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CHAPTER FORTY TWO

I was a fool. A damn fool and a fucking idiot too for that matter but here I was all the same, creeping through the back streets of Cinder Vale, looking to rescue a woman who couldn’t have been further from a damsel in distress if she tried.

I didn’t even know her cursed name but still I was prowling down side streets and listening to the drunken bragging of Talons who were off-duty and far too loud-mouthed in their inebriation.

Not that they were offering out much in the way of detailed information but I had heard several mentions of the Sky Witch being held somewhere in the palace.

Of course she was in the palace. There were at least ten prisons between Leergaith and this fucking city which would have housed her sufficiently but no, she had to be too important for such treatment, didn’t she?

She had to be the fucking Sky Witch, a prize the Blazers wanted to covet and croon over instead of a normal warrior who I could have broken free two weeks ago.

The moon was mocking me in my search, its light following me as I skirted back and forth through the market held in the square outside the palace, trying to figure out how best to go about finding her in that monstrosity of a building.

For the hundredth time I considered giving up the hunt, abandoning her to her fate and letting providence have at me for the next seven years.

Could my luck really get any worse at this point anyway?

I’d lost every person I’d ever known or loved to the ravages of time.

There were generations dividing me from the people I’d left behind when I’d been captured and there was no undoing that.

Perhaps that was why I remained on this fool’s errand to rescue her.

She was the only Fae in the entire Waning Lands who I could actually claim to know anymore.

And I didn’t even know her name.

Was this really what had become of me? The last Dragon, born for greatness but doomed to wander backstreets in search of a woman who had told me plainly she desired nothing more than to return me to captivity once we were back in her homeland.

Even with that knowledge I missed her. I had been too long without conversation already and I could admit to myself that I missed the sight of her face too.

It wasn’t the beauty she claimed, though clearly I’d taken note of that, but it was more the deception in her.

She was a walking contradiction, breathtaking to look upon while writhing with darkness within.

She claimed so wholly to be nothing more than the vengeance she sought but I had learned to see the cracks in that visage.

Yes, she harboured pain and grief within her heart but there were glimpses of more than that too.

She was a puzzle and I was a man who had spent too long without anything to intrigue me.

I paid a few karmas for a bowl of stew and a mug of ale, dropping onto a seat at a table laid out in the middle of the courtyard where a few street performers were working to impress the passing Fae for coin.

I let the sound of the crowd wash around me while I ate, tales of war and rumours of upcoming battles spilling between them.

In that regard, not much had changed in the last few hundred years.

Cinder Vale itself was remade, however. I’d been here when the old palace had been sacked and burned, the royal family torn from their beds and butchered before a baying crowd of Stonebreakers.

They’d deserved it, the whole bunch of them responsible for the razing of every village along the western border of Avanis.

They’d killed man, woman and child alike, leaving none in their wake.

We’d at least let their children run free.

I supposed the offspring of those same children surrounded me now. The last I’d known of it, Cinder Vale had still been in the hands of Avanis but clearly the Flamebringers had retaken and rebuilt their city.

This new palace was a work of art, spires and towers built from obsidian black glass which reflected the flickering firelight of the countless flames that lit the night surrounding it.

“Where are you hiding, spectre?” I mused, sopping up the last of my stew with a piece of bread. The food here had certainly improved. Though I supposed anything would have tasted divine in comparison to the carrion I’d been forced to survive on in that dank cave for the last few centuries.

A soft thud made me look to the table in front of me and I arched a brow as I took in the pale blue Sayer Dragon which had taken a seat before me, a small chirrup escaping it as it inspected my near empty bowl.

“Hello, little beastie,” I said, offering it the last bite of my bread and the bowl for it to lick.

The magical creature chirruped again, clearly pleased with its offering and it chomped down on the bread enthusiastically.

“Come to sell my secrets to your master, have you?” I asked and it blinked at me innocently but I knew better.

Sayer Dragons were fiercely loyal to the Fae they chose to bond with and they never mixed with our kind unless they were imprinted on one of us.

For all I knew, someone was watching me through its eyes at this very moment.

“Well I suppose I’ll start at the beginning then, shall I?”

The Sayer Dragon bobbed its head which I took for encouragement and I smiled.

“I’m looking for someone,” I said conspiratorially. “You see, I lost track of her during a battle and I don’t know if she lives or died. But if she lives then I think my best chances of tracking her down are here. Perhaps you’ve seen her? She’s the most beautiful-”

Clearly the Sayer Dragon and its master had decided I wasn’t worth the bother of listening to the end of that sentence because the little thing gave me a chirp of thanks then took off on its tiny wings into the sky above.

I watched it depart with interest, wondering if it really had been spying on me or if it was just hungry and had taken me for an easy mark.

I hadn’t done a single thing to draw attention my way since splitting from my spectre so I had no reason to believe anyone would still be hunting me here, though I couldn’t be certain of that.

I’d been seen in Leergaith with her after all and if there had been an interloper in my lands I would have wanted to be sure I tracked him down.

The Sayer Dragon didn’t disappear into the crowd as I had expected but instead turned and flew straight through the open doors into the palace itself.

I drummed my fingers on the table, wondering if that might have been a sign sent to me by the stars themselves.

They certainly owed me a little grace after the shit I’d endured beneath their watch.

I had no better leads so I decided that taking fate into my own hands was as good a plan as any.

I stood, striding away into the crowd, not paying attention to any of the Fae I knocked into as I pushed through them.

They soon got the message and parted for me, eyes falling my way and low mutters circulating.

There were a lot of big Fae warriors in the crowd but I claimed several inches on even the tallest of them, towering above the rest, my Dragon shifter’s body a reflection of the beast that lay dormant within me.

I was used to the attention I drew in my old life but it had been a long while since I’d spent so much time among other Fae like this and the buzz that surrounded me set my skin on edge.

It had been easier with my spectre somehow. She’d had a way of creating distance between us and the crowds we moved within. Or maybe she’d just drawn my focus to the point where all others became little more than noise.

A sharp whistle drew my attention as I strode through the wide doors to the palace and I glanced at the culprit, finding a male at the foot of a curved dais staring right at me.

“You!” he yelled and there was no real denying that he was talking to me but I pretended not to realise it all the same, turning with the crowd and moving through them, my eyes on the archway to my right which led deeper into the palace.

“I’m talking to you, asshole. The Matriarch requires your presence. ”

I tried to keep walking but another Fae stepped into my path, the brawny woman slapping her hand to my chest to halt me and making me growl a warning.

She jerked her hand back, straightening her spine as she realised what she’d done.

“The Matriarch wants to ramp up the celebrations. Two of her children are home from Never Keep and the Talons are stronger than ever before.” She was tall, probably around six foot and her blonde hair was cropped short and styled away from her face to better reveal the magpie tattoo which roamed up the left side of her neck, its outstretched wing touching her jaw.

“Good for her,” I grunted, moving to step around her, but she defiantly stepped into my way. “It’s not a good idea to keep putting yourself between me and where I want to go,” I warned her.

“I can see that,” the woman agreed but she didn’t step aside.

“But The Matriarch wants a performance. We need warriors to fight for her in the inner sanctum. It’s a great honour to be selected for such a role.

And if you impress her then she is often inclined to offer out positions within the Talons.

Don’t you want to prove your worth to her? ”

All I really wanted to do was knock this woman out of my way and continue on my hunt but I could tell that I was supposed to react enthusiastically to this offer. From the way so many eyes had turned to watch this little exchange I knew that my hesitation was already causing suspicions.