Page 2 of Once the Skies Fade (Immortal Reveries #2)

Chapter 2

Matthias

T wo months, four days, and fourteen hours. That’s how long it had been since I’d slept in my own bed. Not that I was counting or anything. Initially I had delighted at the prospect of getting a break from the irritatingly cute displays of affection between Connor—prince of Emeryn and my closest friend—and his new wife, Lieke, but now I was ready to be home.

While the inns around Emeryn provided adequate drink and hot food, the sleeping accommodations left much to be desired. Stars, when had I become such a pampered, pompous prick? I shook my head. Fuck it. If not wanting to sleep on a lumpy straw mattress night after night and wishing my ass didn’t hurt from riding in a saddle all stars-damned day made me a jackass, a jackass I would be.

I’m getting too old for this shit.

I might not have cared quite so much about the discomfort had we had any success whatsoever. For the third time since the rebel leaders had been killed a year and a half ago, my guards and I had traversed the entire country, stopping in every city and town and hamlet from Holsham to Shoerda in search of the remaining rebels—or any humans, for that matter. Even with Lieke, a human as well as their future queen, the mortals had refused to reintegrate into Emeryn society.

“Can I ask you a question, sir?” My second in command, Tanner, rode up alongside me but kept his eyes straight ahead.

“Of course,” I said, side-eyeing the younger fae. He hadn’t served with us in the war, due to being too young. With so many of our force suffering from trauma and injury, it was the younger generation who had stepped up to fill our thinned ranks, and Tanner had quickly set himself apart from the rest with a keen sense of strategy and an unparalleled work ethic.

Tanner dropped his voice low, as if he didn’t want the rest of the guard behind us to overhear. “Why do we keep going on these campaigns? It’s obvious the rebels are gone.”

“Obvious how?” I asked.

“Nearly a year, sir, and no trace of them. No sightings. No scent trails. Nothing. And…” Tanner fidgeted in his seat.

“And what exactly?” Silence. “Spit it out.”

“Well, how do we expect to find them now that they’ve gone dark, when we failed to track them while they were actively attacking our roads? Even with some indication of where they were, we still never found them. Now we have nothing to base our search on, and we blindly fumble about the country.”

My mare, Storm, grumbled and shook her head, as if she were agreeing with Tanner’s assessment. Roughing a hand over my chin, I hummed thoughtfully.

“What happens if we stop, Tanner?” I asked casually.

He scrunched his face in concentration. “Well, we wouldn’t be cold and sore, for one.”

“And would we have any hope of finding the rebels by sitting on our asses back at the palace?”

Tanner shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Enlighten me.”

His earlier discomfort faded away as he straightened up in his saddle with refreshed confidence. “We could utilize local citizens to monitor traffic, or reach out to our counterparts in Arenysen for reinforcements and reconnaissance. What good is an alliance with them if we can’t call on them for aid?”

I glanced at him sidelong again and asked, “What makes you think we haven’t done that already?”

“Have we?”

I nodded solemnly, fixing my gaze forward again.

“And still nothing?”

Shaking my head, I pulled in a long breath of pine-soaked air. “But we don’t give up, not until we’re ordered to stop. Like it or not, Tanner, that is the job. We advise and offer council, yes, but ultimately we live to serve the crown. Like it or not, we are duty-bound to the royal family.”

“Do you ever wish for more?” Tanner’s question might have surprised me if I hadn’t been asked this so often by Connor in his odd attempt to play matchmaker and find me a wife of my own.

“This is the life I signed up for. It’s the only one I know, and the only one I want.” Before Tanner could come back with the same old arguments Connor always had, I gestured ahead of us. “We’re almost to Engle. Let’s hope our contact there actually has something for us this time.”

With that, I spurred Storm gently and rode on ahead.

Leaving the other two guards waiting outside, Tanner and I entered the Garrison Tavern. As expected at this late afternoon hour, it was nearly empty, and the only patron—a male hunched over the bar—quickly slapped two coins on the table and rushed out the door, leaving the barkeep alone with us. Tanner situated himself against one of the support beams, his hand resting lightly on the pommel of his sword while I approached.

“Mr. Marstens. It’s good to see you,” I said, but the demi-fae didn’t appear to share my sentiment.

He bristled as I picked up the departed patron’s coin and proceeded to spin it atop the bar. “I told you last time, general, I haven’t seen them.”

The coin’s whirring filled the room as I contemplated my next move. I’d been in here several times since the rebels had lured us to that barn outside of town, and every time it was the same answer. Despite Lieke and Mrs. Bishop’s assertions that Mr. Marstens wouldn’t lie and could be trusted, I couldn’t ignore my intuition. After all, this male here had known where to take Lieke when she’d been sent away to her family years ago. At the time, Lieke had had no idea her family were the rebels behind the deadly attacks on the fae, but I wasn’t convinced this tavern owner was equally clueless.

The coin began to wobble unevenly under my hovering hand. My fingers twitched as if about to drop on top of it, but instead I reached up with my other hand, gripped the big male’s head, and slammed his face into the bar. He lurched back, his hands flying up to his nose. Blood seeped between his fingers as he growled.

“You broke my nose!”

I waved my hand dismissively. “Oh, calm down. It will heal soon enough.”

His nose made a satisfying crunch as he snapped it back into position. “And you wonder why the humans don’t trust the fae,” he muttered.

“Oh, but they trust you, Mr. Marstens,” I said, reaching over the bar and grabbing a glass and the nearest bottle. Unstopping it, I sniffed the contents and tried to hide my disgust at the cheapness of the liquor. Still, it would do. I poured a dram of the deep amber swill and replaced the stopper before bringing the glass to my lips.

Mr. Marstens watched me defiantly, but when his eyes flicked briefly to Tanner, I tossed the contents in his face. He hissed in pain as the alcohol splashed into his eyes and bloodied nose. Gently, I set the glass back down and cleared my throat.

“Tell me where they went,” I said calmly. “Before I lose my patience.”

Pulling a towel from behind the bar, the demi-fae wiped his face, but instead of cleaning it, he only managed to smear blood across his cheek and down his chin.

I gestured to my own face and said, “You missed a spot.”

He showed absolutely no appreciation for my help, and threw the towel down onto the bar with another growl. “They had a camp, east of here in the?—”

“Woods. Yes, we know. We’ve been there. It was deserted long ago. Now, stop wasting my time, Mr. Marstens, before I have to drag you back to the palace for a more thorough interrogation.”

“That’s all I know,” he said, but his eye twitched ever so slightly as he spoke.

He was lying.

And I was tired.

I clicked my tongue at him. In a flash I had my dagger drawn, its tip at his throat before he could utter another word.

“Are you sure?” I asked, pressing the blade into his skin. “There isn’t something you might have forgotten? A little nugget of information you’ve misplaced in that thick skull of yours?”

He swallowed hard, wincing as the movement caused my dagger to bite into him, but still he said nothing.

Looking about the tavern, I addressed Tanner. “Would be a shame for this town to lose its only tavern, wouldn’t it?” On cue, my second produced a bundle of matches from his pocket and held them up for Mr. Marstens to see.

“You can’t threaten me,” the demi-fae said, a slight tremble in his otherwise confident voice.

I leaned forward slowly, pivoting my blade so that the long edge now lay across his throat. “I believe I just did. Now. Tell me what you know about the humans’ whereabouts, before I’m forced to spill more of your blood and order young Tanner to burn down your fine establishment here.”

Mr. Marstens’s glower hardened briefly before he relaxed and lifted his hands in defeat. “They’ve all left. Left Emeryn, I mean.”

“Recently? When did you last see them?”

“The last of them came through a couple weeks back and stopped to bring me this,” he said, gingerly reaching one hand into his pocket and retrieving a piece of paper.

I snatched it from his hand and noted the scrawled name on the outside. Lieke.

“Who left this?” I bit out as my stomach knotted uncomfortably. While it was possible Lieke had more remaining contacts from the years she spent training with her family, there were only two names I would recognize: one a friend, the other a traitor.

“Her Highness’s cousin, sir. Raven?”

Some of my tension eased, and an image of the young woman flashed in my mind. I’d only met her once and under less-than-ideal circumstances, but she had seemed trustworthy enough—at least, until she failed to come to the palace as Lieke had requested.

“And you haven’t bothered to send it on to the palace?” I asked.

“Haven’t had the time yet, and I didn’t want to send it by falcon.”

Pulling my blade away from his neck, I quickly sheathed it at my belt. With a quick nod to the door, I gestured for Tanner to prepare to leave, but I didn’t turn away from Mr. Marstens yet. Instead, I reached across the bar and retrieved a second glass, pouring a bit of the liquor into each as I asked, “Did Raven happen to say where she was going?”

Reluctantly Mr. Marstens took the drink I nudged in his direction and nodded. “Believe I saw her jot some mention of Holsham down in her note, but I doubt she’d still be there now.”

“Convenient,” I muttered to myself, before downing the barely adequate drink and setting the glass back down. With a final rap of my fingers atop the blood-splattered bar, I said, “Thank you for your honesty. And for the note. I’ll see that Her Highness receives it.”