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Chapter ten

ATALIIA

“What do you want?” I asked, shoving past Andrues as I exited Madam Shath’s apothecary. The door slammed closed behind me, the wooden sign chained to the frame swinging with the movement.

“You missed tonight’s meeting in the war room.” Andrues’s tone was dry as he said the words and a lump formed in my throat.

This was the fourth month in a row I had missed it. I couldn’t bring myself to go. I couldn’t bring myself to help plan for a war I knew we had no chance of winning when I was already losing a battle to myself.

“Oh, was that tonight?” I asked with mock surprise, smirking as I started back to Vatham Street.

There would be no indulging in drink tonight it seemed, not with Dukovich and now Andrues tailing me. He ignored my comments, quietly walking beside me as we weaved our way through the streets.

I stopped, turning to face him and crossed my arms over my chest.

“Are you planning to leave me alone at all for the rest of the night? Or are you my new watch dog that comes out when the sun sets?” I arched a brow as the corners of his lips lifted.

I scoffed, knowing that there was no way around him. Dukovich I could shake, but Andrues . . . he knew me too well, knew my scent well enough to track me with his eyes closed—no matter the skin I was in.

“Very well,” I said, rolling my eyes as I stretched my hand out to him.

Andrues tethered us to the doors of my rooms, dropping my hand as soon as our boots hit solid ground. I pushed them open, feeling a twinge of embarrassment at the mess he was about to see as I gestured my arm toward the open sitting room.

I hadn’t realized until now that he had never been in my quarters; I had always gone to his. Shame pricked at my cheeks as I started gathering the clothing strewn about all the furniture.

A shriek burst from my lips, the clothes in my arms flying into the air as I jumped onto the armchair closest to me.

“What?” Andrues hissed spinning in my direction, his sword half drawn.

“There’s a fucking rat!” I yelled, grabbing onto his shoulders and pulling him in front of me. “There it is!” I screamed, pointing my finger to the ground as it peaked out from under the chair across from me.

I flung a dagger toward it and watched as it scurried across the floor, disappearing underneath the hem of the curtains. A deep chuckle left Andrues’s throat as he slid his sword back into place at his side and stepped out of my white-knuckled grasp.

“It’s not funny, that’s disgusting,” I scolded, cautiously stepping off the chair and scanning the perimeter of the sitting room.

“Well, maybe if you did not live like a wild beast, wild beasts would not find your rooms a cozy place to hide,” Andrues said, lifting a brow in my direction. I scoffed at him, picking the clothing back off the floor.

“I’m messy, not dirty and I swear to the Gods that thing has been following me around for over a month now. I see it everywhere I fucking go,” I snapped as I shoved my clothes into a basket beside the double arched doors opening into the bedchamber.

Andrues walked over to the window, pulling back the curtains and smiled. The rat was sitting on the windowsill, propped up on its hind legs with its long, furless tail draped over the ledge.

“You are afraid of this little guy?” Andrues crooned as he leaned down to look at it. The rat stilled, staring back at Andrues with two beady eyes.

“It’s a rat, Andrues.” I scoffed, walking over to where he stood and tried to shoo it from my window to no avail.

“Rats are still animals and it seems, you have found your familiar,” he said, inspecting the thing. “More accurately, your familiar has found you .” He glanced up at me with a devious smile.

“What the fuck is a familiar?”

“A companion that binds themselves to witches. Though, I have not seen one since the war.”

I groaned at his words.

“A rat . . . bound itself to me?”

A smirk slid across Andrues’s face.

“Seems fitting, does it not?” he asked, chuckling as I scowled at him.

“How do you know it’s a familiar, and not just some vermin?”

“I could be wrong, but it has your scent, and I can sense magic coming from it.”

I recoiled. “It fucking smells like me?”

“Or maybe, you it?”

This time, Andrues grinned at himself and I sent a book flying toward his head. He caught it inches from his skull without looking away from the small animal and gently set it on the windowsill.

“Regardless of what it is, I don’t want a companion. What I want is to be left alone.”

“You do not have a choice,” Andrues said, finally pulling his eyes away from the rodent and standing to his full height.

“Familiars attach themselves only to witches and make themselves known only when a witch’s power surpasses a certain threshold.

They were rare even before the war. There have been few witches throughout history that possess magic great enough to require one.

” He lifted a brow at me and I groaned. “It seems, Ataliia, you are more powerful than we thought.”

I turned away from him and slumped into my favorite armchair. “One of these days, you’ll learn to not underestimate me.”

I kicked off my boots and flung my fingers toward the fire, watching as flames burst to life against the ash-coated stone.

“What exactly are these things supposed to do?”

“I do not know the full extent of it, but they are known to be an extension of the witch they are bound to. Once a familiar attaches itself, their life force is tied to yours. They cannot live if their witch’s heart ceases to beat,” Andrues answered, unstrapping the sword from his side as he fell into the chair across from me.

I swore up at the ceiling.

“A new responsibility I didn’t ask for, lucky me,” I deadpanned.

Andrues leaned back into the chair, making himself comfortable as he clasped his hands over his abdomen and ignored my statement. We sat in silence for a long moment, my words quietly lingering against the popping of the fire.

Finally, I broke the silence.

“I don’t need you to stay with me you know.” I looked down at my nails, picking at the polish painted across the pointed tips.

“I know,” was all Andrues responded as he pulled a small book from his coat pocket and opened its pages.

I studied him in the silence.

My mind wandered back to the first time I saw him, the beauty and darkness that was mixed into his features. Something in the moment he lowered his hood and his eyes locked on mine felt familiar, like he knew there was a darkness in me just by looking.

That had always scared me about him—it still did. I could hide from everyone, but not him. He was no stranger to the dark, and it almost felt as though our darkness called to each other.

That’s why I loved Ardan, why I needed Ardan like the air I breathed. He brought out the light in me, he brought out the good. All of which had been snuffed out when he—

I shook my head, clearing my throat before the sob building there could escape.

I stood abruptly, turning my head to hide the tears threatening to pool behind my eyes.

“I’m going to bed,” I said, the words clipped as I strode toward my bedchamber before Andrues could respond, the static in my ears growing louder with each step I took.

I grabbed the handles of the double doors as quickly as I could and shut them behind me, pressing my back to the cool wood.

I let out a shaky breath as I sniffed away the tears I refused to let fall and pulled the Valerian root from my pocket.

Sleep. All I wanted was sleep.

Andrues was gone when I stepped into the sitting room the next morning and I thanked the Gods I wouldn’t have to see him.

I had woken myself in the middle of the night screaming, like I had every night since we arrived in Locdragoon. It wasn’t the dreams that Landers was concerned about that haunted every single one of my nights—those only came every so often, and I could handle them.

It was the pain of the Uthrens wrapped around my body, the Svech being packed into open wounds. It was reliving every moment of agony in those chains—watching Ardan’s murder—that tore me from sleep in terror.

The Valerian root was not helping like it had when I first started taking it and I’d been slowly taking more and more of it at a time. But these last few weeks it seemed to barely touch the dreams, which was why I needed that tonic.

I pulled on my leathers, and plucked an apple from the parlor table. Elric would show up at my door any moment now and the thought of seeing him this morning made my stomach churn.

I did not have the energy for him today.

Just another person I was avoiding. The list was getting longer by the day.

My head poked out of my chambers, glancing down both sides of the corridor before pulling the door closed behind me.

I took a few quick steps across the hallway, slipping into the chambermaid’s passage and tossed the apple into the air as I took my first step down the enclosed stairwell.

As the apple fell back into the palm of my hand, I brought it to my lips and let my teeth sink into its skin.

Pri and I would be leaving for Ammord tomorrow, a day earlier than we had originally planned. Apparently, one of the Drow generals had been taken to The Silliands to meet with the High Priestesses and Nox, her informant, had information for her that couldn’t wait.

I, on the other hand, would be scavenging. It was my favorite part of this job. When I had no task to complete other than listen to what the people of the realms were whispering about.

I smiled to myself at the thought.

“Ataliia.” My name echoed through the enclosed space and I jolted.

“ Fuck ,” I hissed, as Dukovich stepped out onto the stairs from a connecting corridor. “What the hell are you doing here?” I snapped, pressing a hand to my chest as a low chuckle rolled from his throat.

“Why do I always seem to find you in the most peculiar of places?” Dukovich asked, casually ignoring my question as he slipped in front of me and began his descent.