Page 34

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

T he snow on this side of the border was almost entirely gone, patches of melted and re-frozen slush hiding in the shadows all that remained to say it had ever touched down here at all.

The sun was dipping towards the horizon, still visible above the trees which were growing more abundant with every step we took.

The coil of smoke I’d set as our destination had become little more than a whisp that was almost impossible to pick out against the glare of the dying light but I was determined to find its source all the same.

We needed fresh supplies and that meant risking an encounter with the Fae of Pyros to claim them.

Bastian prowled ahead of me at my command, the rope which bound his hands together held in my fist to connect us.

He’d said nothing to me since I’d pointed him in the direction I wanted him to take and done nothing other than precisely what I’d instructed.

I’d have loved to believe that my prisoner had given in to this fate and his captivity at my hands but there was nothing about the beast I’d bound to my will which would suggest anything of the sort.

I fought a shiver as the northerly wind swept around us, the bite of it stinging my hands and cheeks.

I eyed Bastian’s bare back for some sign that he too was suffering from the sting of the cold but there was no gooseflesh lining his skin, no shivers wracking his near-naked body.

In fact, he strode along wearing a knotted blanket with the same confidence Prince Dragor held while wearing his finest battle leathers.

I supposed his attire was the least of his concerns but there was a menacing kind of confidence to him which left me on edge.

By no means had I tamed this wild creature.

The ink decorating his skin roamed across the expanse of his back and my gaze kept falling to it, the strong lines and bold patterns depicting stars spilling from a dark sky across his shoulders which became the backdrop for a depiction of The Tower card from a tarot deck that dominated the rest of his back.

I didn’t want to be curious about him, didn’t want to ask a single question of him but the reasoning for that card taking up so much space on his body was nagging at me.

The Tower itself was like every tattoo on him, entirely painted in black ink, running down the centre of his spine, its top struck by lightning bolts while flames consumed it and Fae leapt to their death from its windows.

The artwork was among the best I’d ever seen, the flames seeming to flicker, the terror on the faces of the falling Fae so real that I could feel their panic as I looked upon them trapped there mid-fall, ever awaiting their doom.

The card the tattoo was based on meant chaos, disruption and destructive change and I couldn’t help but feel like that description was nothing short of apt for the beast of a man who bore it.

The question was, what form of destruction would he reap upon me?

“Why The Tower?” I asked as the sounds of our footsteps became a burden of endless repetition which I felt desperate to break.

My trips across The Waning Lands prior to this one had always included the company of my two twisted shadows and their banter and bickering had always filled the silence on the road in the best of ways.

I realised now that the only happiness I had ever really known had been during those moments with the two of them, traversing the lands we weren’t welcome in, in secret, spending nights on watch and days on our guard.

I’d always been so focused on whatever mission we were carrying out but the truth was that my satisfaction in completing those tasks had always been more about the journey than the assassinations, thefts or spy tasks we’d been sent to accomplish.

The moment we returned home or became entangled in battles I had to replace the mask I always wore to hide the truth of myself and though I didn’t think I even knew how to remove that mask entirely anymore, it had certainly come closest to slipping when I was alone with Moraine and Dalia in the wild places of this world.

Bastian cut me a look over his broad shoulder, the silver in his eyes molten with contempt.

“Don’t you know your deck well enough to surmise the answer for yourself?” he sneered.

“I know the symbolism well enough, I just wondered if you had a better reason for it than wanting to paint yourself with a sign saying ‘danger’. I figured your general demeanour and the ability to shift into a beast of myth and legend bigger than any other in The Waning Lands warned Fae of that without the need for writing it in ink upon your flesh.”

“Perhaps you should consider painting your body with a warning sign then because you are considerably less intimidating to gaze upon at first glance,” he replied, fixing his eyes on the horizon once more and acting as though I wasn’t at his back, holding his leash.

“I have a fondness for being underestimated,” I countered. “Besides, my reputation precedes me and I can assure you that it’s intimidating enough to forgo any signage.”

Bastian said nothing to that so I pushed on.

“ Your reputation however does not precede you. And in a land which has gone so long without Dragons, I have to wonder why that is? How did you stay hidden for so long? And why?”

“Hidden? Is that what you’d call it?”

“What else?”

Bastian rounded on me so fast that I only just managed to dig my heels into the dirt before he yanked on the rope which tethered him to me with enough force to knock me from my feet if I hadn’t been quicker to react.

Instead, I was yanked toward him, my chest smacking into his as he advanced on me, his silver eyes flashing with a fury so potent it pinned me in place.

I’d drawn a dagger and pressed it to his throat as he bore down on me, but he didn’t seem to care one bit as the metal dug into his skin.

“There aren’t words for the hell I suffered in that place,” he snarled, smoke rolling up his throat and spilling over my skin as I glared into his eyes, my head tilted back and his angled down to compensate for the massive difference in our heights.

The heat of his words scorched the air, the fire in his chest so powerful I could feel the burn of it through my leathers where we were pressed together. “There was only ever dark until…”

“Until what?” I hissed, my heart hammering, my grip on my blade tight, though it might as well have not existed between us at all for all the heed Bastian gave to it.

“Until you ,” he exhaled, the brutality of his accusation striking me before he turned sharply away once more and continued to stalk ahead of me.

The rope between us jerked tight, and I jammed my dagger back into my belt as I hurried to match his pace.

I was the reason he’d been freed from that place and now I was the reason he would be returning to it – or worse.

I had no real idea what Dragor planned to use him for once I delivered him but that wasn’t my problem.

I was only the tool my prince wielded and I’d already found out the hard way what became of letting myself step beyond the bounds of the rules he laid out for me.

There was only one thing left to me now anyway and my vengeance wouldn’t make any space for guilt. Whatever had led Bastian to this moment was no concern of mine.

So I strode into the ever-darkening landscape of my enemies’ lands, a forest closing in around us while my eyes again lingered on The Tower before me and I let myself wonder if the destruction painted on this Dragon’s flesh had always been meant for me.

Because I felt at one with that burning tower.

All alone in the world with nothing left for me aside from the torment which would haunt me until my inevitable demise.