I regarded the alternative, which involved me turning tail and abandoning this entire affair, but I nodded my head. My nerves were so frayed that beads of sweat fell onto my brow. “I can get the rest of the money,” I said. “I’m good for it.”
Wargrave narrowed his eye. My body grew warm. Could he see past the clothes? Was my hair too glossy? My skin too unblemished? “A deal then,” he finally said. “You take the tooth, and you come back and see me.” He reached under the counter and produced a piece of parchment and a pen. He grunted as he wrote and then handed the pen to me. One eye looked me in my own eyes, the other at the top of my head. “Sign.”
I took the pen and read the contract. There was nothing hidden, nothing sketchy about it. It stated only the date, how much I owed, and to whom, so when I got to the last line I wrote “IVR” and set down the pen. When Walgrave excused himself to retrieve the tooth, exhilaration began to replace my fear. Wargrave handed me a small black bag and in it was the key to curing Fray and, subsequently, saving myself and my family from death. I’d done my part.
I drew my hood back onto my head. With the tooth safely in my cloak pocket, I left the shop, the door slamming shut behind me. I stopped at the stoop, allowing myself to steady my heartbeat. Wargrave was as creepy as a corpse, and gods knew what else he kept in that shop, but he had handed me what I desired. It was all going quite smoothly.
The cat on the stoop hissed again. “Oh, shut up,” I said and curled my way into the shadows.
Chapter 23
In my dream, it was the dead of winter and cold. The trees were mere skeletons. The raw air bit at me, making my skin feel as frozen as I felt inside. Even though it was quiet, I sensed danger. I sensed something watching me.
I stood in the open clearing, reminiscent of the one I had crossed in pursuit of the buck. This time, it was blanketed in white, and there was no trail of blood to follow. The trees called to me, beckoning me to join them.
I kept still. In the middle of that meadow, the wind whistled and snow crunched underfoot.
And then the sound of a ragged breath.
I turned. Nothing.
I whirled around again, drawing a full circle in the snow. Nothing there. There was nothing there.
The breathing began again. Only it wasn't my own.
I stepped backward, slowly, until my back bumped up against something warm and subdued. I could sense him, feel him before I set my eyes on him. Fray Castor. My wolf.
With my back to the wolf, I closed my eyes, and I felt him surround me like a snake coiling. It was warm.
As soon as I opened my eyes, he had vanished, leaving prints in the snow. I crouched, putting a hand over one of them. My hand could fit into it twice over. I had never seen a wolf that big in all my life.
I awoke with a start. I could smell Fray on my hands, that same scent of earth and fallen leaves. I felt the coarse fur beneath my fingertips and for a piercing moment, I felt as though I’d gotten a glimpse into Fray’s past. I’d seen who he really was and felt his world filled with curses and demons. I should have cowered with fear, but an ache, something I did not recognize, stirred in my heart. Instead, I drew my blankets close, wrapped in the memory of Fray’s warmth.
Instead, it didn’t scare me at all.
Chapter 24
The next morning, I shoved my way through drifts of servants and court alike and slipped into the catacombs. Upon turning the corner toward Pyrus’ quarters, my mind was so preoccupied by what I had seen at Wargrave’s that I didn’t see it coming. Him, rather—Ashe. We collided hard, and I would have fallen if it weren’t for his quick hands catching me by my forearms.
“Still here?” I asked, a little winded.
“Still here.”
I moved past him. He didn’t ask me where I was going but did turn to watch me go. I swiveled on my heels, pressured to say some pleasantries, but the sight of his eyes took the words from my mouth. He looked different from the day he’d arrived at Stormwall. Once bright and lively, his eyes now held a certain fog, as if the light had been snuffed out.
“I bet you can’t wait to go back to the Peeks, huh,” I said.
He took a minute to answer, and it was short, hardly an answer at all. “Yes.” Without another word, he turned and climbed the steps.
I shook my head to clear my thoughts, sucked in a deep breath, and moved to Pyrus’ workroom. Once at the door, I paused, my hand hanging in the air in mid-knock.
There were moments in my life I remembered as if they were yesterday. Henry carrying me atop his shoulders, my mother’s once kind smile as she braided my hair. And then there were some that I thought I’d remember forever, but don’t stick in the way I thought they would. But I knew the second I opened Pyrus’ door and took the tooth from my pocket, that this would be one of those moments that stuck. I would never forget it.
I opened the door without knocking.
A cold voice came from the darkness, muttering something I couldn’t make out. With it, visions of a creature with glowing eyes and a big, gnarled mouth, saliva dropping in puddles at its feet. It sounded nothing like Pyrus. I pinched myself to make sure I was in his workshop and not dreaming.
I pocketed the tooth, slid my dagger from its sheath on my calf and held it in one hand while the other drifted to the emerald sitting on my collarbone.
“You can’t hide in it, you know,” came the voice. Less like a monster and more like my friend. “Not even in the night. Not even down here underground.”
“Pyrus?”
Silence. I stepped in further, knowing the way even without a light to guide me. I couldn’t even see the moon from the window. Had he blocked it?
“Light a candle, Pyrus, before I break my neck in here.”
I came to where the cluttered table stood. I felt his dominating presence. And I heard his breathing. I set up an empty chair and sat down. Sitting back, I managed a weak laugh. “I thought you were a monster.”
“I am,” came the prompt answer.
“No more than any of us.” I listened to Pyrus sigh deeply. “Why have you closed up the window?”
I felt him leaning my way, inviting me to whisper. “I’m not deserving of such light.”
I shook my head. “I never thought of you as the self-deprecating type.”
A loud crash and movement from Pyrus. I jumped from my chair, frightened. Pyrus had never afforded me a reason to fear him, but something was amiss.
He lit a candle. The table had been flipped on its side, everything that had been on top was broken and scattered. My friend stood in the recess of the room like a child awaiting punishment.
I inhaled sharply. “What’s happened?”
Pyrus moved with a burst of energy, lighting candles all around the room. “You obey, and you practice what you’re told, and that is the manner of it.” He muttered, walked, muttered some more, and then returned to the overturned table. He stared at it as if he had no idea how it got that way.
Pax cawed from outside and kicked the box from the window. I turned to Pyrus to see him staring at me.
“Did you get the tooth?” he asked.
“Yes, I did.”
“Ah… this is good. Redemption is good.”
I reached into my cloak and presented the Sabrecat tooth. “Redemption?”
Pyrus nodded, his eyebrows raised, his glasses slipping from his nose. He took the tooth and turned away. “What you said about your brother…I believe it as much as you do, because I did it.”
My pulse sounded quick and loud in my ears. I wrapped my arms around my waist. No. Pyrus would never do any person harm. I understood he may want to take blame for whatever little part he’d played, as indirect as it might have been, but such a thing seemed impossible. No, not Pyrus.
Tell me what you’ve done, Pyrus,” I said, despite my doubts.
Pyrus stopped walking and picked up the jar of clear liquid I had seen yesterday. “If I tell you, will it change what you think of me?”
�
�Nothing will ever change what I think of you.” The doubt crept in just as quickly as the words left my tongue. What I wanted to tell him was that no matter what he did, I would always love him dearly.
So, I added, “No matter what, I will never hate you.”
Pyrus focused on me. “Before you were born, your father drove deeper through the Archway. He had found a kingdom that would not bow to him. When the Gwylis made their deal with the Uncanny, they drove him back to Mirosa.” He broke off, breathed. “And to me.”
I watched the back of my friend’s head bobbing as if having a silent conversation with himself.
“He asked for something undetectable. Something that wouldn’t kill, but simply…” He hesitated and extended a hand down his face. “Simply…” His knees buckled. He recovered quickly and turned his back to me. “Something to silence them. He poisoned their wells. He may even have poisoned them more directly. I don’t know. But after it was done, the war stopped and the Gwylis surrendered.”
I drew my eyebrows together, the words echoing inside my head. To silence them. “What do you mean?” I heard myself ask. I already knew the answer. It just wasn't possible. Pyrus had poisoned the Gwylis.
To silence them.
I floated away, far off. Pyrus turned to face me, but he was out of focus, blurred like a horizon in the summer heat. He was talking. “I didn’t know what it was for…believe me that I didn’t know.”
And then silence.
I closed my eyes. I wanted to say something, to ease the pain in my friend’s voice, but my tongue became a rock in my mouth. All I could think of was Fray.
I felt like a stubborn child. “It’s not true.”
It couldn’t be true.
“How could you not know?” I asked, biting my tongue against the inevitable onslaught of tears. “You knew what the poison did.”
“I know.”
Oh, Pyrus.
“He used it again and again. I thought it was for something else entirely, before.”
“Pyrus, not even you could be so daft.”
“Your father would have exiled me if I didn’t!” His voice boomed, a howl in the night that shook me from the place I stood. “He threatened everything I have, and I am too weak of a man to tell him no.”
My chest heaved, and the tears came. “He is a coward, my father. He took away their land and their freedom and then their voices, and what else do they have? Can you blame them for wanting us dead? Can you blame them for dealing with the Uncanny?”
Pyrus shook his head sadly. “I cannot blame them. I should make my deal and let them take my soul. It is burnt and withered and belongs in a place where nobody ever has to see it.”
I looked up. “We all deserve to die for what we’ve done.”
“Not you. You are innocent.”
I shook my head and took a bounding step forward. “No. I inherited this. I am as guilty as you are.”
“No, I can make it right.” Pyrus nodded vigorously. I looked into his round face and his kind eyes, pushing through the pain. The weakness. “Redemption. I can make this right. Do you hate me?”
I wiped my eyes. “No.”
“I promise you. I can make this right.”
I blinked away the last of my tears and straightened.
“How long will it take?”
“A few days at most.”
“Get rid of the poison, Pyrus. All of it.” I threw my hands up as I strode from the room. “Tell him it was lost. Tell him the lies you wish. We cannot let this continue.”
That night, I collapsed into bed and stared at the moonlight through my balcony window. For a long time, I did nothing but breathe.
In stories, there was always a hero, and he’d be the one in shining armor saving the weeping damsel and leading his brave army against evil.
Like the lost girl I was, I squeezed my eyes shut and turned to sob into my pillow. I saw my father and hundreds of people dying by his sword or else bending to his will. The grief sizzled at my skin and sickened my stomach. I no longer knew who surrounded me and what lies their tongues have held all these years. Even my mother—and Henry. Had he truly sided with the Gwylis? Was my dream the truth or a figment of my imagination?
As much as I tried, I couldn’t even remember who I was, but one thing was sure.
I would never wear a crown in Stormwall as long as my father lived.
Chapter 25
The jewels clinked in my hand. Shining, exquisite, one-of-a-kind pieces. They could put up a family for years. Funny. They hung upon a neck, a wrist, a finger, for how long? A night? Maybe two, and then they were thrown into a box, forgotten like an old shoe. I dropped them into the small, satin pouch. Out of the hundreds that my mother owned, she wouldn’t miss these one bit.
Sun bleached the streets of Stormwall. The market square bustled as usual. With the change of season, there was an influx of people wearing fur coats, hats, and scarves. Most were made of wolf fur ranging in colors from pitch black to storm cloud gray to white as snow.
The peddlers selling them shouted their prices. One pushy man waved one into my face as if it were a flag. “You’re gonna catch a cold without one of these,” he said. I pushed the black and white wolf pelt away, catching a whiff of that wild scent I always smelled on Fray.
I couldn’t look. I lost my breath, catching my heel on the back of my robe and stumbling backward onto my butt. The man offered his hand to help, but I refused it. The fur, it had a life, memories even. To this peddler, it was just a meal on his supper table. To me, at that moment, it was alive.
“That’s one of the finer ones I’ve seen,” a rough voice said behind me. “It’s not unlike a person to stand back in awe. It is unlike a person to fall over at the sight of it.”
I got to my feet and turned to see Abiyaya. She wore her usual stacks of cheap jewelry, still hunched as if it weighed her down. I wondered if she was wearing every piece she had ever owned. I looked to her scarred hand. It was only for a split second, but it was enough for her to notice.
“Something to ask, princess?”
Yes. Was it a Gwylis who scarred you? Were you one of the cursed ones? Did you possess magic?
When?
Who?
How?
I brushed myself off, patting down my pockets, making sure nothing had spilled out. “No, nothing,” I said.
“I saw you skulking to the Barge the other day,” she said, tilting her head to the side. “Does it work, then?”
“Does what work?”
“The medicine.”
“I don’t—” I stopped. Only yesterday had I given the Sabrecat tooth to Pyrus. Just yesterday had he told me he’d send word when it was ready. She knew. Her question wasn’t a question, but more the push for a confession. Would she know the cure would work if I asked?
Impossible.
“Come,” she said, taking my hand. I pulled back gently, trying not to cause a scene.
“I don’t believe so,” I said, crouching down so that my lips were close to her ear. “I don’t plan on hearing how childless and miserable I am going to be, if that’s all right with you.”
“Funny,” said Abiyaya, “Your father once said the very same.”
My breath caught. “My father?”
She motioned for me to follow her, her silver and gold bracelets catching the sun and blinding me for a moment. I sighed and looked around. Nobody watched me. Nobody caught on. So, I walked with her until we came to the slums of Stormwall. Down cobblestoned roads, I passed tiny homes set close together with hollowed out windows. Lines of laundry were strung up on ropes traversing the length of the narrow road. The people there considered me briefly and gave nods to Abiyaya as she passed.
We came to an area where I could see the wall surrounding the city. Abiyaya’s home was unimpressive from the outside, set into the buildings like the others, her door a simple white curtain that she disappeared behind before stretching out one hand and beckoning me forward.
The insid
e was as extravagant as Abiyaya herself. To my right was a stove and counter, and to my left, and a mattress on the floor beside a large fireplace. I kept hitting my head on the light fixtures and random chimes she had fixed to the ceiling. My feet hadn’t fared any better. I bumped into several tables and statues of various animals. It was a wonder she could navigate through here without breaking something every day.
Abiyaya stopped at the far wall and sat at a little table the size of a dinner plate. There was a silver dish in the center of it. I took the chair directly across from her. She offered something to me. No. Not offering. She held a pin, ready to prick my skin with it. “Blood,” she demanded.
“You said you came to my father.”
Abiyaya shook her head. “He came to me, child. Exactly as you have.”
I scoffed. “I didn’t come to you. This is technically kidnapping if I say so. You saw something in me that day. What did you see?”
Abiyaya set her mouth into a thin line, her arm still stretched out to me. “I see things in everyone. That is what I do. Blood.”
I matched her discourteous tone. “Only if you tell me what I want to know.”
She nodded, and I let her prick my finger with the pin. She squeezed until the blood bubbled and fell into the saucer.
“Your father came to me before the gold crown touched his head,” she said as two more pearls of blood fell from my finger. “Before war hardened his face.”
“My father was never young,” I said and laughed through my nose.
“Aye, he was. Once young, but forever scarred. He was born with darkness in his heart.” The old woman bent down and scooped a bottle from the floor. She poured its contents into the silver dish and mixed it with my blood. “I told him that he would become a king of many lands and with this, I also told him his fate. A terrible death awaited him if he chose that path of tyranny. He still wouldn't listen. He wished to know what he would become, and I told him. He would be the King of the New and Old Kingdoms, and the world would fear him.”
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