A small part of her blamed herself for the mess in the Spine right now.
But she shook it off, knowing their king had been a weakling. He’d only ever done what Firemoor did. Had decided witches were evil when Firemoor did. Had decided to get rid of impoverished people when Firemoor did, stating there was only enough food and supplies in the realm for those who could afford it. The idiot was stupid enough not to listen to his advisors and hadn’t realized the ones he was murdering were the ones farming and feeding half damn continent.
He’d starved more than half of his nation in the process of trying to follow in Firemoor’s footsteps, and Ana had told him that before she’d sliced his heart out.
The Spine after his death hadn’t been chaos, though. People had come together and helped one another out. They’d actually begun to heal without the fear of being punished for giving their neighbor a loaf of bread.
Though Ana had believed that while they were recovering their minds and bodies, they hadn’t exactly been stockpiling weapons. She kept telling herself that Firemoor would have taken over that realm regardless of whether she had interfered. At least she had been able to give them a little over a year of peace.
Back on the stream she had going on her computer, General Prei strutted in front of the old Spine capitol building, now in rubble, like he were a god.
She wished she’d taken his heart instead of their idiotic king’s. He’d been a problem since she could remember, and now that he’d recouped the fire armies enough for an organized attack, she wondered how long it would be before he headed for Ironmyer.
She knew that would be next. He would gather Ironmyer and Windmoor’s armies before trying to invade Shadowmyer. As for Icemyer… she wondered if he’d already infiltrated it.
Icemyer was nearly desolate, controlled by no one. It was a wasteland of forgotten power and energy. Old tales told of witches originally drawing their powers from beneath the ice and in the depths of the caves. Her father had brushed off the stories when he’d heard them from a few residents, but Ana had always known it was at least partially true.
Ana sank back onto the couch and took another sip of her wine. It might have only been lunch, but after seeing people strung up by nooses on public display for fighting back against Firemoor had driven her to an early uncorking.
Sam hadn’t replied to her last message. It had been a few hours. Hours that she should have devoted to finding more information than just an article on the one girl who was said to have gotten into Castle Corvus. That poor girl was locked up in the mental wards of St Orphs, located a few miles east of midtown. She wasn’t sure how she could get out there, maybe the bus to midtown and walk the rest of the way. Asking Sam to take her there would be too risky, and even asking Jay didn’t feel right. As much as she liked him, including him in what she was working on didn’t feel right.
Ana gulped down the rest of her wine and poured another glass before ordering lunch from the deli a few doors down. Her phone kept snagging her eye, thinking she had heard it vibrate, and she hated how distracted she was.
The storms outside had raged off and on the last few hours, a reflection of the king’s mood as Jay had told her.
Ana rose from the couch and went over to stand by the window, letting her robe hang lazily over her. More lights were on in Castle Corvus today, and as she looked at the cemetery, she noticed the water from the last hour’s downpouring. It rushed into the drainage ditches and sewers, taking mud and debris with it, wiping away whatever secrets the grounds could tell her about their mysterious king.
The thought of him made her jaw twitch.
A knock sounded at her door, and while Ana frowned, she remembered she had ordered lunch. She sat her glass on the counter as she opened the door.
Jay stood on the other side.
“Jay,” she said, surprised her boss had come to check on her when she’d called out that morning. “You didn’t have to—“
“Had a few minutes, and when I saw Todd coming up with food, I figured it was for you,” Jay said. “How are you feeling, love?”
“I’m…” She glanced over her shoulder to the glass of wine and then the streams on all her devices. “I’m not going to lie, Jay. I’m a little queasy. Assuming you’ve seen the news?” she asked.
He nodded, and Ana opened the door to let him in. “Another reason I came to check on you,” he said as he sat her food on the counter. “I thought you’d mentioned spending some time there before crossing the border. I wanted to make sure you were okay.” He kicked his shoes off and sat on her couch, Ana taking her soup out and grabbing another glass for him.
Jay took the glass and helped himself to a bit of her wine as she curled into the opposite corner. “Probably be better if I were to just turn these off,” she said. “But I can’t. It feels like I’m forgetting them if I do.”
“Nothing you can do about it, love,” he said with a sigh. “You got yourself out. I’m not saying forget about them, but unless you’ve got some ranking with the Council, you’re not going to be able to change anything.”
“Maybe I should,” she said, taking a sip of her warm soup. “Figure out how to get on the Council, I mean.”
Jay chuckled. “That would be something. I’d love to see that, actually. Perhaps you’d talk these shadow dealers into not charging so much for helping get through to a place of peace.”
She considered it, watching Jay as he ran a hand through his blonde hair. “You used a shadow dealer to get here, didn’t you?”
Jay nodded, but there was something about the look behind his eyes that made her own narrow. Enough so that she paused before taking another slurp of her soup.
“Cost a fucking fortune,” he muttered. “But worth it in the end. What did you use?”
“Dealer,” she replied, and a chill ran over her skin as she remembered looking at that border. The forest that hid it. To any average person, it was simply a large forest with misty fog beneath. A bit spooky to the unsuspecting, but the secrets and wards it held in it were what sometimes gave Ana nightmares those first couple of weeks.
“The voices were the worst for me,” Jay muttered.
