Page 33

Chapter 32

G rowing up with an aggressive older brother, Madan was familiar with raucous laughter, getting the wind knocked out of him, and receiving love through a variety of ways, including, but not limited to, being tackled to the ground. Brothers sparred. Brothers yelled. Brothers teased. Brothers even attempted to maim on occasion.

What brothers did not do, in his limited experience, was squeal.

The sound had been nothing but a descriptive word in a book to Madan until the moment Azriel called for their shrinking group to enter the cave after him. Within moments of taking in the ragtag company of high fae and lycan, Ariadne and Emillie laid eyes on each other for the first time in weeks. As such, the scene was equally heartwarming and utterly terrifying. The sisters slammed into each other with so much force, he feared Ariadne might rebreak her arm, and the sound that escaped them both was loud enough to cause the entire mountain to come down on top of them.

“How are you here?” Ariadne asked, taking Emillie’s face in her hands as though to ensure her wellbeing before wrapping her arms around her again.

Tears of joy spilled down Emillie’s cheeks. “Me? You are not supposed to be here, either!”

Keeping an eye on his half-sisters, Madan made his rounds to introduce himself to the rest of Emillie’s companions. Despite Whelan’s presence and Azriel’s willingness to show both his faces, not one of the fae looked remotely trustworthy as they gave him their names. In fact, they regarded both Ariadne and him as though they were monsters.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out why. After traveling with Emillie for as long as they likely had, seeing two Caersans in sunlight would be a shock. Had his sister lied to them? No. But neither was he about to expose the Noct around his neck to a bunch of strangers.

“You found him,” Emillie said as she held Ariadne at arm’s length. “I knew you would.”

Ariadne shook her head. “Only because of your help.”

As Madan slowly grew more and more overwhelmed with the onslaught of voices, Whelan took no time to make himself comfortable as he always did. Perhaps he was searching for something new to keep his mind occupied—Madan couldn’t blame him—but he gravitated immediately to the man who’d introduced himself as Pol. At first glance, the high fae seemed outgoing, kind, and a mirror to Whelan himself.

Jealousy, not something Madan often felt, distracted him long enough to get out of his own head. As it only wormed its way into his life when attractive men such as Pol were involved, he found himself lingering in Whelan’s shadow.

Azriel stood back as he always did, watching the sisters’ reunion, sporting his usual neutral mask. He crossed his arms, feet planted wide, and studied the entirety of the cave—something he could see clearly from his positions near the fire and his wife.

There were, in fact, no additional tunnels for them to travel through. Madan’s maps had been incorrect. This wouldn’t be the location of the tomb, and that frightened him more than the way Pol laughed at Whelan’s jokes.

Before long, Emillie and Ariadne sat together clutching one another’s hands like gossiping debutantes at a ball despite their rugged clothing and speaking in low voices. They exchanged tales—Ariadne’s alarming adventures in Algorath and Emillie’s daunting tasks as she waded out the Season on Alek Nightingale’s arm. They laughed with one another at the ridiculous things they had to do, blushed as they told one another of their respective exploits, and then the tears came.

“Kyra did not want to be hidden, so we left without her,” Emillie explained, her voice tight. But it wasn’t until she detailed being stopped on the highway by Loren’s men that the tears began to fall. “He almost made it. I thought for a moment…but they killed each other—and I ran. He was a good man, Ari. Nothing like the rumors said.”

Ariadne’s eyes filled with tears at her sister’s recount of Alek’s death. She nodded, and Madan watched the shadows creep into her own face. He knew with absolute certainty what she thought in that moment, and his heart squeezed tight. The air grew unbearable and hot, and he swallowed down the lump that formed in his throat as he turned to look back at Azriel, still hovering near his wife.

Like Madan, his brother’s jaw tightened. Kall’s death was too fresh. After spending the last leg of their journey sharing stories about him to paint some kind of picture of his past for Ariadne, the lightheartedness had dissipated.

“The man who trained me for Algorath,” Ariadne said, her voice tight, “died protecting me, too.”

Madan swung his attention to the fire. The full tale had yet to be recounted to him, but he wasn’t certain he wanted to hear it at all. Despite that, he couldn’t keep himself from listening. The ache in his chest intensified, remembering the sensation of death rippling through his still-living body.

See you in the next life .

“When you rescued Azriel?” Emillie asked, the question innocent as always.

But it didn’t take long for his younger half-sibling to realize just how wrong she was in her timeline. Ariadne choked back a sob, her mouth quivering as she vainly attempted to hold back her grief. With a shake of her head, she breathed, “Yesterday.”

“Gods! Ari…” Emillie dragged her sister into her arms again and held her tight. Silver lined her wide eyes as she looked over Ariadne’s shoulder, catching sight of his rapt attention.

Madan grimaced, then looked away as his heart gave another powerful throb. The moment between the sisters should be a private affair—kept between the siblings who’d been with one another through decades of life, not introduced after centuries apart. On the far side of the pair, positioned like the guard of the Golden Rose with his arms crossed and jaw set tight, Azriel’s shoulders tensed.

“ How are you holding up ?” Madan prodded him through the vinculum.

Wry amusement tinged with sorrow radiated back to him. Azriel’s green eyes flickered to him before focusing on some distant place near the fire. “ About as well as you’d expect . This is a lot .”

“What brought you all to the west?” a lycan woman Madan had been introduced to as Luce asked, cutting off the mental conversation. Her sharp, calculating golden eyes took in Madan, then Azriel lurking in the shadows where he felt most at home. “We were told you were near Monsumbra.”

For a moment, Madan didn’t know how to respond. Did they trust these people with the knowledge that the Tomb of Anwenja wasn’t just some legend? Would they turn on them if they were to join the mission in finding it? Emillie seemed to believe in the strangers, but he wasn’t quite as open to outsiders. Particularly not after Sasja’s betrayal—a betrayal that cost him his best friend and the only one in Auhla who worried for Sasja’s safety. He’d hoped Kall and Ariadne had been correct in assuming she’d left with Ehrun as a distraction. For her to have revealed their plans? For Kall to have died in an ambush set by her?

Trust became the rarest commodity in a matter of moments he’ll never get back.

“ They might have information we don’t ,” Brutis said, his voice clear and shocking. “ And if they try to betray you … well . We’ll have something to say about that .”

Images of all three dragons tearing into the fae almost had Madan laughing. He hid the twist of his mouth the best he could and replied to Luce, “We’re looking for a cave.”

“And this isn’t it?” She looked around them pointedly.

“I’d hoped it was,” he admitted, pulling his maps from his pocket and scowling as he marked the cave off as a failure. “There doesn’t happen to be any tunnels hidden around here?”

Luce cocked her head. “Afraid not.”

“These mountains are filled with caves,” Zeke, another lycan with one eye, said. “Are you looking for something in particular?”

Madan hesitated. After a single nod from Azriel, however, he pressed on, “The Tomb of Anwenja.”

Unsurprisingly, Luce snorted and shook her head. “Ridiculous. That’s a myth.”

Zeke, however, held up a finger. “Filled with garnets, it’s said there is a spring that feeds directly from the Underworld to water the flowers that fill the cave. Lost to time, but kept alive through tales of impossible journeys.”

“From what I can gather,” Madan said, noting his mention of flowers like Alek’s notes, “it was part of an old dhemon pilgrimage. Only the most devout could find it—such as the priestesses. They collected something from there, then returned to the Keonis Tree to complete the ritual connecting them to Keon.”

The lycan tapped his chin in thought. “There are so many tunnels through these mountains, I’d be surprised if anyone found it.”

“I’ve only ever heard the stories,” a high fae woman, Edira, said. She paused in the middle of braiding her dark hair back to turn their way. “I didn’t realize it was connected to the dhemon’s ritual.”

Cocking his head, Madan looked between them. “What stories have you read? The only one I could find was incomplete.”

Her fingers twisting the strands of hair again, Edira grimaced with uncertainty. “Those I heard were never written in books, just passed down like bedtime stories.”

By now, most in the cave had turned to listen to their conversation. Even Ariadne and Emillie, still clasping hands tight, shifted to study them. The former wiped tears from her face while the latter gaped at them, a frown forming between her brows.

“The Garnet Tomb of Anwenja is said to be a myth,” Edira continued, nodding in confirmation to Luce, “but many believed it to be real. The tales I remember spoke of the springwater and moonlight flowers—”

“Both.” Azriel crossed the cave to the packs they’d abandoned on the floor and dug into one, pulling from it the strange note Alek had written in the dhemon language. He held it up to Madan, eyes glinting with wonder. “We need the springwater and flowers.”

Hope blossomed in Madan’s chest. He turned to Whelan, and for the first time, his mate’s optimism mirrored his own.

Emillie’s brows furrowed further as she leaned back to see the letter on the other side addressed to Alek. Having been regaled and mortified by their disastrous journey into Armington, the letter itself wouldn’t have come as a surprise, yet still, she asked, “Why did he have that?”

“We think,” Ariadne said cautiously, “that Alek had some connections to the dhemons.”

But Madan gave her a sharp look. “Don’t sugarcoat it.” Then he looked to his other sister and explained, “We think he was part dhemon.”

Gaping at him, Emillie shook her head. “He would have told me.”

“Would he?” Ariadne asked, her eyes meeting Azriel’s. Her husband’s cheeks reddened as he stood again.

“You think he was trying to find this…tomb?” Emillie looked between them.

“This says,” Madan took the note and pointed to the dhemon runes, “southwest. That’s where we are.”

Then Emillie turned to Zeke. “A cave of garnets, you said?”

The lycan nodded. “The walls, apparently, glistened with them. The further in you went, the more dense they became until you found the spring and the tomb.”

“And you’re certain there are no more tunnels here?” Madan asked, turning to look at the back wall of the cave.

Pol shook his head, twirling his fingers to make small stones rise from the floor. “I checked myself.”

“Then we’ll have to—”

“I know where the cave is.” Emillie stared unseeing at a place ahead of her as though sorting through memories she had labeled as inconsequential.

Everyone turned to her. Ariadne took her sister’s hand in both of hers and squeezed hard, dragging Emillie back from the depths of her thoughts. Though the high fae and lycans had no reason to be invested in finding the cave, they all stilled and waited nonetheless.

Blinking and shaking her head to clear it, Emillie explained, “That first night on my own, I made it as far as the base of the mountains. I tried to avoid the highway but wanted to keep parallel so I would not get lost. The cave kept me safe from the sun, and there were flecks of red gems in the walls. I was so distraught, I thought nothing of them. There was a tunnel further down, but I did not go that deep.”

So it was as Madan feared. The tomb lay about as close to Valenul as one could get without actually entering the kingdom. Bringing a dozen people that close and without being noticed by nearby towns or traveling companies would be difficult. Taking the dragons so close would be even more of an impossibility—particularly with the army no doubt on the hunt for any sign of them.

“Do you think you could lead us there?” Ariadne asked.

At first, Emillie grimaced. Remembering what a location looked like and remembering how to find it were two very different things. Madan wouldn’t blame her if, when it came down to it, she wouldn’t remember. The cave itself had been said to appear only for those Keon wished to find it. That the God of the Underworld chose her only furthered his argument that Alek was a dhemon. Yet with it having been Emillie’s first safe haven after Alek’s death as well, so many things could be lost to time. Too often, grief clouded one’s memories.

It did for him, anyway, and continued to do so each time he thought of Kall.

After considering it and looking at her sister, however, Emillie nodded. “Actually…I do not think it is very far from here.”

Azriel let out a deep breath and scrubbed his face with his hands. A slew of mixed emotions charged through the connection from Razer before the dragon shut it down. Madan turned to his brother as Azriel pivoted on his heel and stalked to the cave entrance, where he disappeared into the dying sunlight.

“Tell Madan everything,” Ariadne said, giving Emillie’s hand a squeeze and tracking her husband’s movements with her eyes. Without waiting for a reply, she stood and followed Azriel outside.

With a strangled choke, Emillie watched her go into the sunlight, then turned her wide eyes to Madan. “How?”

Well… fuck .

Ariadne could not believe their fortune. It was as though Kall himself had sent them to the cave that day, orchestrating the reunion she so desperately needed. Finding Emillie had her reeling, sending her soul to war with the contrasting emotions that roiled through her. Despair at losing her closest dhemon friend battled brutally with the excitement of being united with her sister once more.

And for Emillie to possibly have knowledge of the tomb’s whereabouts? Ariadne’s reignited hope swelled into that dark chasm that had opened inside her since the moment Ehrun put that knife in Kall’s chest.

Sharing their experiences since last they were together was at once cathartic and devastating. They had both been through so much, Ariadne was uncertain what to make of it all. Between their father’s murder at Loren’s hands—something she had not realized Emillie witnessed—and Alek’s death mere nights later, her sister had gone through enough trauma to last her several centuries.

Ariadne had always tried to protect Emillie from such horrors by taking the brunt of their father’s anger at every opportunity. If only she could have been there to keep her sister safe throughout their final weeks together.

Yet she could not sit by her sister and bask in their shared euphoria of finding one another again when Azriel teetered on the verge of another mental collapse. The moment he rushed from the cave, not unlike his departure on Noctium, she knew something was not right. After he had tried to run from many things in their past—often to shield his bond from devastation—she knew the signs, and this appeared no different.

Following him into the fading sunlight, Ariadne called his name and took his hand in hers, dragging him to a halt. When he did not turn to look at her, she asked, “ Alhija …are you well?”

Muscles in his jaw flexed and he turned his face, so as he released a shuddering breath, she could not see any of the hard planes in his expression. “I’m fine.”

She squeezed his hand and shifted to gain a better look at him. “Do not lie to me.”

Azriel shook his head, looking as though he were chewing his own tongue, before saying, “It’s a lot. All of it. Being so close to figuring it all out, but feeling so lost.”

Heaving a deep breath, she did not know how to respond. She understood precisely how he felt, if not while struggling with an unreciprocated bond that continued to crush him. They were close. And yet, it felt like leagues away. Even with the tomb, the springwater and flowers, and the tree…they did not have the ritual to bring it all together. They had ingredients with no recipe to follow.

“Azriel…”

He pulled his hand free of hers and pounded his fist feebly on his chest several times, tears streaking from closed eyes. “I can’t stop thinking that…if we had just gone to a different cave first—to that cave first…if we’d just not been so afraid of getting too close. He’d still be here.”

Ariande grappled for his closed fist and forced it to rest on his chest, her heart aching. “There was no way for us to have known.”

“I trusted her. He trusted her.”

The sudden shift in topic had Ariadne’s mind reeling until she realized exactly who he meant by her . Sasja. The dhemon from Algorath who saved his life. The dhemon who swore an oath to Azriel, but had not hesitated when she was called back to Ehrun’s side. The dhemon who told their enemy their plans so that he could hunt them down. Again.

“I know.” Ariadne stepped in front of him and cupped his face with one hand. He pressed his cheek into it, lips quivering. “And it is alright to mourn him.”

Azriel nodded, cracking open his eyes again.

She choked back the swell of sadness. He had been strong for her. Now, it was her turn to be strong for him, no matter how much it hurt. “But we cannot let him win.”

He had used similar words when he had first taken Ariadne to the dhemon keep. She could not bring herself to step inside, and he reminded her just how brave she had been to even go. How much courage it took to face such a daunting task as returning to her prison. Now, she used the same words that made her take that first step inside.

They could not let Ehrun win.

“We will find him again,” she promised, “and we will make him pay for what he took from us. I refuse to let Kall’s death be in vain.”

Again, Azriel nodded. He sucked in a rasping breath and turned his face to kiss the palm of her hand. Then he bent and wrapped his arms around her waist, hauling her into a crushing embrace in which he buried his face in the crook of her neck and breathed deep.

Ariadne held him there for a long time before whispering, “I want to go to the tomb tonight.”

“We need to rest,” he said as he pulled back. “And you need to feed.”

“Then we do that now.” She nodded to the cave. “While we have extra eyes to keep us safe. But what I want more than anything is to go home , so we need to finish this…quickly.”

He frowned down at her. “Home?”

She sighed and gave him a weak smile. “ Auhla .”

Light sparked in his eyes. Azriel searched her face with wonder, then kissed her softly and murmured against her lips, “Yes, my love. Let’s go home.”

So after the four of them curled up together in the back of the cave, grateful for Emillie and her friends’ watchful eyes and willingness to share their bedrolls after losing their own, the entire group packed up. Those with bondhearts they had yet to reveal to the fae remained quiet with league-long stares as they communicated the plans with Brutis, Razer, and Oria. Only when they had the dragons scouting ahead again for clear paths did they agree to depart from the cave and make their way back through the forest.

Most of the clouds vanished by nightfall, leaving them to the brisk winds of early autumn in the mountains. Emillie looked to the stars and confirmed their trajectory, amazing Ariadne yet again with her clever mind. If it were not for her sister, she would have never made it to Monsumbra alone. Her sense of direction was as horrific as her ability to dance or sing.

Ariadne walked alongside Azriel, holding his hand as they followed Emillie’s instructions, trudging through the mud and rock parted by Pol. She stayed close to her sister, taking note of those whom she spoke to, but most importantly, who remained beside her for the duration of the journey.

Not once did Ariadne see Luce move from Emillie’s side, whether in fae or wolven form. The lycan’s insistence on remaining nearby felt strange as everyone else in the party seemed to move to and from their positions. No matter if Emillie sped up or slowed down, Luce was always there, adjusting her gait to match.

Not for the first time, she wished she had her own dragon bondheart, if for no other reason than to be able to communicate telepathically with Azriel. She wanted to know his thoughts on what could be happening there. Even when Luce did not seem to be paying attention or have any interest in Emillie’s conversation, she lingered.

“How is everything with Razer?” she asked quietly when there was a lull. As the dragons were not her secret to share, she kept talk of them to a minimum. With the three of them being their scouts, however, she wished to stay apprised of their wellbeing.

Azriel kept his eyes ahead. “Everything is clear. For now.”

That did not make her feel much better. The skies and land below had been clear in the past, just for them to be ambushed. Being so close in proximity to Ehrun, it was unlikely he would not try again.

“Have they found where we are headed?”

His eyes went distant—more so than when he normally communicated. But he nodded, caught himself as he tripped over a protruding stone, and said, “It looks like it.”

“How much farther?”

“Just over that ridge.”

Sure enough, as they crested the mountain spine Azriel had pointed to, Emillie gestured from her saddle. “There.”

A murmur of excitement went up amongst the fae and vampires alike. In the distance, along a flat plane that divided a steep, brush-speckled hill, what looked like a pile of haphazard rocks covered in flowering vines jutted out from the mountainside. At first glance, no opening could be seen. Even as they approached, where to go was not evident. It merely looked like a rockslide had settled on the hill’s path.

But Emillie nudged her horse next to Pol, eyes shining with determination, and said, “Can you move that large boulder on the right? It was not there before.”

Pol reached out a hand, and the huge rock slid to the side in a controlled roll. Behind it, the cave—no, tomb —almost glittered in the moonlight.