Page 7

Chapter 7

Talwyn

T he black wolf stumbled slightly as she traversed the rocky ground of the Fiera Mountains. The sun was quickly setting, and even her heavy fur coat wouldn’t completely shield her from the elements of the mountains. Spring may have begun to make itself known in other areas of the continent, but high in the mountains snow still blanketed everything. The winds still howled as if she were in the Shira Cliffs. She padded past a few evergreens before ?nally spotting the cave ahead. The same cave she’d sought out last week.

She dropped to her belly on the hard, cold earth when she was deep enough inside the cave to be free of the elements. The growling of her stomach seemed to echo off the cave walls. She’d forgotten to eat. Again. Which was ?ne. Food tasted like ashes on her tongue these days anyway.

She curled into a tight ball, tucking her nose into her fur. This was the only place she could sleep anymore. Tucked away in the cold caves of the Fiera Mountains. She couldn’t sleep in her chambers in the White Halls because Tarek was there, and everything about him being there felt off. He still called her his twin ?ame. She still adamantly ignored that voice in her head that told her he was not.

That voice that sounded like Azrael Luan.

That voice that made the ashes of her heart stir, as if it would almost start beating again.

If only.

But she had seen Scarlett come apart when she’d watched Sorin dying. She’d watched her instantly descend into hysterics. She had always reasoned that her reaction to losing Tarek wasn’t as strong as Cyrus’s because they hadn’t completed their Trials. But Scarlett and Sorin hadn’t either. They may have completed a few, but their bond had not been Anointed. There was no denying anymore that Talwyn should have felt something more when she had thought Tarek was dead. So either something was wrong with her or... It had not been a true twin flame bond at all, and she’d offered up a piece of her soul she would never get back.

Not that she had much of a soul left at this point anyway.

She’d gone to Azrael’s Desert Alcazar, tried to sleep there, but it smelled like him. Soil and forest and ?r. She’d thought that might be comforting on some small level.

She was wrong.

She couldn’t even bring herself to sleep in his bed. She’d curled up in her wolf form on the ?oor of his room, but even that brought forth memories of late night talks and the most effective -distractions.

Distractions that Tarek in no way came close to comparing to.

She didn’t try Sorin’s Fiera Palace. She’d vomited when she’d stood outside the palace after she’d let Alaric and the Maraan Lords into the Courts. It was the price of securing their alliance in the coming war with Avonleya. Because there would certainly be a war. Scarlett had made sure of that by tricking Alaric into closing all of his rifts and dropping the wards that kept the Shifters and Witches in their own territories.

But when Talwyn was standing there beside the Tana River, looking up at his home, all she could see was Sorin showing her the Twilight Fires when she had been a child. Sorin teaching her how to hold a sword in the private training pits on the top level beneath a ceiling of ?re glass. Sorin bringing her hot cocoa after letting her play in the snow all afternoon while Eliné had been attending to other matters. Sorin sneaking her an extra bowl of frozen cream when Eliné had said no.

And then all she could picture was the bolt of energy leaving her palm. Hitting him in the chest. Him dropping to his knees. Scarlett’s screams of anguish.

No. She would never be able to sleep there. So here it was. In a cold cave.

There was a rustling of leaves, and she lifted her head as an earth message drifted to the ground. She nudged it over with her nose so she could read it.

Where are you, Moon?ower?

Moon?ower. A name she’d once cherished. A name she’d thought held so much meaning.

Now it just grated on her ears when she heard it.

The wolf huffed, burying her nose back into her fur, ignoring the note.

Ignoring the wind howling outside.

Ignoring the gaping hole in her soul that would never heal over. Ignoring the ashes of what was once her heart.

Three weeks. It had been three weeks since that throne room.

Three weeks since she’d begun counting down the last days of her life. Because she knew Scarlett would come for her. Even if she somehow managed to survive a war with Avonleya, she would not survive the wrath of Scarlett Aditya for taking her twin ?ame from her.

She had often wondered these last few weeks where she would go when this was all over, when she crossed the Veil into the After. Would Arius, the god of death, pass judgment for her transgressions? Or would he deem her unworthy of even giving her that? Would he leave her to wander the After on her own, abandoned to her own failures? Send her straight to the Pits of Torment? Or maybe this was to be her punishment. To walk on this side of the After for centuries with the weight of her choices staining her soul. Utterly alone and with the knowledge that she had done this to herself, even if she had done it to protect her people from being used by Avonleya again. Would it be worth it in the end? She had to believe it would. She had to believe this hadn’t all been for nothing, that she hadn’t sacri?ced everything for nothing.

And as she ?nally drifted off to what was sure to be another restless slumber, she couldn’t help but hope Scarlett came soon. Because while she certainly didn’t deserve saving or any amount of mercy at this point in her wretched, miserable life, she still wanted it over and done with.

Maybe in death she’d ?nd sleep more peaceful. Or not.

Talwyn stepped from the air in front of the castle gates in Baylorin. Tarek had sent a message that Alaric was requesting her presence. Immediately.

The “immediately” part made her wait an hour before Traveling here. She walked past the guards without glancing at them, pushing through the front doors. She was halfway across the entrance hall, making her way to the stairs that would lead up to the council room they usually met in, when a voice of silk and honey made her nearly jump out of her skin.

“You made him wait,” Death’s Shadow purred. “How incredibly de?ant of you.”

Talwyn glanced over at the Night Child with an uninterested glare. She was clad in her customary black pants, black tunic, and black cloak. Her hood was down, but she had numerous weapons in place, along with her black gloves.

“He is not my king nor my master. I will answer his summons when I am able,” Talwyn replied.

“Not your master, yet you still heed his summons.”

Talwyn’s lips pursed. She couldn’t say she had interacted a lot with Death’s Shadow over these last few months, but the times she had and from what she’d observed, she knew this was normal behavior from her. Arrogance. Taunting. Slightly insane.

“We are allies in an upcoming war. I will meet with him when needed to strategize and plan,” Talwyn gritted out.

Nuri shrugged a slender shoulder. “Or he just extends a longer leash to you than he does to the rest of us.”

A breeze swirled around them as they climbed the stairs, a re?ection of Talwyn’s irritation, and Nuri huffed a laugh. “Would you like to hear a story?” she asked as she toyed with a knife.

“Why would I want to hear a story?” Talwyn retorted, wondering if the female was truly going to be following her all the way up to the third ?oor. “Don’t you have something to do? People to kill for your master ?”

“I rarely do the actual killing,” Nuri replied.

“You are a Wraith of Death. That is what you are known for,” Talwyn said dryly.

“I am Death’s Shadow ,” Nuri drawled. “I shadowed the targets. Figured out their whereabouts. Let them know death was coming for them.” She ?ipped her knife again. “I was the fear and the favor.”

“The favor?”

“I always thought it a kindness to give our targets notice we were coming. It gave them time to get their affairs in order. Some took advantage of the opportunity, others did not.”

Unsure of how to respond to that, Talwyn said, “Then what were the others?”

“I was the fear and the favor. Scarlett was the pain and the justice. Juliette was the mercy from her wrath. Unfortunately for you, Juliette will not be here to grant you such a thing.”

“And yet here I stand while Scarlett ?ees to the west, to the very kingdom who started this entire mess centuries ago,” Talwyn spat.

“Did you know Scarlett hunted down the assassin who killed Eliné?” Nuri asked, ignoring her verbal tirade.

Talwyn stiffened. “Why would that matter to me?”

A grin that was as insane as Nuri surely was ?lled her face. “Because that assassin killed a woman who wasn’t even her real mother,” Nuri said simply, that knife twirling in her hand again. “Can you just imagine what she is going to do to the person who took her king, husband, and twin ?ame from her? I thought you might like to hear the story of what she did to Dracon. You know, to prepare for what will surely be a thousand times worse, especially with those fancy magic tricks she possesses.”

Talwyn stared at the new Contessa, her features carefully neutral and betraying nothing of the unease that had slithered down her spine.

“I know she will come for me. I have magic tricks of my own,” she retorted, lifting a hand and letting vines form, reaching for Death’s Shadow.

“You and your prince sure do like these pretty plants,” Nuri mused, clearly unconcerned as the vines began to snake up her legs.

“Tarek is not a prince.”

Nuri’s fangs snapped out as a vine began to wrap around the wrist of the hand that held her knife. Faster than Talwyn could track, Nuri tossed the knife to the other hand, slicing down the vines on her legs while simultaneously biting through the ones on her wrist with those fangs.

“I wasn’t referring to the wanna-be Fae prince.”

“Azrael?”

“Yes. The tall, moody one who also likes to grow green things and tries to bind me with them,” Nuri quipped, stepping from the pile of vines at her feet and continuing to climb the steps. “Anyway, once we tracked Dracon down, we took him to a more secure location. So his screams wouldn’t draw unwanted attention,” she continued. “And she certainly took her time with him. Hours. Days. We weren’t trained as healers, but we de?nitely knew how to torture and make sure one stays alive and awake to feel all of it. Isn’t it delightful that our training was so thorough?”

“Yes... delightful,” Talwyn ground out from between her teeth.

“Do you want to guess her favorite weapon to use? I don’t think it is one you would expect,” Nuri said thoughtfully, as if Talwyn would actually want to play this inane guessing game.

“Why are you telling me any of this?” Talwyn asked in annoyance.

Nuri shot her a look that made it clear she thought she was speaking with someone who was dense. “Were you not listening? I am the fear and the favor.”

She turned to tell the Night Child she could stop speaking, but she was gone. How she had disappeared in the middle of a stairwell, Talwyn had no idea. She turned back to step onto the third ?oor landing to ?nd Tarek standing there, waiting for her.

“Talwyn,” he said, pale green eyes scanning her from head to toe. “We were starting to get worried when you did not—”

“Come running like a dog being summoned?” Talwyn cut in, her head tilting.

Tarek paused. “I was going to say when you did not return my message.”

“I have other things to do. I run four entire Courts. I cannot simply drop what I am doing when I receive a message that the Assassin Lord would like to hold an impromptu meeting,” she said, brushing past him and continuing to make her way to the council room.

Tarek fell into step beside her, his hands sliding into his pockets. “You did not sleep at the White Halls last night... Again.”

She said nothing, wondering why they had to meet in the council room at the end of this ridiculously long hall.

“I waited for you, Moon?ower.”

She fought the ?inch that wanted to overtake her, her jaw aching from how tightly she was clenching her teeth.

“Where do you disappear to every night?”

“I have things to tendto.”

“Where?” he pushed.

She pushed out an exasperated breath. “As I have already stated, I have four entire Courts to run now.”

“But you must also rest, Talwyn,” he said softly.

“I do,” she said, ?ghting the urge to run the ?nal steps to the council room door.

She wouldn’t have made it far though. A hand was grabbing hers, tugging her to a stop. His other hand came up, the tips of his ?ngers skating along her jaw. “Talk to me, Talwyn. I cannot help if you do not let me in. You used to tell me everything.”

“Then you let me believe you were dead for ten years,” she retorted.

“And how much longer will I have to atone for that sin?” he asked, taking a step towards her. She stepped back, Tarek noting the movement. “All of that was for you. All of it to get your revenge, and now we are on the verge of attaining just that. I do not know how to prove myself anymore to you.”

He’d taken more steps towards her while he spoke, and she’d retreated just as many. Now her back was pressed to the wall, and she tilted her head back to look up into his face. His eyes searched hers, as if he thought he could ?nd the answers he sought there.

He wouldn’t ?nd any answers there though. Only the cold emptiness that was now her soul. There was only one who could read her simply by looking at her, and he was on a ship ?eeing to the west with the Fire and Water Courts. She’d driven him from his own home. She’d driven all of them from their homes.

“Talwyn?” Tarek said, ?ngers toying with the end of her braid that had slipped over her shoulder.

The door of the council room ?ung open, causing them both to whip their heads to the sound.

“About time you found her,” Mikale Lairwood, current king of Windonelle, sneered. “She was summoned over an hour ago.”

“Apparently your leash is not as long as we thought, hmm?” Nuri quipped, sauntering past them.

Where the hell had she come from?

Talwyn made to push away from the wall, but Tarek hadn’t moved, still crowding her against it. “Have dinner with me tonight, Talwyn.” She opened her mouth to object, but he brought a ?nger to her lips, silencing her.

She shoved down every urge to bite that fucking ?nger.

“I know you are busy. I know you have more responsibilities than you ever had before, entire Courts depending on you. But have dinner with me. Just the two of us. We will talk and ?gure this all out.”

He does not see you, Talwyn.

Azrael’s words echoed in her mind as Tarek continued to search her face, looking directly at her but unable to truly see her.

“Do not ever silence me again,” she said, her tone dripping with venom. Her winds came up, pushing against him, forcing him back.

“Talwyn, do not do this,” he sighed, irritation creeping into his tone.

“They are waiting on us,” she sneered, walking past him and into the council room.

Just in time to see a knife ?y from Nuri’s hand directly at the king’s head. Mikale ducked with a curse, and Alaric—the Assassin Lord and Maraan Prince—sighed from the head of the table. “Nuri, stop throwing knives at Mikale.”

Nuri just pulled another knife from her belt, beginning to spin the point against one of her glove-tipped ?ngers.

Alaric glanced up, black eyes settling on Talwyn. “Glad you could join us, your Majesty,” he said. There was no sarcasm in his tone, but she knew he had to be irked she’d made him wait.

She slid into a seat at the table, Tarek pulling out a chair beside her. Balam Tyndell was seated to Alaric’s right, Mikale across from him, still glaring at the Night Child. Next to Mikale sat Mordecai, Alaric’s chief seraph. He was a large male, taller and broader than any Fae, but he still had the arched ears the Fae and Maraans had. He had deeply tanned skin, and his brown feathered wings that arched over his shoulder were nearly the same shade. His black hair was tied up on top of his head, eyes the color of a thunderstorm watching her carefully.

“We ?nd ourselves in need of your assistance,” Alaric said, leaning back in his chair. His hand rested on the table.

“Beyond letting you into my Courts?” Talwyn asked coldly.

Alaric’s brow arched. “We are allies, are we not? Do we not assist one another?”

Talwyn nodded curtly.

“Good,” Alaric continued. “We need you to go to Siofra and speak with the Alpha and Beta. Persuade them to join our cause. You have decades of history with them. I believe you would be more successful at this endeavor than myself or Balam.”

Talwyn blinked slowly at him. “You want me to go to the Shifter siblings and try to convince them to side with us?”

“Not try,” he said. “I need you to succeed, your Majesty.”

“What makes you think that is even a possibility?” Talwyn asked. “They sided with Avonleya during the Great War, as did the Witches. I suppose you want to recruit the High Witch next?”

“The High Witch has already chosen a side,” Alaric said. “Any Witches that will side with us have already been serving me for decades. But that is not the only task I have for you.”

“What does that mean?”

“This brings me to the second thing I require of you,” he said instead.

“I did not realize I was to be delegated to.”

A thin, pointed smile curved on Alaric’s lips, telling Talwyn she was trying his patience. “I am told there is someone in the prison beneath the Black Halls.”

“There are many people in the cells beneath those halls,” Talwyn returned. “You will need to be more speci?c.”

“She goes by a different name here, but I can only assume it is her. From what I have gathered over the decades and from what Tarek has shared, she is how the Witches and Shifters of this realm gained their gifts.”

Talwyn’s brows rose in surprise, and she sat back in her chair. “You speak of the Sorceress?”

“The Sorceress,” Alaric scoffed, something akin to annoyance ?ickering across his features. “It is unsurprising, I suppose, that she took that title here, considering her mother is often referred to as that.”

Talwyn glanced at Tarek, who was stoic beside her before returning her attention to Alaric. “What do you want with her?”

“I want you to release her.”

“You what?” she balked. “Absolutely not.”

“It was not a request, your Majesty.” His voice had gone low and deadly, but despite what Nuri had said, he was not her master nor her superior.

“Do you have any idea how dangerous she is?”

“I know exactly how dangerous she is if it is indeed who I believe her to be,” Alaric replied.

“Then you are incredibly stupid to want her released.”

The entire room stilled, and Tarek’s hand landed on her thigh beneath the table. He squeezed in warning, but there was no way in any of the realms she would be responsible for releasing the Sorceress upon their world. There was no way she was adding that atrocity to her list of sins.

“Tell me, your Majesty,” Alaric said after a long stretch of tense silence. “Do you know of Zinta and her sister, Taika?”

“No,” Talwyn replied tightly, wondering what this had to do with anything.

“Zinta is the true Sorceress. Her twin sister, Taika, is known among the gods as the Enchantress.”

“Then what is the Sorceress that resides in the prison beneath the Black Halls if not the true Sorceress?”

“Daughter of the goddess Zinta.”

“There is not a goddess named Zinta.”

Alaric arched a brow in amusement. “No? The gods and goddesses you serve here are not all that are in existence, your Majesty. There are many realms in just as many worlds. There are bloodlines and beings walking in those worlds that have never stepped foot in this one and some who have come and gone from this land.”

“Bloodlines like the Maraans?” Talwyn asked with a cold smile.

“Careful, Child,” Alaric said, his tone going arctic once more. “As I have repeatedly told Scarlett, we are here because of what lies guarded in Avonleya. If not for that, we would have never been sent here.”

“Explain that.”

“Succeed in this matter and I will,” he countered.

Talwyn leaned forward, one hand splaying on the table. “This is not a negotiation. This is not a give-and-take relationship. If we are true allies, you will share any information and knowledge you have with me.”

“I agree,” Alaric replied, his ?ngers drumming once again. “True allies should be able to trust one another, yes?”

“Yes,” she gritted out.

“And yet I ?nd myself wondering why the Royals of the Courts who refuse to side with us are currently on ships sailing west,” Alaric said, his voice tight with rage. “Why are they still breathing, your Majesty?”

“Banishment was suf?cient.”

“Not in this matter it was not. You now send aid to the very people you seek revenge against. Not only that, you send them some of the most powerful aid in this world. Tell me why I owe you any explanations at this point, your Majesty .”

Talwyn sat back in her seat. “If you desire my aid in anything else,” she spat, “you will share what you know. I will not be kept in the dark, or you will not have access to me or my Courts or any of my historical relationships.”

Alaric gave her a pointed smile. “I think you will ?nd, my dear, that you have more need of me than I do of you at this point.”

“I rule over half of this continent,” Talwyn countered.

His smile turned sardonic. “And if you wish that to remain the case, you will not fail at these tasks.”

Wind swirled at her ?ngers where she still had her hand splayed on the table. “Are you threatening me and my kingdom?”

“Of course not, your Majesty,” Alaric said, getting to his feet. “I am simply recommending that you re-evaluate your position on this.” He turned to Mordecai then. “Come. We need to ?nalize preparations.”

The seraph stood, stalking for the exit. “What preparations?” Talwyn demanded.

“Nothing that concerns you, your Majesty,” Alaric replied with a wave of his hand. “Only those you let ?ee to the west.”

Talwyn stood so fast, her chair toppled over behind her. “You are attacking them?”

“I am ?xing a problem you created and getting my weapon back,” Alaric said sharply before he left the council room, Mordecai following him out.

She knew this would happen at some point. She knew that eventually they would be attacked, that she would have to face them on the opposite side of a battle?eld. She just thought she’d have more time to prepare.

She suddenly understood the grace Death’s Shadow offered in her so-called favor by allowing her target time to prepare to face hell.

She whirled on Tarek. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Tarek stared up at her from his seat. “When did I have the chance to do so, Talwyn? When you were sleeping somewhere other than your own bed? Or when you have been busy running these Courts you suddenly rule?”

She pressed her tongue to her cheek, unable to argue against that. Tarek slowly got to his feet. “Let’s go have dinner, Talwyn. We can discuss matters.”

“Fine.”

“What an interesting relationship you have with your leash,” Nuri said, getting to her feet and pulling her hood up. “If I know my sister at all, she has plans for him too.”

“When Scarlett returns here,” Mikale cut in, “she will have her own matters to deal with. Any plans she has for the queen or Tarek will become obsolete.”

Nuri’s gaze slowly slid to Mikale. “I cannot decide who I am more excited to see her deal with. These two,” she said with a nod of her head in Talwyn and Tarek’s direction. “Or you.”

Mikale smirked. “She has had plenty of opportunities to deal with me. She has failed every time.”

“Because others have rescued you,” Nuri said casually. “What will you do when there is no one around to save your ass or clean up after your mistakes?” When Mikale didn’t say anything in response, Nuri’s lips curved up. “The correct answer, your Majesty , is that you will die. Just like everyone else in this room. She will spare no one.”

“Even you?” Mikale sneered.

Nuri’s grin fell a fraction, and in a voice Talwyn had never heard from the Wraith, she said, “Especially me.”