"Then I'll make sure I don't eat another bite tonight. Try not to lose sleep over it." She looked away with a shrug.
Why did she infuriate him so? She had every right to hate him, to be so callous toward him. Anyone in her position would. Yet her remarks left him scathing for reasons he couldn't explain.
He should've walked away. Should've gone back to lie down and tried to get some sleep despite the nightmares. Let her be hungry and stubborn and alone. But he couldn't stop thinking about her hands, damn it. He stepped away without a word, over to the horses, and reached into Tyrios' saddle bag, only to makehis way back to her, much to her displeasure. Like a very stupid moth to a flame.
"Here," He sat down beside her and opened the tiny jar of salve in his hand. "For the rope burns."
To his surprise, she said nothing, only sighed and offered him her hands with a small movement. But when he started to roll back the edge of her sleeve past her wrist, she yanked them away. “That’s far enough.” She hissed.
He nodded and dipped a thumb into the salve, the icy healing balm cool on his fingertip. “Of course. Whatever you’ll allow. Nothing more.” Taking her hands in his, he rubbed the salve over the marks on her wrist. She kept her gaze fixed on the embers of the fire, but he couldn't tear his away from her. He studied those ethereal eyes that spoke of something otherworldly. He’d never seen or heard of—or killed—anything like her. Sapphire, red, emerald, white, gold, and silver. Those were the only eye colors a Lightborn could possess. Spellbounds were harder to identify unless they’d carved their runes into their flesh. And Shadowbloods were unmistakable, their eyes black as voids, dark veins lacing their skin as proof of the blood that ran within. But she was none of these. Her magic was new, unnamed, if it was even magic at all.
What was he doing? What the hell was he doing? She was a potential source of information. Nothing more. He quickly put the salve away and stood up.
"Gariel." He motioned for the spy on night watch, who came to his side without a sound. "Unbind her."
"You want to let her go, Sire?" Gariel scratched at the nape of his cropped dark hair, an eyebrow raised.
"No, she's still mine." Asterious spoke under his breath while looking at the strange girl crouched by the fire. "But just look at her. She’s still weak. She won't get far if she tries anything. No need for the rope."
Before Gariel could protest, the prince walked on, back to the simple blanket spread on the ground and lay down. He pressed his head against the cold ground, facing away from the fire, and away from the girl beside it.
8
A Life Worth Fighting For
Caramyn
That night Caramyn would've liked to believe she could've killed them all and made her escape in the darkness without a trace. But for the first time in a very long time, she began to doubt herself. This was not the Shadow Woods, and these were no ordinary men. They were trained warriors. She'd seen them take down the bandits in seconds, with the ease of crushing cockroaches. She was not foolish enough to think she could outrun them or overpower them on her own, with no weapon, and no knowledge of where she was.
When Gariel cut the rope around her wrist, he warned her that this didn't mean anything had changed before going back to hispost, his eyes never leaving her. She rubbed the place where the ropes had been, working the salve deeper into the raw flesh as she remembered the prince's thumb across her skin, and how she’d flinched at the thought he might see her markings in the faint edges of those dark veins if she’d let him pull her sleeve any higher. She didn't understand him. She didn't want to. He must've been toying with her mind for whatever it benefited him. Nocthar had been quiet, as though even he didn't see a way out of this.
She closed her eyes, the fire's warmth embracing her. She would kill him when the time was right, when she could get him alone and make her escape. The opportunity would come. It always did. And then she could return to the Shadow Woods. She could run back and continue hiding...alone. Back to her life…a life she sometimes wondered if was worth fighting for.
9
The Forbidden Court
Caramyn
The rest of the journey was long, and much the same. But the prince never came to her at night again, and when it was his turn to keep watch through the night, he stood as far as possible from her. They'd bind her hands whenever she had to piss, or anytime she couldn't be watched closely, and she thanked the Shattered gods that she didn't have her monthly bleeding during this time.
During the long, quiet stretches of riding, she tracked their path, recalling maps from her cottage to better understand her location and plan her eventual route back home. She collected maps whenever she came across them in the markets, becauseup until now they were the only way she could explore the world outside the wilderness. She knew Evylere well, and she pictured it now—a vast kingdom once ruled by the Lightborn court and human courts, split into three regions by great rivers that met in the center like main arteries. The lower east region beyond Havenswood was a long-shunned place. Before the Order’s purge, it had been the unofficial Shadowblood domain, where they sealed away their secrets and dark power throughout The Bleak Wilderness and the Woods long before the Veil existed. The human court lay North in Felhold, and the old Vaerwynd lands made up the West—now affectionately known as the witchlands—where remnants of the ancient gods’ powers were said to have fallen in the Great Shattering and created the Lightborn race.
After passing Havenswood and crossing the great river splitting East from West, her suspicions began to form. They were long past any chance of going to Felhold, and she knew that on the other side of the river, tucked away near the coast facing the Shattered Sea lay the old Vaerwynd Court—the ruling place of the Lightborn king and queen before the downfall of their magic at the hands of the humans and the Shadowbloods.
Caramyn thought back to the newest map she’d bought from the town cartographer with some Lily’s Claw and a few stolen coins back in Havenswood. It was the only map that labeled the old Vaerwynd Castle as ‘forbidden ruins,’ and she wondered what King Daemar feared so much that he couldn’t even permit people to visit the lands he claimed to have defeated. But more than that, she wondered why his son seemed to be taking her there now.
Though she’d memorized the geography, she'd never dreamed of how beautiful Evylere truly was, and each day of travel brought with it something more breathtaking than the next. Her maps could've never prepared her for the crystal flowingstreams, the vibrant hues of the changing trees and wildflowers that peppered the landscapes. The far-off snow-capped mountains to the north took her breath away, and she wondered how she'd ever get used to the ever grey bleakness of the Shadow Woods again after this.
On the last day traveling, Caramyn was exhausted, her body still yet to fully recover from the ring’s ailment. She yearned for a break from the confines of the saddle, her backside and spine aching with every stride. And something deep in her conscious ached as well. As the distance grew between her and the Shadow Woods, the stronger she felt something was amiss. She wondered if she’d made a mistake, if she should have tried escaping by now. It deeply troubled her that whatever she was meant to be guarding there was now left unprotected. But she reassured herself that the Shadows didn’t need her the way she needed them. The Woods had stood on its own long before she ever came to them. And perhaps this was how she was meant to protect it this time—by uncovering this mysterious prince’s plans and destroying him in the silence of his own shadows.
As their mounts passed through the heart of the empty witchlands, she forgot her soreness and worry for a moment as she looked on in awe at the sight ahead. A forest full of trees far different from the gnarled, claw-like brambles of her Woods. These were lush and full of color. And in the midst of them, white spires reaching up, gleaming in the last rays of sunlight like diamonds. Beyond the forest and trees lied a horizon of blue, spanning the dusk skyline in gentle ripples—Mistwake Bay, of the Shattered Sea—if her memory of the maps served her correctly.
Why would the Blackwynd prince bring her here? To the abandoned castle of the Lightborn his father betrayed decades ago—the forbidden ruins of the fallen Vaerwynd Court.
Up until now, Havenswood's stone wall had been the mightiest structure she'd ever laid eyes on. But this onyx and ivory stone palace before her stalled her breath. Stretching to the clouds, serrated battlements lined the top edges of each of the four corner towers. Time had ravaged the castle with a dark covering of moss and vines creeping up along the sides. The walls still bore the scars of seige, crumbling where flaming boulders had pierced its wards, their magic nullified by distant iron bells. But even in its battle-worn state, it boasted a beauty no human structure could ever hope to match.
Grand silver gates guarded the entrance, and a small stone wall skirted the outside of the castle, but it seemed more for decoration than protection. As they neared, a soldier or servant of some sort rushed out from the castle entrance to open the gates.
