Page 52 of Wolf Caged (Bound to the Shadow King #1)

SAPHIRA

A cryptic message accompanied my breakfast the next morning.

Wear your most comfortable clothes and meet me at the glade near my brother’s elkyn.

I folded the note and set it down beside the plate on the table before me, tucking it slightly beneath so it didn’t blow away in the warm salty breeze as it swirled around me.

As I considered what might be waiting for me in that glade and what Jenavyr might have planned for me, I picked at the mound of bacon, sausages and eggs, and nibbled on buttered toast. I doubted I was about to receive a riding lesson, but I couldn’t come up with another answer.

My shoulder ached as I reached for my tea, a subtle reminder that I wasn’t completely healed yet.

But I was healing faster than expected.

Because of Kaeleron’s magic?

My bruises were already gone. My lip healed.

The only injury that remained was my shoulder, and even then it was only tender.

I pressed my fingers against my clavicle, probing the bone, marvelling at the lack of pain and how quickly it had mended.

Who needed the medics when you had a powerful fae king at your disposal?

I doubted the healers could have fixed me as quickly as he had, not if what he had said about the hierarchy of power in Lucia was true.

I pushed the almost empty plate away from me and stood.

As I turned from the table, movement below snared my attention.

I canted my head as I watched Oberon and Kaeleron crossing the garden, heading for the main gate, deep in conversation.

Thick as thieves. There was a strong friendship there, one that made me pine for Everlee.

Maybe when I next crossed paths with Kaeleron, I would ask him about my pack and whether he had heard from them.

My gaze lifted to the town and the rolling landscape beyond the walls of Falkyr.

“Everlee would lose her mind if she saw this place. A castle. Princesses. Kings. Magic and mayhem.” I sighed. It was right up her street, the sort of thing she would die to see as a deep lover of all things fairy tale.

I strode into my room and glanced at the wardrobe, and shrugged.

I didn’t have anything more comfortable than what I was already wearing—leather pants and a blouse.

It wasn’t as if I had a nice, loose pair of sweats or some yoga pants at my disposal.

Hopefully, my current attire would be suitable for whatever Jenavyr had planned for me.

I plaited my silver-white hair into a long braid as I strode through the castle, heading for the main vestibule and descending the elegant staircase, and let it fall against my back as I crossed the garden, keeping my gaze away from the grisly display of power still hanging in the courtyard.

My wolf side snarled and bared fangs in that direction anyway, glad the bitch was dead even if I hadn’t been the one to make the kill.

Maybe Kaeleron had spared me by taking it out of my hands.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to discover how far I was willing to go to avenge myself.

I wasn’t ready to face the harsh truth of it, not yet.

I didn’t want to admit that buried within me, deep beneath the layers of love and affection, of care and kindness, lurked a monster as wrathful and dark as any unseelie.

One that craved violence and bloodshed.

My boots chewed up the path, my strides longer now as I picked up the pace, as if I could escape that part of me and leave it in the courtyard with Elanaluvyr’s body.

It didn’t take me long to reach the paddock where the majestic elkyn grazed. He lifted his head as I approached and snorted as he dipped it again, as if in greeting. I nodded back at him and hurried onwards, heading for the glade.

As I neared it, it dawned on me that it was the same glade where the Beltane feast had been held, a broad scorch mark on the grass where the bonfire had been and that dreadful stone altar still standing off to the left side of it.

Jenavyr was sitting on it, her sword belt resting beside her and the sleeves of her navy blouse rolled up as she nimbly wove several blades of grass into a thin rope threaded with small flowers.

Her silver gaze lifted as I approached, her hands stopping their work and lowering to her lap.

She set the grass braid down beside her sword and hopped off the altar.

“Good, you are here.”

“And why am I here?” I looked around the glade, but Jenavyr and that altar were the only things in it. I had no clue about why she had summoned me to this place.

Her fine eyebrows knitted, a puzzled look in her eyes. “To train, of course.”

“Train?” I spluttered, sure I had misheard her. “As in… learn to fight?”

“Why else would I ask you to meet me here, where we could be alone?” Her frown deepened and then relaxed and her eyebrows rose, a hint of a smile curling her lips as she said, “Or did you think I brought you here to gossip about my brother?”

“Ew, no. I don’t want to talk about him.” Lies. Terrible lies. I desperately wanted to talk about him, starting with asking where he had been going with Oberon, both of them looking as if they were up to no good.

Oh gods, were they going to that tavern near the docks?

My face must have given me away, because Vyr sighed and said, “I presume you saw him on his way to the blacksmith? Oberon has been bothering him about a new blade for years and he finally relented.”

“No, not at all. Well… yes… I saw them… but I don’t care what they’re doing.” I had to get better at lying.

Mostly because Vyr’s smile had turned wicked and knowing, as if she could see right through me.

“It is no business what feelings you have for my brother?—”

“None. Zero. You said something about training?” Even I flinched at the desperate subject change that screamed I was trying to cover up something.

But Vyr was graceful enough to play along with it.

“Very well. No one will see us here, so we are free to train as much as we like.” She gestured to the centre of the glade and I walked there, nerves rising as I realised this was meant to be a secret.

It was Chase and Morden all over again, and I feared if her brother discovered what she was doing that he would stop her before I could learn to fight and protect myself, just as they had when my parents had found out about it.

“Let us start with taking the measure of your current skill. How much training have you had?”

“Not much.” I flexed my fingers as she gave me a look that said she was well aware of that and I hated how weak I felt as I remembered the way she had found me, curled into a ball, only able to defend myself. “You missed the bit where I got in a few hits.”

“I saw enough to know you would have been killed had I not been there to intervene, and this court would probably be a far different place.” The wistful look in her eyes as she scanned the glade and the mountains that loomed over it had me looking there too and remembering something from last night, something that had happened after Kaeleron had dried me off, tucked me into bed and ordered me to rest like an overbearing mother.

Or a very sweet male.

I remembered the castle shaking, as if an earthquake had hit it, but I had been too tired to open my eyes let alone move. The air had felt thick and heavy, the tang of magic stronger than ever, and there had been pain.

Not within me.

Within the very fabric of this world.

“King’s possess much power. They draw deeply from the lands of Lucia, their connection to it giving them the power to shape it, and that magic can both create and destroy.

Everyone felt it last night, Saphira. How close he was to losing control.

No part of these lands remained unaffected.

” She looked off towards the castle, her gaze bleak but soft, laced with worry.

“My brother has fought hard to be strong enough to protect this court, and while his methods of keeping those within it safe are not of my choosing, it has been a peaceful place for centuries now. The land has been calm. But when you were hurt, when he failed to protect you… I have not felt him that angry in a long time.”

How close had Kaeleron been to losing control? What would have happened if he had lost it? I shuddered, not wanting to know the answer to that question, because the grim look on Vyr’s face said it would have been catastrophic.

The power he possessed.

Power far beyond my reach.

If I were in his position, I wasn’t sure I would be strong enough to contain it as he did.

What had he gone through to make himself strong enough physically and mentally to endure the weight of all that magic running in his veins?

Enough that it had cost him that beautiful, bright smile he wore in that portrait of him and his siblings.

“His need to protect,” I started and faltered, my courage failing me as Jenavyr looked at me, pain surfacing in her eyes. So much pain. I couldn’t bring myself to ask and hurt her more by dredging up bad memories.

She swallowed and turned her cheek to me, and sighed as she gazed at the castle. “It was born the night we lost our parents and brother in an attack on the castle in Belkarthen.”

Now his hatred of that city made sense, and so did the way he had reacted to me being hurt, his need to tend to me. I had triggered terrible memories for him, had shattered the floodgates on the pain that still clearly lived within his heart, and in turn, his pain had reopened Vyr’s wounds too.

“Teach me to fight,” I said as I tipped my chin up and squared my shoulders. “Please. Teach me to fight. I want to be stronger. I want to be able to protect myself. I don’t want that to happen again.”

Vyr nodded several times, her expression thoughtful but a little lost, as if the memories still had her in their grip, haunting her even as she moved to face me. “You said you had some training.”