up to meet my steady gaze. “Is this?” she asked, looking to the cabin and back to me. To Finn.
“It was our home. Before.”
It stood empty all the many years since we left it. We’d never even attempted to sell it. And if we had, no one would have made an offer. If the location didn’t deter them, the whispers surrounding it would’ve.
The Fae who lived there before us fell in the battle of Mt. Noctis. And then our parents fell in the slaughter at Ignis. The townsfolk in these parts were prone to a superstitious nature. But Finn and I knew better. It was just a house. And the last place where a small piece of our parents was preserved.
The wood creaked and groaned as we ascended the three steps up to the front door. Finn shouldered it open, and we stepped into the dark.
I ignited my Grace, letting short flames twirl around my upheld hand, lighting the single room the cabin held.
Liana pulled her arm out from mine and took a good look around. Her gaze roving over the three beds, one large and two smaller. The hearth still covered in ash and black stains. And the small table where we shared our meals, four stools still set around it.
It had been years, and yet every time I came here, it was like coming home. I could still feel the warmth of the hearth on my younger self’s face as I stared into the glowing coals, waiting for mom’s veal stew to be ready so I could devour bowl after bowl until my stomach was near bursting with fullness and dad had to carry me to bed because I’d fallen asleep at the table again.
I blinked away the memory, letting the fire and steam within me burn out the ache in my gut. Finn and I would never voice it out loud, but we’d both waited for this moment since the day the news came about our parents. It was why we’d conscripted. To take revenge on the race of man that took them from us.
And now was our chance. So then why was it so bittersweet? Was it because it wasn’t our lives they were after? They worked in service of the Mad King and their goal was to take the throne of night, probably tolivein our territory. But in order to do that—they would have to kill Liana.
It wasn’t about revenge anymore, not really.
It was about protecting what mattered most.
Her eyes brimmed, and she turned back to Finn and I. “It reminds me of home,” she said in a whisper. And I knew she didn’t mean the palace. She meant her home on the isle among the seven sisters. In the twenty-two years she spent there, they’d become her family. I wondered if she missed them as fiercely as we missed ours.
“You’ll go back there, someday,” I told her.
It was a promise I intended to keep.
“Stay here with me tonight?” she asked, and my lips split into a smile.
Finn smiled, too. “I’ll go find some food and drink,” he offered, and turned to head back the way we’d come.
“I’ll start the fire,” I said, kneeling near the small hearth where several dry logs sat in a basket, waiting to bring light and warmth to the desolate place.
