“Keep looking at her and I will gouge your eyes from your skull and feed them to you,”
The Commander rumbled with deathly calm as he read.
The guard looked down at his feet. “My apologies, Commander.”
He ignored him and turned to me with an unreadable expression. “Your father has accepted the alliance and is travelling here immediately. You will unite the Kingdoms by the end of this week.” The Commander scrunched up the scroll, throwing it at the ground with a snarl. “Collect my horse from the stable and meet us in the square,” he ordered the guard. My mind was spinning, the floor threatening to give way beneath me. Reality crashed into me with a sickening realisation. I was going to see my father. I was marrying someone I had never met. My time with the Commander was over.
Every gallopof Winston’s hooves drove me forward like a blow. The jolt of each stride punched up my spine, rattling my teeth and turning my stomach sour. Nausea churned in my gut, low and stubborn. But it wasn’t the riding… It was everything else. I hadn’t spoken a single word since we left the inn. Not because I didn’t have anything to say, but because I was terrified of what might come out if I tried. My thoughts were a knotted mess. Sharp and tangled. Every time I tried to grab one, three more slipped through my fingers.Hishands on me,hisvoice in my ear, the tugging in my chest, the marriage, the book, Helion, the monsters, the Relics.
I had slept with my Kingdom’s enemy. My captor. Andnow he was taking me to the man I was meant to marry. To give the people the best chance of surviving the rise of the Seven Hells.Mydecision. But the man pressed up against me, the same man whose touch repulsed me mere weeks ago, was someone I wasn’t ready to let go. The way he gripped my waist made me think he felt the same. If I refused to marry the Fae ruler, Helion could destroy everything. But Iwantedthe Commander. The shame. The confusion. The want. The dread. It all tangled in my lungs until breathing felt impossible.
The sun beat down without mercy, warm on my back, but inside I felt cold. Hollowed out. Like I’d left pieces of myself in that bed at the inn and wasn’t sure which ones I needed to survive what came next. I swallowed hard, staring at Winston’s dark mane whipping in the wind. If I opened my mouth, even for a moment, the truth would pour out of me in a broken, humiliating rush?—
So, I stayed silent. Because silence was the only thing that would save everyone.
The guard galloped on a white horse in front of us, my eyes drawn to him. I could not shake the feeling of familiarity. Yet, the more I looked at him, the stranger that feeling sat. His hair stayed blonde, his posture too rigid, his build wrong. For a moment, his eyes had reminded me of Riven. Perhaps I was just missing him.
“There.” The Commander’s voice cut cleanly through my spiralling thoughts. He pointed as we crested a rolling hill. Wind swept across the tall grasses, brushing the blades in slow, rhythmic waves like the sea breathing on land. I followed his gesture, breath leaving me in surprise. Beyond the field, carved into the base of a sheer cliff, rose a fortress of pure obsidian. A castle of shadow. It had sharp edges, but it glittered in the sunlight captivatingly. I craned my neck aswe approached, nerves fluttering through me. It didn’t look built so much as grown from the mountain itself, as though the earth had birthed it. And I was riding straight into it. Straight into the arms of the king I had promised myself to, when every part of my being longed to stay with the monster dragging me there.
Thirty-Four
Secrets
We approached the castle walls. Towering slabs of impenetrable stone climbed so high that my neck ached to see the top. A cluster of Fae waited before the gates. They were shirtless warriors armed to the teeth. Solas stood at the front, huge and beaming, and relief pricked at my chest. A familiar face.
The male beside him, however, made my smile drop. Broad. Unmoving. Armoured in dark onyx scarred from battle. A jagged scar ran down the right side of his face. Harsh, but not hindering of his handsome features. His eyes swept over us once, sharp and calculating. A silent assessment. He didn’t speak as we approached. Didn’t even blink. And yet the warriors behind him shifted, the way prey reacts when the predator lifts its head.
The Commander brought Winston to a halt in front of who I assumed was my betrothed. The shift was near-silent, bodies straightening and gazes sharpening.
The male with the scar watched me curiously. I felt the weight of his attention as if it pressed against my skin, but I kept my chin lifted.
The Commander slid off the side of the horse, gripping my waist and lifting me off with ease. He let my body slide down his, the summer dress he had made me wear hitching as my feet found the ground. Heat blistered my cheeks at his inappropriateness. I straightened out the dark green dress; its material was thin and had two slits that went almost to my hips to allow me to ride on horseback.
Solas smiled warmly, already gripping the Commander’s forearm in greeting. He turned to me, and before I could protest, wrapped his arms around me and lifted me into a hug. I gasped as he twirled me once before setting me down. A small laugh bubbled out of me despite myself. The Fae giant seemed more like an excited puppy than a warrior. His nostrils flared and his grin faltered, eyes shooting to the Commander with raised eyebrows. The redness in my cheeks deepened with understanding. He could smell the Commander on me. Oh Gods, I had ruined everything.
The Commander strode towards the waiting male and extended an arm. They clasped forearms, pulling each other into a solid shoulder-to-shoulder smack of a greeting.
“You’re late,” the male in armour said, voice low and stern.
“Or the old age is finally making you senile.” The Commander smirked. The male looked barely of thirty. But then again, the Commander was also ageless.
There was a tense silence lasting a beat too long and I shifted from one foot to another until both men burst out laughing. It was the most informal greeting I had ever seen in court. “Caelum, this is Lyra Meridian,” the Commander said as his laughter died off, gesturing towards where I stood, confused and lost.
“It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Caelum.” Idipped my head in formal greeting. The Commander laughed, that genuine sound that made my chest feel warm.
“And where werethosemanners when you metme,Little Drownling?” the Commander murmured from behind me. I tried not to smirk, remembering how ridiculous he looked with soup dripping off him.
I ignored him and tilted my chin higher. I needed this to go well.
“I am appreciative of you accepting my hand in marriage. May our vows bring unity against our shared enemy.”
Caelum’s eyebrows drew together, tilting his head in calculation. A few of the warriors snickered behind him and I cursed inwardly.
“What lies have you told this poor girl, My Lord?” Caelum asked the Commander without taking his eyes off me.
My Lord.
The world seemed to tilt, the words echoing like a crack through ice in my head. The Commander said something in the Fae language, his voice rough and punishing.
