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Chapter Two

TANYL

T he horn sounded a second time as Sylvie and I approached the courtyard.

Although “courtyard” was something of a grandiose word for the patch of stone huddled next to the castle’s main entrance.

Its only entrance. The design was both defensive and unavoidable given the castle’s location. Storm’s Hollow sprawled across the Perun River’s largest island, its towers rising from cliffs that plunged straight into the rapids below. Three stone bridges offered the only access, and my knights had the means to destroy all three in the event of an attack.

But our enemy didn’t need bridges. From the earliest days of Ishulum, the Scarrok had lurked beneath the water.

Metal clanked over the roar of the waterfalls spilling down the cliffs.

“Hold,” I said, catching Sylvie by the arm. Ahead of us, a column of knights moved across the castle’s main bridge, their steps dogged with obvious exhaustion. Four of the men bore a stretcher—two at the head, two at the feet. A fifth knight lay atop the bloodstained cloth, his arms dangling over the sides. His armor was missing. So were his legs.

At my side, Sylvie quickly touched her fingertips to her forehead and then her lips. “Perun protect us.”

Perhaps he should have started with the knight. I swallowed the words. But I couldn’t swallow my frustration. It festered in my chest like a canker, the center as deep as the canyons carved by the Spring Court’s many rivers.

You will fail , my father’s voice said in my memory. Every king of the Spring Court has failed in his duty. You’ll be no different, Tanyl, wearing our curse as you wear a crown.

I clenched my jaw, my gaze on the approaching knights. Sylvie was tall and solemn at my side, her slender body wrapped in a gown that clung to her firm, high breasts and gently rounded hips. She was probably reciting prayers in her head. A useless exercise. The knight on the stretcher was already speeding his way toward a second life as an abomination. If prayers worked, the river god would have already done something.

The sound of men’s voices made me look over my shoulder. A second later, Crispin and two lords from the Council emerged from the castle. Crispin nodded in greeting as he descended the steps.

“Your Grace.” He looked at Sylvie and offered a shallower nod. “Sister.”

Sylvie said nothing, her features smooth and emotionless. I’d thought her cold the first time I met her. Then I realized the blank, slightly aloof expression stemmed from her years on the Isle of the Gods. The sestras spoke as little as possible, communicating only when absolutely necessary. At first, my unexpected wife was solemn and silent around me. But I helped her find her voice.

My Sylvie was loud when I demanded it.

“We heard the horn,” Crispin said, looking toward the knights. A breeze fluttered his cloak, parting the fabric to reveal the silver hilt of his sword, Skycleaver. He was never without the damn thing, even in the temple. A hero’s sword , the servants whispered, forged from Perun’s lightning.

Crispin knew the whispers were nonsense. But like any politician, he understood the power of a good story.

As the knights shuffled into the courtyard, anger and resignation played over Crispin’s features. “This is the fifth attack in as many days,” he said under his breath.

As if I didn’t know it. As if the face of every weeping mother and hollow-eyed father didn’t haunt my dreams.

You will fail.

The scent of blood thickened. Sweat glistened on the knights’ faces as they stopped a few paces away and lowered the stretcher to the ground. Up close, its occupant was gray, his mouth agape and his blue eyes staring sightlessly at the twilight sky. A gash across his neck had torn the skin to the bone, exposing bluish-white vertebrae. One of his tapered ears had been ripped from his head.

A knight wearing a captain’s badge removed his helm, stepped toward me, and went to one knee.

“Forgive me, Your Grace. I take responsibility for the tragedy that has befallen us.”

“Rise,” I said.

The captain obeyed, his hair tangled in a loose braid that spilled over his shoulder. Long, angry-looking scratches covered the sigils around his neck.

I pointed. “How did you come by those marks, Captain?”

The man paled, one gauntleted hand fluttering up.

“It wasn’t the Scarrok,” another knight said, stepping forward. “It was?—”

“I didn’t ask you,” I said, keeping my gaze on the captain. At the edge of my vision, the outspoken knight swallowed hard. After a second, he stepped backward.

The wind picked up, sending mist from the waterfalls drifting through the air. It didn’t dispel the thick, oppressive scent of the dead knight’s blood.

“Sir Hascal speaks the truth, Your Grace,” the captain said. “I got tangled in the reeds as we fought off the beasts.”

The wind gusted harder, and the mist slanted sideways, tiny droplets clinging to the knights’ breastplates.

“Not all of them,” I said.

The captain’s brows drew together. “I…beg your pardon, Your Grace?”

I gestured to the stretcher. “You didn’t fight them all off, did you, Captain?”

He looked at the bloodied knight sprawled at our feet. “No, Your Grace,” he said softly. “We didn’t.”

Crispin caught my eye. I gave a single nod, and he fixed his gaze on the captain. “You were supposed to patrol the lands around the Covenant. Why were you anywhere near the water?”

The last of the color drained from the captain’s face. The knights around him exchanged looks, fear flashing in their red-rimmed eyes.

The captain stole another glance at the knight on the stretcher. “We weren’t near the water, my lord. But it didn’t matter. Lately, the Scarrok leave the rivers and venture onto land.”

Ice slid down my spine. Visions of waterlogged creatures wearing familiar faces paraded through my head.

Crispin turned to me and spoke in a low, urgent voice. “It’s as I told you, Tanyl. The threat grows even more dire. We?—”

“I heard you in the Council meeting,” I said.

For the briefest second, frustration brimmed in eyes the same blue-green shade as Sylvie’s. But like his sister, Crispin was a master at concealing his emotions. And he knew that any public confrontation with me was folly.

“Of course,” he murmured, lowering his gaze.

I turned back to the captain. “Does the knight have any living family?”

“A wife, Your Grace. She manages their small estate on the border of the Autumn Court. They had no children.”

Sylvie stirred at my shoulder. At the edge of my vision, her expression remained unchanged.

“There’s no time to summon the knight’s wife,” I told the captain. “We’ll quarter him immediately and burn the corpse. Dispatch a patrol from the barracks to scatter the ashes. Send rested men, Captain. We can’t afford any mistakes.”

The captain bowed his head. “I won’t fail you again, Your Grace.”

You will fail , my father’s ghost said in my mind.

I turned to Crispin. “Fetch a priest.”

He bowed and left, his cloak flaring behind him.

I motioned to the knights around the stretcher. “Draw your swords.” As the rasp of steel filled the courtyard, I pulled Sylvie to one side and spoke in her ear. “You don’t need to see this.”

“Yes, I do,” she said, her gaze steady. Uncompromising. Like Crispin, she’d lose a public battle with me. But I’d lose later in private.

She was warm under my hand, her skin hot through the layers of silk. Delicate kestrels swooped among the forked lightning that circled the base of her slender throat. A few bolts climbed the smooth column, as if they wished to reach her stubborn, rounded chin and pouty mouth.

The latter had given her away the afternoon we met. Left waiting in one of the plain chambers on the Isle of the Gods, I’d watched the waves batter the shore through the window, the humiliation of my canceled wedding like acid in my veins. The scent of riverthistle and a soft sound at my back had made me turn.

A vision stood in the doorway—and not even a sestra’s dowdy robes and thick wimple could dim her glow. The rough cloth had done nothing to conceal the high breasts and achingly long legs. The nip of a waist and flat stomach.

Eyes the color of the sea outside the window held mine before thick, dark lashes swept down, and the vision bowed her head as if in prayer.

“I apologize for my tardiness, Your Grace. I’m Sylvie Vildea, sister to Mairwen.” The vision’s breasts lifted under her robes as she drew a deep breath. “The sestras say I’m to take her place as your bride.”

“Yes,” I said, “because I ordered it.”

That brought her head up. Plump lips pressed together, as if she considered how to respond.

“Is that what you wish?” I asked. “To leave this island and become my queen?”

I braced for flushed cheeks and stammering acquiescence. Doubt, perhaps, or even a flash of fear. I braced to release her to her god and her vows. I’d find another bride.

Then the corners of her lush lips turned down, and something sparked in her blue-green eyes.

Defiance.

“Do you wish it?” she shot back, her husky voice wreathed by the sound of the sea at my back.

And she had no way of knowing it, but in that moment, she sealed her fate.

“Yes,” I’d said. “That is what I wish.”

The clearing of a throat jerked me from the past, the vision of Sylvie replaced with the real thing. Moonlight turned her hair to silver. Mist clung to the tips of her lashes and the graceful curves of her eyebrows. She looked at a spot over my shoulder.

“Father Aegor is here,” Crispin said behind me.

Sylvie had no business observing the carnage to come. But the anger from our earlier confrontation lingered in her eyes. Stoking those flames would only lead to a larger fire later.

I faced the courtyard, where the knights had moved their fallen comrade to a bed of kindling. Father Aegor knelt at the head of the stretcher, his white robes almost shockingly pristine next to the stretcher’s bloodied linen. A thin blue rope around his waist offered the only break in the snowy color. His lips moved, his words drowned by the roar of the waterfalls. But I didn’t need to hear the priest. I’d heard the Rite of the Dead enough over the years to perform the ritual myself.

Hopefully, it stuck this time.

The captain and his knights stood at the ready, their swords drawn and their gazes on Aegor. When he finished, he stood, shaking off a knight who attempted to help. Aegor looked at me.

“Perun awaits the dead, Your Grace.”

The expected response spilled from my lips without thought or effort, the recitation as familiar as my own name. “May the mighty god of the rivers and the tempest guide him to the halls of our ancestors.”

Around the courtyard, the knights and lords touched their foreheads and then their lips, drawing the path of the great river that fed the Spring Court. I repeated the gesture.

Aegor spread his arms. “We have attended the knight’s spirit. Now, we must attend his body by saying the Rite of the Fallen.” He gave me an expectant look.

I motioned toward the knights around the stretcher. “Begin.”

Their swords flashed in the moonlight as they hacked the fallen knight’s arms and the stumps of his legs off his body. Men’s grunts and the blunt sounds of butchering echoed around the courtyard. Tiny rivers of blood trickled from underneath the stretcher and spread in every direction.

Aegor continued his prayers. Sylvie remained at my side, her gaze on the knights as they wrapped their fallen comrade’s severed limbs in dark blue cloths. Once the bundles were secure, the men strode toward the barracks. They removed the knight’s head and placed it on top of his chest. His mouth hung open, his tongue purple and swollen.

Tilting his head back, Aegor directed his prayers toward the sky.

Crispin stepped to the edge of the kindling and rolled up his sleeves. The sigils around his wrists glowed a silvery blue. His irises lightened as he extended his hands. The scent of ozone filled the air. Pressure built. Beside me, Sylvie leaned forward ever so slightly, her gaze on her brother. The remaining knights watched him, too, anticipation in their eyes.

A horn split the air.

Aegor snapped his mouth shut. Crispin startled, his gaze flying to the tallest watchtower. The other lords followed suit. I tensed, prepared for the three long, mournful notes that signaled an attack. But the tone was steady, its song curling up at the end. Around the courtyard, knights exchanged glances. Several looked toward the bridge, a mix of confusion and curiosity on their faces.

The same emotions stirred in me. Because the horn’s blast was rare enough to be almost unheard of.

Someone in the watchtower had spotted a rider bearing the flag of Vetra.

Murmurs raced around the courtyard.

“A human?”

“It can’t be. They die when they try to cross the Covenant.”

“Well, who else could it be?”

The clip-clop of a horse’s hooves drifted from the bridge. The hair on my nape lifted.

“Tanyl?”

The sound of Sylvie’s voice seemed to come from far away. Because only a handful of Vetrans could enter the Spring Court without dying. Ishulum’s magic was too strong.

“Tanyl?”

I had to answer her. I needed to attend my wife. But I couldn’t tear my gaze from the bridge.

The captain appeared in front of me, his hand on his sword hilt. “You should go inside, Your Grace. My men and I will make sure the visitor means no harm.”

“No,” I said, stepping past him.

“Tanyl!”

Sylvie’s sharp voice cut through the fog that had overtaken my mind. I turned as she stepped past the captain and caught my arm.

“Who is it?” she demanded. “Who’s coming?”

Somewhere, Father Aegor’s agitated voice rose above the waterfalls. “The ritual can’t be interrupted! If we stop now, the knight will rise.”

The sound of the horse’s hooves grew louder. I turned back to the bridge as a rider emerged from the mist. His helm covered his face, and his armor reflected the moonlight. The symbol of Vetra’s royal palace on a field of white signaled that he came in peace—and with his king’s permission.

But King Liam’s permission was just a formality. This rider didn’t really need it.

No, he bent the knee to just two sources of authority: his god and his grand master.

The swirling mist around the rider parted, revealing his white surcoat bisected by a thick blue stripe running from one shoulder to the opposite hip.

“A Rivven,” one of the knights said in a tone brimming with reverence.

I couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t look away from the rider as he drew closer, Vetra’s standard fluttering in the wind.

It can’t be. And it wasn’t. Over fifty Rivven lived and worked in the Citadel in Mistport. The grand master could have sent any one of them.

But even as denials pounded through my head, my heart pounded harder, and long-buried memories clawed from the deepest corners of my mind, their secrets bursting behind my eyes.

Windswept plains.

Barren ground bleached white with salt, its ancient sea nothing but a ghost.

Gnawing hunger.

Another kind of hunger, this one even more wrenching than the first.

Miles of golden skin stretched over hard muscle.

Slate gray eyes full of honor—of promises I didn’t deserve but took anyway.

Because I couldn’t say no. I could never, never say no.

It couldn’t be. Not him. Anyone but him.

The Rivven’s horse tossed its head as it entered the courtyard. The warrior-priest controlled the beast easily, quelling the flash of rebellion with a squeeze of his thighs. Blood rushed in my ears as the Rivven dismounted and approached me slowly, Vetra’s flag in one gauntleted hand. He carried no weapons—at least none that I could see. Then again, I wasn’t meant to.

But it couldn’t be him .

Even as the denial swam in my mind, I knew it was a fucking lie. The truth stood before me, his big, steel-clad body casting a long shadow across the courtyard’s stones.

Tucking the standard under one arm, the Rivven bent his head and removed his helm. And I locked gazes with Sir Briar Finthir.

The man I’d sworn to never see again.