Page 3

HRAKAN

A week. A week of waiting, watching, and worrying, only for her to finally fully snap back to life—to her new life and her new body—and immediately despise me.

I knew she would.

Of course she would, and I can’t blame her… but it doesn’t mean it hurts any less.

My molars grind together. The castle I’ve spent decades away from is a dust-filled shadow of its former glory. Ensconced in the wastes of Hrak—a rock and dirt filled desert—the keep is worse for wear.

The oasis built around it centuries ago, as a gift from Dyrda, however, is thriving. Birds in a rainbow of colors call to each other, trilling in the trees. Though it is winter still, even here, it’s much warmer than the bitter cold of the North. Of Cottleside. Of its damned prison.

I glance back at the hallway where Kyrie’s room is, disgust and despair warring for control of me.

She set me free.

In more ways than one, she set me free. Free of that prison, of the chains of the past, of the curse Sola constructed on that damned chalice.

And yet, here I am, as conflicted and miserable as ever.

“I did what I had to,” I say out loud, the words echoing across the dust-cloaked halls.

The sound of my voice surprises me, and I swallow hard, pinching the bridge of my nose.

Every night since I began the ritual, nightmares have plagued me. Nightmares of Kyrie, open-mouthed, shocked, the light and life leeching from her eyes. Nightmares of a blood-stained knife, driven into her beautiful beating heart until her skin was cool to the touch.

The power to revive her, the vows I swore over her human husk, to cherish her, to love her, to teach her and protect her—she did not hear them.

Then, slowly, painfully, her heart started to beat again as I bound it with mine, soaking my power into every fiber of her fiery soul. I lean my forehead against the rough stone wall, the memory of the blue of her lips inked in every nightmare.

Her footsteps echo down the hall as she paces round her room, the cadence of her voice as she speaks to the direcat in low tones.

I should have been more patient with her.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I slam my fist into the wall, dust clouding the air on impact.

Pain shoots up my wrist.

“You’d really think someone your age would have their temper under better control.” Kyrie’s voice rings out, bouncing off the stone walls behind me.

She followed me out of her room?

“You move more quietly now,” I tell her, unable to keep myself from glancing at her over my shoulder.

She was beautiful before, of course she was… but now, she walks with the ethereal grace of a Fae queen. There’s a subtle difference to her posture, too, her head held high, regal, her skin glowing as if lit from within.

I make myself watch her.

Make myself witness what I’ve done.

She watches me watch her, two predators sizing each other up.

Does she realize how much she’s changed?

Fresh guilt surges through me, and I swallow, the sound thick in my throat.

“I’m hungry,” she finally says. She’s changed clothes, into the simple tunic and soft leather leggings I left in her dresser.

“Where’s the direcat?” I ask her.

She raises an eyebrow, derision clear in every line of her face. “Asleep in my bed, where you’ll never be again.” A smirk tugs up one corner of her lips.

Stone-faced, I jerk around. “Come.”

“I’m not doing that for you, either. Never again.”

“You will come with me if you want food,” I say through gritted teeth. This fucking woman—every barbed remark is a reminder of just how I’ve failed her, failed us both, with my lies of omission. Even if it was to save her. “I’m done arguing,” I belatedly add.

She lifts a reddish eyebrow, her green eyes sharp as ever. “I wasn’t arguing. Why would I argue with you? There is nothing I can think of to argue about.” She asks each question with her teeth bared, an angry snake with fangs ready to close around my flesh. “Lead the way, oh ancient and terrible one. To food.” Her focus drifts up, and I follow her attention to where it’s snagged on a spiderweb where the high ceiling meets the wall. “Nice place you have here, reminds me of that barrow we went to together. Are you planning to bite my wrist open again?”

I scrub a palm down my face and bite back a retort, heading to the kitchens.

“Big place you have here,” Kyrie remarks.

“We have,” I correct. “It’s yours now, too.”

Her snort sounds from behind me, but even the sound of her footsteps begins to compete with the noise as we leave my personal wing and approach the central hub of my castle. Our castle. Our home.

“There you are,” a brisk, warm voice call out, and Shae, a small Fae woman with bright grey-streaked hair says. “I wondered when you’d be joining us, Lady Kyrie.”

I glance sidelong at Kyrie, who quickly schools her startled expression into nonchalance, and try not to smile.

“Lady Kyrie,” she echoes.

“Did I say it wrong?” Shae tilts her head. “I see you like the trousers better than the gown I dressed you in.”

“You dressed me in it?” she repeats, dismay flitting across her face. “I thought—” She shakes her head, refusing to apologize. She might be Fae now, and even more, but she’s still Kyrie. She’ll never be anyone but Kyrie.

My chest gets tight.

I love her for that.

And I hate myself for what I did.

“Of course I did. We’ve been trying to get the estate back into shape, too,” Shae’s brow wrinkles. “I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m Shae.” She dips into a curtsey.

Kyrie stares at her, clearly perplexed.

“Don’t do that,” she croaks. “Don’t curtsey to me. Just Kyrie, please. No Lady.” She shakes her head, her red curls tumbling about.

“I like her already,” Shae chirps up at me. “Pretty and humble.”

I grunt. “Not sure I’d use that word.”

“That’s because he’d use the word ‘beautiful,’” Shae tells her with a sly wink. “Come on, now, Kyrie, let’s get some food in you. I’m sure you’re starving after all you’ve been through.” Shae puts her arm around Kyrie’s waist, tugging her into the depths of the kitchen and shooting me a dark look.

I narrow my eyes.

Shae’s not held back with her opinions ever since I brought near-dead Kyrie back to Hrak, with Mushroom the mule and Filarion in tow. She might say she hates me now, but I know she’d mean it if I’d dared leave those two cantankerous animals behind.

Even Shae’s usually pleasant husband, Awain, was taken aback by what I’d confessed to.

Shae had no qualms about tearing me a new one, bandying about the phrase ‘pompous prick’ once I filled them in.

For some reason, a slight smile kicks one side of my mouth up.

The elderly Fae woman is as spry as ever. She loads a plate up for Kyrie, who stands awkwardly in the middle of the keep’s well-appointed kitchen, staring around at the polished copper pots and pans. Bundles of fragrant herbs, dried peppers, and braids of garlic hang from the ancient wooden beams overhead.

A fire crackles in the stone hearth, a cast-iron pot bubbling merrily over it on one side, a side of meat sizzling on a spit on the other.

“It smells incredible,” Kyrie finally says, her green eyes wide. “Thank you.”

The motherly Fae presses the full plate into her hands.

“Oh, don’t be silly. No need to thank me. We can’t thank you enough for bringing our Hrakan back to us and snapping him out of his decades-long, self-inflicted, overly dramatic punishment.” Shae tuts at her, waving a hand for her to sit at the rustic trestle table that stretches along the middle of the kitchen.

I hold back a sound of dissent at Shae’s observation.

I don’t want to draw either woman’s ire.

Besides, Kyrie needs to focus on healing, not on me.

Kyrie’s throat bobs, and she tears a hunk from the crusty bread in front of her, refusing to look at me.

It hurts. I knew it would, and still, it takes me by surprise.

“I’ll leave you then,” I say, the words coming out short. “I must go to Sylsip.”

“Leave us?” Shae’s dismayed grey-blue gaze fastens on mine. “You only just arrived. Kyrie just woke up.”

“Then go,” Kyrie says at the same time, not bothering to look up at her plate of food.

A muscle twitches in Shae’s jaw, and she scowls at me. “Your new wife, your fated mate, has barely woken from what you put her through, and you already want to leave her? What could be more important than this?” Shae flicks her hand between us, annoyance coloring each syllable.

“Sylsip sounds fun. Bye,” Kyrie says, a crumb on her lush lip.

Shae makes an exasperated noise, throwing her hands up in the air. “When do you expect the rest of the party?”

“Party?” Kyrie asks, then stuffs another hunk of bread in her mouth, her cheeks expanding like a squirrel’s.

“Lara and the rest,” I say, then address Shae, who’s still glaring at me with murder in her eyes. “Two weeks from now, maybe more or less. That’s what we agreed upon.”

“That’s true, that’s what they said a few days before he stabbed a knife into my heart.” Kyrie grins at me, but there’s no humor in it.

“To save your life, I might add.” Shae shakes a finger at Kyrie, who shrugs dismissively.

“I’ll be back before they’re here.”

Shae rolls her eyes, pulling a towel off a bowl and plopping a lump of dough on the floured work surface of the trestle table. “Fine.”

“Kyrie—” I start, but the words get lost on the way out.

She doesn’t bother looking up from her food, a slight tightening around her eyes the only sign she’s heard me.

I grit my teeth, nod at Shae, and prepare to leave for Sylsip.

We’re going to need all the help we can get for what’s coming, whether Kyrie likes it or not.

Besides, my little mate will be happier as soon as I’m gone.

That, I’m sure of.