She adjusted her blanket, pursing her lips as she stared out the window at the dark night sky. “There was one who had escaped well before my time. Or that’s the story I was told. He’d gone head-to-head with the Baroness and had gained his freedom decades before my time. He was this enigma. A whispered legend among the people of the cliffs. There were rumors he would come back, leaving a blood trail in his wake of the guards and those who enforced the laws of the colony. I didn’t know whether or not he was real. Not until he showed up on the night I was sent to— Not until he showed up one night and gave me a way out.”
“And you don’t know who it was?” Cethin asked.
She twisted back to him, watching his features carefully. “The only name I’ve ever known him by is the Reaper. He eventually returned to the Cliffs, decades after I had left. I’m told he killed the Baroness and anyone who sided with her. There are rumors he bound himself to the Cliffs themselves. That he knows if anyone tries to return to them, and he shows up to end them.”
“You’ve never met him again?” Cethin asked. “Or know where he is?”
“Why would you want to know that?”
“I’d like to thank the male who saved my wife,” he said, each word tight and filled with violence.
“You sound like you want to harm him,” she said skeptically.
“The violence isn’t for him, Lia. It’s the entire situation. All of it,” Razik supplied. “Where did you go after you got out?”
“As far north as I could,” she answered, still studying Cethin.
“That’s when you went to Pyry,” Razik reasoned, and she nodded. “And then?”
She reached for a cracker, her empty stomach making her nauseated all over again. “I stayed with the Shifters in Pyry for quite some time. Until some of their allies came to visit. I was offered a position, and in exchange I was given a place to stay and additional training.”
“And how did you come to Avonleya?”
“On a ship.”
Razik rolled his eyes. “Obviously, Lia. Why? What made you decide to do so?”
“I vowed to hunt down everyone who had a hand in what was done to me in those Cliffs. I was told some had found their way here,” she answered. “So I followed.”
“And did you find them? End them?” Cethin demanded.
“Not yet, but I will,” she replied simply, selecting a piece of bread this time.
“We’ll help.”
“Not needed,” she answered.
“Kailia, you can’t expect us to sit back and do nothing when you tell us there are people responsible for everything you experienced in our own godsdamn kingdom,” he seethed.
“That is a concern, but… If it’s true that some of these people made their way here, what if they know who you are?” Razik posed.
She paused her chewing. “What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said. You’ve been hunting them, but what if they’ve been hunting you too? And they’re trying to get to you?”
“You think this is somehow connected to the attacks from the Elder Clans?” Cethin asked, his body rigid with tension.
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Razik answered. “But I do believe someone knows who you are and where you came from, Lia.”
“But…why?” she asked. “What would they want with me now?”
“The same thing they wanted centuries ago. The same thing Ash Riders are coveted for across the realm. Your power and your bloodline,” Razik answered.
As if she didn’t know that was where her value lay. In what she could offer others. Hadn’t that been proven time and time again? In the Cliffs. Once she’d gotten out. In Pyry. In the mortal lands. Even here. She was bound to Cethin because of her arrows. Nothing more.
“When you first came to Avonleya, where did you stay? Where did you go?” Razik asked, leaning forward with his arms braced on his knees.
“I didn’t stay in one place much,” she murmured.
