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CHAPTER FIFTY FOUR

I worked my jaw as I strode away from Everest, my gaze fixed on Bastian who prowled towards me with his own look of determination in his silver shot eyes.

“What’s it to be?” he asked me, not even bothering to glance at the surrounding battlefield, as if the screams of dying Fae were utterly insignificant to him in comparison to my next words.

“My curse binds you until you set foot on the land of Stormfell,” I said firmly, nodding towards Ironwraith high above us to the south of the battlefield. “Follow me there, then run. I can’t offer you more than that.”

“Can’t you?” he growled, and I raised my chin at that challenge.

“What is it you seem to think you see in me, Bastian?” I asked plainly.

“Because I have only ever been noted for my worth to other Fae. I have been used, coveted, betrayed in all forms, and abused by all Fae I have sworn loyalty to aside from those who died in thanks for their connection to me. And I can tell you that it has left me lacking in any of the emotions you seem to be seeking when you look at me the way you are now.”

“Have you always been in the habit of spouting bullshit until you believe it yourself?” Bastian growled. “Look at me. Look what I’ve endured and what I’ve lost and yet I emerged from that cavern because of you . A warrior from another land, born to be my enemy.”

“I am your enemy,” I protested but it was as weak as it sounded in my own head.

Bastian scoffed. “Enemies don’t kiss the way we did, spectre. Enemies don’t go to the lengths we have to keep one another alive.”

“You’re my ticket to getting what I want. My orders are to keep you alive,” I snapped. “Besides, I’m offering you freedom. All you have to do is fly up there with me to break the curse, then run.”

“Run where?” he sneered. “Run to those people over there who are trying so very hard to kill us?”

He threw an arm out towards the battlefield where Stonebreakers bellowed as they fought, Earl Tarlord still standing in the heart of them, his body splattered with gore, his expression terrible to behold.

“You’re a Dragon with earth magic, Bastian. Of course they’ll take you back.”

“Back?” He shook his head, striding away from me before turning sharply and lurching into my personal space.

“There is no back for me! Don’t you fucking get that?

I’m alone here. Everyone I ever knew died in the time I spent stuck in an unchanging form.

I know one Fae in this entire cursed land and that’s you, Vesper! ”

His accusation struck me like a blow, the use of my name from his lips coming as a shock and a sting at once because he had hurled it at me in anger, weaponizing it the way everyone always weaponised everything against me.

The backs of my eyes burned beneath his fury but I swallowed the emotion down and tempered my will in steel.

“I fell for the confessions of a Stonebreaker before,” I breathed. “He was the man who robbed me of my sisters. So look where that got me.”

Bastian straightened at my accusation, his silver gaze darkening to molten metal and the wall which we had picked apart between us, brick by tumbling brick, suddenly slammed right back into place.

I didn’t flinch. It was what I had wanted after all. What I’d said to Everest had been right. I wasn’t a hero and I wasn’t a saviour either. The more time I spent with this man, the more easy it became to lose my focus but I couldn’t do that.

I wrapped my fingers around the vial of blood at my neck, taking strength in the oath I had given to my sisters. I wouldn’t fail them again.

A boulder the size of a small house slammed into the ground beside us, grit and dust surrounding us in a cloud and when it settled, there was nothing but fury left in Bastian’s gaze.

“To Stormfell then,” he spat. “And I will run, spectre. But don’t you go forgetting the other promise you made to me because I will come to collect on it.

I’ll claim your death just as you promised me and you’ll think of this moment then.

As my hands lock around that pretty throat of yours, you’ll remember this as the chance you had to turn from this path.

But instead you chose to cling to it like the loyal servant you were forged into by Fae who never once gave a shit if you lived or died. ”