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CHAPTER NINETEEN

I pressed my back to the rough bark of the pine tree I was using to take cover and peered out carefully. I narrowed my eyes at the small raiding village we’d found sheltered between low hills on this rocky outcrop at the edge of Pyros’s civilisation.

At a guess, I estimated there were no more than a hundred Fae residing here, the place an outpost with the intention of relaying information about Skyforger movements.

They weren’t even set up for battle, instead the buildings were camouflaged, dug into the earth and hidden beneath trees and rocks.

I doubted it would have been visible at all from above.

There were watchpoints camouflaged in the treetops and hidden telescopes which jutted out between stones, their glass tips occasionally catching in the sunlight.

We were lucky to have found this place at all – the smoke we had seen hadn’t been from a fire but from a training session the soldiers posted here had been taking part in.

I could tell now that no smoke would usually stain the sky here to give the location away.

As we’d crept closer to the village, we’d passed a unit of twenty foot soldiers all headed toward the magical barrier, no doubt set to investigate the disturbance we’d caused when crossing through it.

My training had saved us, the faint taste of their desires on the wind alerting me to their approach and buying us the time we’d needed to hide ourselves.

I’d stolen a whisper of magic from several of them when they’d passed but not enough to alert them to our presence.

Sadly, that also meant it wasn’t enough to gain me any real kind of advantage either, but I savoured the small trickle of power in my veins none the less.

“A settlement this small won’t fail to recognise strangers,” Bastian commented in a low baritone which made my heart leap in surprise.

The Dragon hadn’t deigned to talk to me since the discussion over his tattoo and I arched a brow as I turned my focus from the hidden town to the place where he currently lurked behind another broad tree.

“Best hope we don’t alert them to our presence anyway – unless of course you were planning to do just that? Though if that were the case then I have to say you’re taking your time over enacting your plan.”

“Why would I exchange such a pretty captor for some Blazer scum? Seems rather pointless to me,” he drawled though the way he called me ‘pretty’ told me he meant it only as an insult - which I chose to ignore.

“Blazer? What are you, eighty? No one’s called the Flamebringers Blazers since my great grandmama was born,” I scoffed, turning my focus back to the settlement.

“Are you close to your grandmother then? No doubt she finds your cold demeanour and lust for death delightful.”

“Obviously not,” I deadpanned, not rising to his bait. Obviously he knew who I was and what I was born from. I was yet to meet any Fae who didn’t.

“Because she’s dead or because you’re a loveless bitch?”

I glanced at him despite myself, narrowing my eyes. “Well now, that might just be the sweetest compliment I’ve ever gotten. But clearly I wouldn’t know the first thing about my grandmother.”

“What’s clear about it?” he asked.

If my eyes narrowed any further they’d have been closed, but I indulged his play of ignorance, curious as to its purpose.

“Because I’m crossborn – I thought everyone knew that?

My mother and presumably all of her kinsfolk were of the weak-blooded Cascadian variety.

I wouldn’t recognise a single one of them even if they stood before me while I spilled their guts across the street.

Perhaps that has already been their fate – I lost count of the amount of Raincarver lives I’ve claimed around five years ago, so it’s perfectly possible. ”

Bastian watched me with cold, clear eyes and I watched him right back. He’d been too compliant in his captivity thus far and I wasn’t dumb enough to believe he’d given up on his efforts to escape me.

“I take it you’re a Stonebreaker?” I sneered when he failed to offer me any reaction to the words I’d tossed his way.

“What gave me away?” he asked, though he seemed about as interested in this conversation as I was about being on this mission in the first place.

“You didn’t flinch at my mention of the Raincarvers I’ve killed, nor have you yelled for help from the Flamebringers and as I represent the Skyforgers who are hunting you, that left me with the answer.”

“Because the Skyforgers are above keeping one of their own prisoner?” he asked, that steely gaze never breaking from mine.

I scoffed, forcing myself to look away first and once more focusing my attention on the dwelling before us.

“I’m not sure there are any depths a Skyforger wouldn’t plunge to,” I muttered, letting the subject drop.

He wasn’t one of us though. There was a wildness in his eyes which had long since been eradicated from the Fae who occupied the lands of Stormfell.

We were a callous, calculating breed, raised in a precise kind of brutality which didn’t allow for the feral spark that he clearly had trouble caging within himself.

No, I was certain that Bastian Carderrin was a Stonebreaker and that only made me all the keener to rid myself of his company.

I’d had more than my fill of his ilk of man.

There was little chance of me taking note of any routine the Flamebringers might have in this place, what with the majority of it being hidden from view.

But the sun was dipping below the horizon and I’d managed to steal enough threads of magic to be able to gild myself in shadow and slip closer. Hopefully.

I dropped to one knee, releasing my hold on the rope which connected me to him and taking my bag from my back before claiming a few sprigs of rosemary from my dwindling supply of herbs.

I took the green stone that was still wet with Bastian’s blood and smeared a measure of the sticky red liquid onto the herbs before leaving my pack on the ground and approaching him.

Bastian pinned me with that heavy, ageless stare as I stepped closer, my dagger slipping into my palm in case he made any attempt to strike at me.

But he didn’t. He only watched me as I circled him, forgotten words slipping from my lips while I dropped the sprigs of rosemary in a ring around his feet.

I shuddered as the magic of ether rolled down my spine, tasting the caustic flavour of it on my tongue as each syllable slipped free of it.

“Wait here,” I said when it was done, not that he had any choice in the matter now that ether bound him within the ring of bloodied rosemary, but I still hesitated before striding off.

Something about the Dragon made me wonder if my power over him would hold, if even ether was strong enough to contain him.

I shoved my hesitation aside, knowing the magic I’d just cast had a time limit regardless of his strength. It would fail within the hour, meaning I needed to return here before that time was up.

Magic simmered through my veins as I called upon it, though its touch was far lighter, so much sweeter than the ancient depths of ether which I swam in all too often. Yet still I returned to the murky depths of the blood magic time and again.

I cast my illusion with as little magic as I dared, wrapping my limbs in shadow and hiding me from sight. At least I hoped so.

I reached out with my gifts, seeking the desires of the Fae closest to me, feeling none beyond the carefully disguised stone wall ahead - though someone was suffering through hunger pangs further into the fortress.

The shadows of the trees stretched out like grasping fingers reaching for the fortress and I kept hidden within them as I crossed the barren land which marked the edge of the woods.

I forced myself to move slowly, to rely on the magic that concealed me. A patch of creeping shadow wouldn’t draw the eye but a blur of racing darkness certainly might.

The beats of my heart felt like the ticking of a clock as I slipped closer to enemy lines, the knowledge that I was alone striking me with every solid tick.

I’d crossed into Pyros, Cascada and Avanis all on more missions than I cared to count.

But never like this. Never without Moraine and Dalia cackling in the darkness at my back.

Never without their blades watching over me and their keen wit lighting the darkest of moments.

My loneliness was all that kept me company now.

My fingers tightened around the hilt of my blade, my desire for vengeance making me crave bloodshed despite the need for subtlety. I couldn’t be caught here. I was outnumbered and too easily recognised but still the ache of war rang out in my bones.

I slipped across the open ground to the edge of the rock face which hid the secret dwelling and began to creep along its outer edge.

The pungent scent of herbs caught my attention as I crept along the cold stone, following the aroma until I found myself at the edge of a haphazard kitchen garden.

My stomach rumbled as I took in the rosemary, thyme, mint and sage clinging to life in this barren place.

There were carrots and potato plants too, an apple tree still holding on to a handful of fruit, broccoli and cabbages disguised between the shadows.

They weren’t laid out in lines and no attempt had been made to remove the weeds which grew between them, no doubt to conceal this place from notice if anyone were to pass overhead and spy it.

But I’d spent enough time hungry in my childhood to easily recognise each promise of sustenance.

As I stepped into the small garden, I plucked a sprig of wormwood from a scraggly bush, temptation tugging at me to use it and try to commune with the dead.

The Flamebringers probably put it in tonics and healing salves but I’d watched Moya whisper with ghosts with the aid of it enough times to understand how it was done.