Page 36 of Wrath Of Suns And Shadows (The Osparia #2)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Emelyn

I was in a cell, hung up above a pool of my blood as pain radiated through every cell of my body. Valla’s wicked chuckle echoed around in the darkness of the room. I couldn’t see her face, but I could sense her presence. Then her icy fingers grabbed me and yanked me to face her.

“I’ll enjoy your death,” she whispered as she raised the iron dagger in her hands and plunged it into my chest.

I gasped for breath as I shot up from the bed.

Kade’s bed. Cold sweats had taken over my entire body.

It had only been a nightmare. I plopped back into the silky sheets, hearing the sounds of soldiers shouting back and forth to each other on the other side of the wall, as I steadied my breathing.

They were busying themselves with their duties.

My nightmares only reminded me of Crow and how I missed him.

I knew that he had kept the nightmares from me on my bad nights during our times together.

Normally, I would train, throw myself into battle techniques or practice my bending, but I couldn’t do that here.

Although, I’d had few nightmares since being in Kade’s care.

Maybe if I made it all the way to Ember, Crow could help me or save us both by Hollowing us out of there.

I wondered if his shadows could see me now?

If he was looking for me? Was he watching and waiting?

I glanced around the room, still dazed from my restless sleep, hoping to see a wisp of shadows greet me from the darkness, but there was nothing.

I blew out a breath and pushed my never-ending thoughts aside.

If I didn’t, I’d fall into the depths of the emotional turmoil raging through my chest. I needed an outlet, to train, something, anything for me to focus on.

I had already grown tired of being in this room. I wanted—no, needed fresh air soon.

My brow furrowed when I noticed how silent Kade’s room was.

I sat up in the bed and glanced around to find it empty.

Neither prince was in here. I got to my feet and quickly began searching the room for anything that might be useful: weapons, information, anything, but came up with nothing.

Someone had cleared Kade’s desk. It was the cleanest I had ever seen it.

Bastard .

My eyes met the door, but surely it would be guarded, right?

Kade wouldn’t let his prize sit in a room with no protection.

But my curiosity still got the better of me.

I rushed toward the door, but when I cracked it open slightly to peek outside, I came face-to-face with a chest, and Evereht’s amber eyes met mine when I looked up at him.

“Damn, for a moment there, I thought you were going to stay put. Looks like Kade owes me some coin,” he said as he pushed through me and closed the door behind us.

“You were betting on me?” I asked.

“Yep, he thought you might not try to escape. He thought wrong.” He chuckled, and I rolled my eyes at him.

“Why would I not try to escape?” I quipped.

“Oh, come on, we aren’t that bad.” He smirked, and I sauntered back to the bed and threw myself back on it with a huff.

“What’s wrong, Peacebringer?” he asked.

“Can we train or something? I can’t handle another day sitting in this room,” I admitted. “I promise not to strike to kill.”

“Is that supposed to reassure me?” he asked, giving me a shit-eating grin.

“Last time you were aboard this ship, you took someone out with an old bone. I couldn’t imagine what damage you’d do with an actual blade.

” He chuckled as I stared at the ceiling of the ship.

I felt something land on the bed next to me, and when I glanced over, it was a sword.

A real sword. I grabbed it and looked over to Evereht.

He held a matching one. They seemed to be a part of a set. I looked at him questioningly.

“I never turn down a challenge, Peacebringer, just don’t kill me with my brother’s favorite blades. That wouldn’t be very nice,” he said as he stood in a fighting stance.

I huffed a laugh. “Here?” I asked, and he shrugged.

“Just no bending. I’d hate for Kade to come back to his room completely destroyed.”

“I promise, I’ll only mess it up a little.

” I smirked and stood, getting into position.

I didn’t wait to strike as I advanced on him, and he dodged.

My blade went directly through the back of one armchair that sat in front of the fireplace.

The clank of our blades as they hit each other echoed around the room for every strike against the other.

My next hit was hard. The vibrations shook my limbs as I ran his blade down mine.

I twisted it, and the blade flew from his hands.

He doubled-stepped away from me as I tried to strike him and threw a pillow from the other armchair that my sword cleanly cut straight down the center, causing small white feathers to explode and fall like snow.

I couldn’t hold back my laugh as Evereht dove across the floor to retrieve his discarded sword.

He caught me off guard when he shot forward, jumped up on top of the knee-high table that sat between the two chairs, and held the sword in my direction with an overdramatic flare, as if this were more of a performance than a battle.

The wooden table creaked, and before Evereht could get off of it, it snapped in half, causing him to lose his balance and fall to the floor with a groan.

I took the few quick steps to him and raised the tip of my sword to his throat.

Rhet lifted his hands in defeat, and I couldn’t hold back my laugh as I stared down at him.

Suddenly, I heard light applause and looked over to see Kade leaning against the doorway, clapping his hands slowly as he glanced over the wreckage of his room.

“She made me do it, brother. She’s trying to kill me,” he said, acting as if he were a wounded animal on the floor.

“Oh please, don’t throw me under the wagon. You gave me the sword,” I spat, and Evereht placed an exaggerated hand over his forehead.

“I would do nothing of the sort.” I heard a laugh. I looked over to Kade and saw him with his head lolled back, his full belly laugh warming something in me.

“Go ahead and end him if you’d like. I’ve been dealing with his theatrics our entire lives.”

“Brother, you wound me.”

“Serves you right for giving our only prisoner a weapon,” he mocked with a chuckle as he sauntered over to his desk and plopped down in his seat.

His words were sobering. I shouldn’t be enjoying my time here.

I should plan more of my escape. Evereht got to his feet, and I handed him the sword.

“Oh, and brother,” Kade said, glancing to Rhet, “I won’t be cleaning this up. ”

“How about a friendly game of daggers and whoever loses has to?”

“If we do that, we’ll both be too drunk by the end to clean anything.”

“A drinking game? Count me in,” I said, thinking of how I could use it to my advantage later.

“Do you even drink?” Kade asked.

“Of course I do.”

“It’s settled then. Loser has to clean.” Evereht talked as he walked toward the closet to get out the tattered portrait of who I now realized was their father.

He set it up on the wall in the same place it was before.

“I’ll be back with the daggers,” Rhet said as he walked out of the door, and I counted in my mind how many beats he was gone so I could try to figure out how far the weapons might be.

“So how do we play?” I asked Kade as he began pouring the drinks.

“If you hit the mark, you drink.”

“Shouldn’t it be the other way around?” I asked, and he smirked at me.

“We are all highly trained fae. If we did it the other way around, we’d never drink,” he countered, and I couldn’t argue. Evereht walked back in— fifteen seconds. The weapons were closer than I’d expected.

I smoothed my features as Evereht stuck the daggers in the desk and glanced back over to Kade, who only smirked at me. His grin was always half a smile and half a threat. I couldn’t tell if he could see right through me or not.

“I’ll go first,” Evereht said as he gripped the first dagger and sent it flying, hitting the portrait perfectly in the center of the left eye.

“That’ll be are target.” He took the first drink down in one gulp and then set the crystal glass back down on the desk to refill it as Kade went and grabbed the dagger from the portrait.

As he walked back over to where we stood by the desk, he shot the dagger over his shoulder, and it landed in the same spot as he took down his drink.

My eyes widened a little in surprise. I knew we were all skilled, but the level of precision a move like that took would have to come from a master in their craft.

Or they had eyes behind their head. I wasn’t aware that Kade had either of those things, but I guessed I was mistaken.

“At this rate, it seems we only need one dagger,” I said as I called the blade to me with wind, just like all those times Ace would do it when we were kids.

It landed perfectly in my palm before I sent it back, and it thudded into the painting in the same spot it was before.

Kade handed me my drink, and I took it down with one go.

I’d revel in this because after tonight, I was getting out of here.

By the end of the night, I had dumped enough liquor back into their cups to drown a beast. I hadn’t been able to sneak all the drinks past them to pour them down the bathroom sink, so I felt the warmth of the alcohol buzzing under my skin, but I was sober enough to get out of this place.

Evereht, on the other hand, was practically leaning on this brother to remain upright at this point. Daggers jutted out from all over the painting on the wall. We knew to call it a night when Evereht missed his father’s head all together.

“Let’s get you to bed, brother,” Kade said, but Evereht grumbled something under his breath and then stumbled toward Kade’s bed and plopped himself down on it before rolling over and waving for us to join him.

“Come on, Peacebringer,”

“I’m not sleeping in the same bed with you.”

“Oh, come on, I don’t bite. Besides, you’re not my type, but you are my brother’s, so I’d be more worried about being in bed with him.

” He mumbled his words. They were slightly slurred from all the alcohol burning through his system.

A moment later, light snores were coming from him, and I couldn’t stop myself from chuckling at the way he had sprawled himself out.

“I’ll get him to his room,” Kade murmured as he went to grab for his brother.

This hadn’t originally been my plan. I had wanted to wait until Kade fell asleep, but considering it didn’t seem like he had gotten much during my time here and that the alcohol didn’t seem to affect him as strongly as it had his brother, this might have been my only chance to run.

Kade stumbled ever so slightly as he got Evereht to his feet and draped one of his arms over his shoulders to hold him up as Evereht did his best to walk next to his brother.

I crawled into bed and turned away from them.

“I’ll be back,” Kade grumbled as he maneuvered his way out of the room and closed the door behind him.

I waited a beat before I leapt up and darted toward the door on quick, silent feet.

Wind whipped at my heels, urging me to move quicker as I took off down the side of the ship.

I knew there were safety boats on one side.

I could cut one loose and use my bending to get back to shore.

I quickly made it to the boats that were strung up by chains.

I used my water bending to slice through them because I didn’t have the key.

It took me a couple of tries, but one side of the chain snapped, and I made haste to the other end when I heard his voice.

“Don’t make me show you what I’m truly capable of, Bunny,” Kade threatened, and when I glanced over my shoulder, he was leaning against the guardrail, watching me intently.

My mind volleyed between all of my options.

I glanced back to the lifeboat, and then to him, and then to the open water, my mind trying to figure out if I should stay, fight, or flee.

“Don’t make me do it, Emelyn,” he murmured, and the softness of his tone sounded like a desperate plea.

“I know you have no reason to, but I need you to trust me.” He met my gaze.

“Please.” My enemy had just begged for me to stay with him.

My instincts told me to run, but there was a kernel of submission to me.

Something telling me to stay. Wanting me to stay.

I shook my head and let go of the chains in my hands.

I stood there a moment, and neither of us moved.

We didn’t breathe. The uneasy silence stretched between us until I finally stepped away from the boat and walked over to where he stood, leaning against the railing.

I swore I saw his shoulder sag a little in relief as I perched myself next to him.

“At least let me get some fresh air before we go back into that room,” I insisted, and his lip faintly curved into a grin as we silently stared out into the night, listening to nothing but the dark waters of Daynua lap against the ship and feeling the crisp spring air tousle our hair.

We stayed there until the sun crept over the waves.