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CHAPTER TWENTY

T he anger thickened then lessened, my mind clouding, fogging, until…

Quiet.

The stillness in my head, the slow repetitive and unwavering beat of my heart brought me back to my usual neutrality.

Occasionally, however, when Everest Arcadia got too close, she stoked up a fire in my flesh that was somehow kindled from the passive silence of my soul.

I couldn’t decipher what it was about her that was capable of invoking my wrath.

It had been a long time since I’d felt any such thing, too long to truly remember how that particular emotion was capable of clawing through my chest.

Sometimes I grasped snippets of a time when my heart had been a raw thing that felt the pain of this world, but those memories were fleeting, entirely separate from me, like viewing them through the eyes of another. How could that boy have become this man?

I knew why, but the how was hard to recall.

It had happened abruptly, one moment my heart had been full of grief and the next, silence.

Like the stars had muted my pain and all other emotions along with it.

North had tried to analyse me, declaring it was my natural instincts kicking in to stop this world from ever getting its teeth in me.

It hadn’t mattered. Not until the moment a Raincarver had followed me to my quarters with the intent to murder me and instead had incited a carnal fury from the depths of my unfeeling soul.

After all these years of nothingness, it seemed the stars had decided to lead that woman onto my fated path and gift her a power that burned through more than magic, breaking through whatever shutters I had closed over my emotions too.

At least temporarily. Either that or the vicious little Raincarver was just so infuriating a creature that she aggravated a response out of me like no other had before. Certainly a viable possibility.

I deliberated each move I had made since I’d discovered what she was.

Every action had a reaction and mine more than most. I was built to make choices for the sake of Pyros and I knew the cost of failure.

Brothers and sisters alike had fallen because of one poor choice, a single act resulting in their downfall.

I could not afford to be like them; there was too much at stake while I investigated the Reapers here at Never Keep on The Matriarch’s orders.

But making a Raincarver my Fearsire was a decision that could equal my end as surely as it could equal my ascension.

And more importantly, Mirelle’s ascension.

I had acted quickly, recklessly perhaps, but given a chance, any number of my enemies could get their hands on Everest at Never Keep and claim her as a weapon for their own land.

This way, she was entirely under my control and could not breathe a word of the soul-tie that now linked us.

Of course, it came with more complications than I would have liked, but there was always a price to pay for an advantage in war. Just a few more weeks and we would all be free to leave the Keep and I could bring her back to The Matriarch, a gift to the land of fire and a promise of our triumph.

Everest herself was still in denial of her own power, but I had read every text in Pyros that contained mention of the Void.

It was a weapon that could neutralise our enemies’ magic and their Orders; nothing fit that description more than her.

My mother would be able to claim the crowns from all rulers and declare herself their queen.

That was a fate I would gamble my life on, and I would not fail her.

A shadow flickered in my periphery and I reached out with the senses of my Order, tasting fear on the air and turning my head partially in the direction of the approaching Fae.

I was sitting in an armchair by a window in the lounge in the Vault of Embers which overlooked the sloping roofs, watching the snow settle upon the tiles.

Moonlight glinted through the clouds, but they were growing thicker, soon to smother the light from the celestial being entirely.

“Speak,” I growled, not bothering to give the Fae my full attention but letting my hand settle upon the hilt of my sword where it rested against the arm of my chair. That motion would be enough to warn them not to waste my time.

“Forgive me, Esrin.”

I waved a hand at that name to show it was unnecessary.

The meaning in old Pyros was ‘prince’ and it was a word used by many of the Ember Wing – The Matriarch’s ruling mob.

They hailed her adopted children as star-chosen princes and princesses when truly we were nothing more than bloodthirsty warriors like the rest of them.

I had garnered much of their attention thanks to my success as a spy, stealing information from enemy tongues and bringing it home to Pyros.

Only un-Awakened Fae could walk untouched through the magical barriers bordering the other lands - a fact little known by the masses and long may it remain that way.

My Order’s Emergence had brought hailed cries to The Matriarch’s door, the power I possessed a boon to Pyros, and my predicted greatness had not gone unnoticed by my peers.

“A letter has arrived for you from The Matriarch herself.” The sweaty-looking boy thrust it at me and I caught a flash of his fear over the possibility of embarrassing himself, a taste of the horror he felt at the idea of falling flat on his face in front of me.

I grunted in acknowledgement, taking the scroll and turning my attention back to the snowfall, dismissing him with that single move of my head.

A crash sounded as he stumbled and fell in his haste to leave, and a sweet wave of his fear rushed through me as his nightmare came to fruition.

My magic swelled a little. Before my element of fire had been Awakened, I could taste fears through my Order form, but it was a far stronger experience now that it fed my power.

I’d experienced terror through many Fae in the past, but there was nothing like the flood of power I gained in the moment before a Fae’s death now, the harsh, ruthless tide of fear gifting me magic untold.

Torture was similar, the peaks higher, but a true fear of death was unmatched, especially when I was the one delivering the killing blow.

The rush of power I gained wasn’t quite akin to the emotion of pleasure, though it was close.

Better than fucking women whose names I never managed to remember, but even the bite of death didn’t deliver me the true high I always found myself chasing.

I’d heard North groaning into the flesh of more than one Fae as he found release like no other. I’d watched him smile and kiss and drink in the pleasures of this world, and I had known deep in my soul that I would never feel even a measure of what he was capable of experiencing in life.

His laughter carried to me now from across the lounge and others laughed with him, at ease, enjoyment a thing North Brimtheon found in all circumstances.

This life suited him. His Werewolf nature demanded the company of others, and it was there that he thrived.

Why he still bothered with my lifeless, inanimate self, I was yet to understand, but he always had affection to offer me, never seeming to run short on it, while I remained desolate in return.

My smiles for him were false, if ever I wore one at all, only doing so because Mirelle had once told me how fiercely it pained North that I showed him no love.

I knew how to pretend just enough to keep him appeased and I did so out of loyalty to him and Mirelle.

They were both the reason I still breathed, after all.

“Kai!” North crowed. “Come over here. We’re playing Graves.”

I had never understood the appeal of board games, but North had a fascination with them, particularly Graves which was a strategic war game.

I hadn’t grasped the point of deliberating moves in a false battle, because if I were to spend time strategizing it would be against my enemies in pursuit of victory for Pyros. Not for the sake of idle…enjoyment?

Still, North never failed to invite me to play his trivial games and I indulged him whenever he insisted enough.

There was a time when I had always beaten him, until Mirelle had pulled me aside and told me that North was embarrassed by his losses and it would be good for me to let him win sometimes.

So now I won just often enough to sell the lie that North was better at Graves than me, but not so often that he realised I allowed him his victories.

North’s ego was fragile, I understood that to a degree, though it was difficult for me to fathom the way emotion played into his sense of importance in the world.

From where I was standing, he and all of my other brothers and sisters were inherently valuable for the pure reason that they were truly living.

I longed to feel even a fraction of their emotions, but instead, all was still.

Five rounds later, North secured his win and declared his victory over me to the entire room. His ego was, as Mirelle put it, his shortcoming. Damage it, and he would become rash, but nurture it, and he would flourish.

Once North’s parade was done, he looked my way, his head tilting and a frown drawing his brows low. “Your hair’s getting long, and shit, look at that stubble on you. I’ve been neglecting you, Kai.”

He jerked his head and I followed him out of the lounge, down the corridor to the fine quarters he had secured himself.

For a Wolf, he was more of a loner than he let on.

He brought his pack to his room for sex, but he never slept among them despite their whining.

He preferred the quiet company of the moon more often than not, and I was one of the few Fae he kept truly close.

Perhaps his fondness of me was to do with my absent nature, and because I didn’t interrupt him while he talked.