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Chapter fourteen

Dawn at Dusk

Zayne

I next stirred with Ayla snoozing in my arms, full daylight slipping into the cabin’s small window. My mind flooded with memories of the night before, recalling the ravenous way we had devoured one another.

I held her close, all too aware of my hardening cock pressing against her butt. The tether tugged at my chest, an increasingly comfortable ache, so long as she was close.

Ayla will be my undoing.

And last night, I had her in so many ways.

Still, I needed more—and not just the embrace of her sweet heat—I longed to know that she was destroyed the same way I was ruined. To learn I was not alone in this obsession. It was impossible to turn away from this unscathed. We were bound, and I’d be torn asunder if she left my side.

In her sleep, she made a soft moan and wiggled deeper into the nook of my body, further constricting my cock. Lifting onto my forearm, I kissed her cheek, admiring the wisps of red hair that framed her face. For someone so fierce, she could be so soft.

Regret tugging at my heart, I wrapped the blanket tight around her. We were still on a mission, and I needed to check our bearings.

Silently, I slid down the bed toward the cabin’s tiny standing space. I dressed quickly, bracing for the cold morning with my cloak wrapped around my shoulders. I patted the pocket with the shards, both reassured and concerned by their weight.

I set a refilled water skin next to Ayla and turned to the door. It squeaked slightly, and I turned to study Ayla’s sleeping form one final second, reassured that she slumbered so deeply she wasn’t disturbed.

I shielded my eyes and faced the morning light. Striding to the bow of the boat, I examined the vast sea before me as I brought forth my sense of the Underworld, confirming that Vanessa had steered true through the night.

The sun had risen high enough to cast the Isle of Dusk in a harsh, mountainous silhouette against the morning sky. This close, the shard at Dusk glowed brighter still, an imprint of undead purple light splashing over the Living Realm.

My hunch was right. Last night, the Starlit King had been looking toward the final shard.

It was as reassuring as it was alarming.

In his youth, he had built a reputation for uncovering countless fae relics.

His personal collection filled half of the palace museum, and it should have been no surprise he carried not only a dragon blade but three black diamond shards.

So the fact that he hadn’t yet claimed this shard, only looking to it wistfully, was informative.

I knew of a few places he could never go, places I’d only read about in my ancient necromancy texts.

Truthfully, I knew little of my craft. Everything I understood was gleaned from a few forbidden books, the rest coming through trial and error.

There was no one to teach me—I myself had killed Inarus, the only other necromancer I’d ever known.

My instincts had to be enough.

I looked to Dusk anew.

The fugue of death overshadowed even the mountains, far stronger than it had any right to be, and my resolve wavered. Ayla and I were here on a mission that would not only end the Gloom’s expansion, but something more. Something intangible that worried me.

“Why so broody, Shadow Prince?” a chipper voice asked. Vanessa had wandered down from her crow’s nest.

“I’m not brooding.”

“If you say so.” She settled her small frame on the railing before me, wetting my arm with the droplets that spiraled around her bright blue skin. “At this pace, we’ll reach the isle in an hour.”

“Perfect.”

“If you say so,” Vanessa quipped. “I thought you were brooding because you wanted more time with Ayla.”

I shook my head, somewhere between laughter and exasperation. “If my brooding annoys you so badly, why did you accept another job from me?”

“I never said it annoyed me. Though perhaps, it should. No sane sprite would keep you as a client, no matter how much coin was involved. You have a bad habit of saying, take me into danger, again and again.”

I arched a brow. “So why do you stay?”

“Because I’m hell-bent on mischief!” She cackled. “I’m increasingly convinced it’s a personality flaw.”

“Like the time you got trapped on Valterra?” I asked, leaning forward. “You never explained how that happened.”

“It’s impolite to ask a sprite personal questions.”

“I didn’t think you were the type to care about etiquette.”

She pursed her lips.

“So, how did it happen?” I pressed.

The water surrounding her tinged with red, reminiscent of a blush. She glanced away. “I fell in love with a human.”

“A human who lived in the Isles?” Like any sprite, Vanessa withered south of the Rift.

She nodded. “She’d left Valterra on a teenage whim, seeking more magic than the human world had to offer. That was before the Collapse, back when travel was safe.”

“It still couldn’t have been easy for a human to live amongst the fae.”

Vanessa shrugged. “She was clever and brave and, most importantly, a very good cook. No fae would hurt her for fear of missing out on her food.”

I chuckled. “How’d you two meet?”

“I was working on a fishing vessel, and one day, she came along to better understand how the fishermen preserved their wares, and as the day dragged on, we got to bantering, and well… before I knew it, I had found myself a permanent table at her establishment.”

“I didn’t know sprites ate food.”

“We don’t, but it’s the sentiment that counts.”

My brow furrowed. “So if things were going so well, what happened?”

Vanessa turned to the sea. “One day, she received a letter from her brother saying that her mother was ill, likely to die. Since her family couldn’t afford the few fae healing elixirs that made it to Valterra, she took the risk of transporting them herself.”

I clenched the railing. Everything Vanessa said was a reminder of how much damage Inarus and his shades had caused. “Traveling south was an even bigger risk for you, a sprite.”

“Remember my penchant for mischief?”

I chuckled.

“Zayne, I took that risk because I loved her. I wanted to meet her family. She’d told me so much about them, and I had to meet the people who had shaped the love of my life.”

The water around her bounced on the railing, cheerful if only for a moment before stilling as her expression darkened.

“The shades attacked on your journey south?” I asked, putting the pieces together.

She didn’t answer. “Necromancers can’t make shades from sprites, can they? Whenever they attack, my kind always survive.”

I nodded. “Since you’re made from the elements themselves, without a corporeal body, the magic can’t hold.”

She nodded slowly and was silent for some time.

When she did speak, it was a recitation without emotion.

“The shades ignored me during the attack. I tried to fight, but there was only so much I could do. I watched as they branded everyone on the ship. They rushed them all away, and after, I was so tired… I collapsed, and the boat drifted south of the Rift.”

My heart ached. “Someone found you?”

“A merchant’s vessel. They thought they were doing me a favor, but they were headed to Valterra. The only good that came of it was that I still had the healing elixirs.”

“After all that, you delivered them?”

“Of course—they were her family.” Vanessa shrugged.

“And for the record, it worked. Her mother was healed. Only they couldn’t cover the cost of my ticket back to the Isles.

I had no real way to get home, nothing at all, so I returned to the port in the hope someone would need a sprite badly enough to pay for my passage.

I thought I was going to die there until you arrived. ”

When we’d first met, her watery skin was so sickly that she was now barely recognizable from then. It made me angry—someone should have taken pity on her long before I’d come along. “What was her name, your love?”

Vanessa swallowed. “Jasmine.”

“That’s a beautiful name.”

“I thought so too. I even made her a scarf with little white flowers on a field of emerald. She was wearing it when she died.” She glanced up at me hopefully.

Heart wrenching, I shook my head. “I haven’t seen a shade wearing a scarf like that.” And now all the shades had been put to rest.

Water settled around her, dripping down the banister. “I don’t know why I hoped. Just to be sure she’s not still out there, being animated by someone else.”

It sickened me. All of it. Everything that Inarus had done. “Inarus should have allowed Gloom to claim the Isles rather than create his shade army.”

Vanessa shrugged, the water still dripping. “As long as someone was controlling Gloom, people would have died. We must find the shards. This has gone on long enough.”