CHAPTER 12

Three excruciatingly long days of travel – that’s how long it took my body to finally adopt the natural sway which mirrored the ship’s as it sliced across the ocean. The terrible sickness, which the sailors had warned about, had barely passed. In its wake, I was left with a thudding ache deep in my skull. It sang in synchronicity with the smashing of water against the ship’s hull.

I spent more time on deck, surrounded by open salt winds, than in the dark pits of the cabin in which Duncan was currently left sleeping. I wished for him to be well enough so I could share his gentle warmth with the freedom of the sea.

Dawn had barely graced the skies with its brush of lilac and rose. It was common that the deck was full of life before the sun rose. The buzz of the fey snatched away the peace I craved. I grew used to slipping out whilst they slept. Moments like this, small pockets of quiet when there was nothing but me and my thoughts, were not as terrible as I once believed.

The silence gave me time to contemplate what had passed and what also waited for us when we arrived in Icethorn in a matter of days.

However, today I wasn’t the only one who frequented the early hours of the day to bask in its clarity. Rafaela weaved throughout the thin wisps of cloud with her wings outstretched, casting a shadow across the deep azure waters below. As we did each morning, we recognised each other’s presence with a glance and then left each other alone. She kept to the skies above her ship; I kept to monitoring mine.

Rafaela and Gabrial had joined our journey to Wychwood, whereas Cassial stayed in Lockinge with an army of Nephilim. Quietly, I was glad he didn’t follow. Cassial hoped to gain control of the human city. Faith in the Creator had dwindled to a dying flame thanks to Aldrick and the wildfire that was his lies. However, Cassial believed in the power that was spreading the word of the Creator back among the humans. I imagined once the humans saw the winged warrior, they wouldn’t need much reminding of the faith they’d not long traded for Duwar and his promise of power.

It wasn’t every day angels from scripture turned up at your doorstep.

Neither Rafaela nor Gabrial had even given thought to joining Cassial. Both had made it their duty to protect the remaining three keys, plain and clear. Which meant, proven by the shadow I’d gained, Rafaela never strayed too far. When I was awake, she was awake. Even hidden within my cabin with Duncan’s limbs entwined with mine, I sensed her.

My stomach groaned, sending a sharp stab of hunger across my torso. I pressed a hand to it, massaging the ache in hopes it faded. It wouldn’t be long until the mess hall would be overcome with food and I’d eat with those manning the ship. I wouldn’t touch a morsal of food before, choosing to break bread with the fey I’d saved. If anything, I told myself it would help build respect – reminding them that I was no different to them.

Luckily, it wasn’t required to stop along the Durmain coastline to restock since leaving Lockinge. Rafaela had seen to us being stocked up with food and supplies, ensuring we could keep moving toward our destination without delaying.

That wasn’t the only reason I was glad we didn’t need to stop. We didn’t know what lurked along the human landscape. Their hate for our kind would take longer to repair, and it was best we returned to our realm as soon as possible. Both to return the fey back to their rightful homes and to enter the chaos that was left in the wake of Aldrick’s destruction of the Elmdew Court.

Every day that passed was another day closer to Aldrick becoming a threat to another court. I only hoped the birds we sent with messages reached the courts before Aldrick’s force did.

Footsteps sounded across the deck, distracting me. It was unusual for someone to be up so early. I turned, gathering myself, and prepared to leave the sailors to their tasks, but it was Kayne who emerged from the shadowed stairwell. A look of surprise splashed across his freckled face, telling me that he didn’t expect to find anyone awake.

I offered a smile and made a move to leave.

“Rushing off?” he called after me, voice thick with a yawn.

Suddenly, I felt awkward. I fidgeted with my hands, kept in place as Kayne stood at the exit of the lower decks. Tall, thin as a reed with long legs and arms, which he stretched away, the tiredness settled in his bones.

“I left Duncan a while ago. It would be better that I’d returned to the cabin by the time he wakes up,” I replied, trying to read the trepidation in his narrowed eyes. “Unless you would prefer my company?” Which I doubt you would.

I hardly had shared a word with him in days, and not by my own choice. Kayne laughed but said nothing to combat my question, proving my theory right.

Lucari gleefully swooped from his shoulder, wings flapping in a blur as she shot skyward toward Rafaela, giving chase. Once the hawk drew close to the Nephilim, she recognised Rafaela wasn’t willing to play and quickly dipped away from her. Her squawk practically screamed with fear.

“Can’t sleep either?” he asked, breaking the silence between us. I hated how tense he was when he spoke to me. I wasn’t the one starting the conversation, and yet I still felt like it was an agony getting any more than a few words out of him at a time.

“Not really. I’ve been awake for hours, something about the swaying that really fucks with my stomach,” I replied, feeling the usual awkwardness that thickened the air when Kayne was around. After our last interaction, it seemed Kayne did everything to only be around me when Duncan was there. Even the hesitant glint in his eyes revealed he would have preferred I’d not seen him. “How about you?”

“All I will say is the moment my feet touch the solid, unmoving ground, I might just cry,” Kayne said, focusing his attention on his hawk and not on me. “I’ve heard we have a couple more days of this hell to get through.”

“If winds permit, we will reach Wychwood late evening in two days. At the earliest.”

“Oh, I can just imagine the warm welcome now,” Kayne said, not bothering to conceal the roll of his eyes.

“You were a Hunter. Forgive the fey for treating you with caution, which I am sure you can understand they’ll have…”

“I sense a but coming on.”

“ But , they will learn to trust you like I have.”

He shot me a look, brow furrowing. “Do you?”

“I hope so.”

Kayne huffed, stretching his neck backwards and then to either side. Besides what his words suggested, nothing about him seemed concerned. “Duncan will expect the welcome too, right? What is to say you are not leading us blindly, to reach Wychwood only to be met with a trial for our heinous crimes?”

“After everything we’ve been through, you still don’t trust my intentions,” I replied. I savoured the harsh copper tang as my teeth gnawed down into the inside of my cheeks. The pain and taste were the distraction required to not say what I truly wanted.

Kayne shrugged, smiled and walked right past me with the confidence of someone knowing where they wished to go. Which, on a deck surrounded by stretches of ocean and nowhere to go, confirmed he just wished to get away from me.

“Is there a problem?” I asked, rooted to the spot.

“I don’t know, should there be?” Kayne said, shrugging broad shoulders.

“No. Kayne, I don’t understand your hostility toward me. I don’t want to have this relationship with you,” I said, chasing after him like a fool. In another world, I would’ve walked away, cursing his name under my breath. But Kayne was Duncan’s closest friend. His brother of soul, not blood. It was imperative we got along.

And I needed Kayne for other means. Selfish, yes, but still important. Kayne’s skills as a Tracker were highly desirable for the problem I had: locating Jesi.

“Do you want me to pretend to like you?” he asked.

My throat tightened. “Ah, so he finally admits it.”

“I thought I’d made it obvious. Guess I should’ve tried harder.”

“If you don’t care about me, then why are you here, Kayne? Nothing was stopping you from leaving. You could have turned your back on all of this, but you helped. Is it to boost your ego or make yourself feel better for the terrible things your time as a Hunter has caused?”

Kayne spun on me. All of his humour melted from his face. I rocked back a step. “Do you truly need me to spell it out to you?”

“Well, it might help me understand you.”

Kayne’s chest rose and fell with each breath. His eyes bulged, veins protruding from the temples of his head. For a moment, I thought he was going to expose all his truths, but then his chin dropped to his chest, and he took a shuddering inhale.

When he looked back again, he was in control. “I’m sorry, Robin. It’s been a long couple of weeks and… I shouldn’t take it out on you. I’ve never been good at controlling my tongue like Duncan.”

I searched his tone for insincerity but came away empty-handed. “If there is something you wish to get off your chest…”

Kayne shook his head and continued before I could prod again. “There is no excuse for my behaviour. Duncan would tell you, I’m a prick. Born and bred. Ignore me. And maybe don’t tell Duncan. He’d tear my throat out if he heard how I spoke to you, and I am rather fond of it, so please, you know, maybe keep my sudden, unfair outburst between us.”

I zipped my finger across my lips and threw it over my shoulder in a gesture. “Not a word.” At least not yet , I thought.

Kayne sighed, genuinely relieved. “Great.”

“Great,” I echoed.

Kayne whistled for Lucari to return to him. “Best be off. I find the best time to sleep on the ship is when everyone else is awake. Less snoring to keep me up. A bit more rest might even improve my mood.”

He went to move past me, but this time I stopped him. My hand pressed against his chest. “I need to ask something of you before you leave.”

Kayne glanced sideways at me, then down to my hand, before he stepped back to remove my touch. There was no ignoring the grimace that lifted his lip into a snarl. “Should I be worried?”

“Maybe. It’s about Jesibel,” I said, repeating her name as though everyone else was as familiar with it as I was. Which, in this case, Kayne was. After he had taken the census of the fey names, he knew who it was I longed to find among the lists. “You’re a Tracker. You have more skills when it comes to locating someone, especially a fey, than anyone else I can think of. Lucari has helped you find hundreds of fey in the past, and all for the wrong reasons. What if I asked you to help me find one, but for the right reasons?”

Kayne paused, digesting my words as though they were something hard to swallow. He chewed on the insides of his lower lip, stare tracing every inch of my face as he conjured his response. “I can’t do that.”

My heart sank into the pit of my stomach like a stone in a river of anxiety. “Would you rather I beg you?” I said with urgency. “Because I will.”

Kayne shook his head gently. “It’s not safe for Lucari to travel such long distances without me. There’s no saying that she will find Jesibel alive alongside Aldrick. But doing so will only allow Aldrick to use Lucari like a beacon as she guides him back to us. To you .”

He almost seemed pleased with his excuse. A flash of pride passed across his eyes, if only for a moment. It was soon replaced with an emotion more empathetic, like forced relief. He wasn’t quick enough or slick enough for me not to notice.

“I’m worried about her, Kayne,” I forced out, almost ready to tell him how she invaded every dream I’d had in the days past. If only to free myself from her haunting presence, I longed to do something, anything, to help find her. “How is it that even the fey we saved have no idea if Aldrick took her. They can name other fey, but not Jesi. She can’t have just vanished.”

“Have you ever contemplated that she doesn’t want to be found?” Kayne asked, and I felt the blood in my veins chill.

Unable to formulate a reply, Kayne took my silence as a means to end the conversation. “Are we done here?”

I swallowed hard. “Very much.”

Before I would actually get on my knees and beg, I turned my back on Kayne, feeling the pressure of another’s attention on me. As I looked skyward, Rafaela was looking in our direction as though she had heard the entire interaction.

“Robin,” Kayne called out a final time. “I am sorry for, you know… earlier.”

I had to stop myself from turning around and shouting at Kayne. His refusal to even consider helping me had encouraged a lump of frustration to fill my throat. If I had unclamped my closed lips, what I had to say would not have been so kind.

I flashed Kayne a fake smile to complete our conversation just as a noise sounded from the sky above us. When I glanced up at Rafaela, she was no longer looking at me. Instead, she glanced toward a dark mass in the distance, one that flew above the line of clouds with incredible speed.

My blood thrummed with ice as the shadow grew larger the closer it became. Although I couldn’t make sense of it, I knew it was a threat as my magic naturally rose to the surface. Beast or not, I’d protect this ship with everything in me.

The mass moved with speed, slicing above the cover of the cloud.

Rafaela had stopped flying. She hovered in place with the hammer gripped in her hands. She unleashed a throaty noise which carried across the sky, much like the sound she’d made to call off the attack on the fey ships days ago. The purpose behind it soon became clear as more winged Nephilim shot skyward from their ships to join her. This time, it was a rallying cry.

Each held weapons that caught the light of dawn and winked with the kiss of illuminated gold.

“What is that?” Kayne grumbled, hand raised to his brow. “Has another key been…”

“No,” I said, sure of myself. “This is different to before–”

A sky-splitting roar bellowed over us.

My next words shouted over the roar. “Get Duncan.”

“It looks like it has…”

“GET DUNCAN NOW!”

A deafening snarl drowned out my shout as the shadow closed over our fleet of ships. Between the weaker wisps of cloud, obsidian scales flashed. Great wings cast darkness over the boat, blocking out the sun completely as it moved overhead. My eyes took in leathery wings double the size of the sails that flapped behind me. A tail as thick as the trunk of the oldest of trees.

My mind drifted to Gyah, pulling forward an image of her in her Eldrae form. But this was not an Eldrae. Fearsome and deadly, its presence weighed down on the world. It let out another sound, grumbling from the pits of its hulking body.

The Nephilim readied themselves for an attack.

Kayne hadn’t moved. Lucari was silent as death on his shoulder.

I gripped the edge of the railing, ice crackling across the wood. Not once did I take my eyes off the creature as it flew overhead. It was a risk to even exhale for fear of drawing attention to myself.

As suddenly as the monster’s presence became known, it passed. Flying out of sight toward the faint outline of land in the distance.

I was left gripping onto the splintering railing, with the inability to move. Part of me waited for the monster to turn back around, realising what it had just passed over. Surely it would come back to devour us. But I got the sense it didn’t attack because it didn’t bother itself with us. Not because it wasn’t our enemy, but because we were not a threat in its eyes.

I don’t know what truth made me feel better.

“Do not worry, the Draeic will not return,” Rafaela confirmed, knuckles pale beneath her tension as she leaned against her hammer.

I turned to look up at her, blinking away the shadow the beast had imprinted into my consciousness. “Draeic, yet another name for creatures we’ve never known existed before.”

“It is a demon, Robin.” For the first time, I saw fear in the Nephilim’s eyes. “I had hoped such nightmares would be kept at bay, but the Defiler is making the most of the weakness Aldrick has gifted to the gate. I imagine more will come if they haven’t already.”

I didn’t recall stories of demons such as the one that had just passed when Duwar had been mentioned. From my knowledge, although limited, I understood Duwar was banished to another realm. But the echo of the beast that still rang in my head had proven otherwise.

“What was it exactly?” Kayne asked, voice on edge with a subtle tremor. His skin had turned ice-white with fear. “And why is it all the way out here? I thought the gate was in Irobel?”

“There is much we don’t know about the Defiler. There’s no saying what the demon god has accomplished during their banishment. But the Draeic are like hounds. Pets, if you will. They go to where they are called.”

“To Aldrick,” I muttered, aware that my breath fogged beyond my lips as my power coiled out of my control.

It took a moment for my mind to catch up. I still reeled from what I had witnessed. Commotion spread across the ship as the fey tumbled out to find out what had happened. Across the sea, I saw the smudge of figures leaning over the railings in search of the thing that had woken them.

“It’s going to him, isn’t it?” I said, cautious. I didn’t want to spark fear among the crowd. “He is behind this. The keys, the gate. This is just another string he can add to his bow. Soon enough, the bastard will have enough to balance the arrow that destroys us.”

“It would be the most plausible of answers,” Rafaela replied. Lines had etched themselves across her forehead. Deep-set and aggressive, so much that they looked like physical scars of her concern.

I knew that feeling well enough to recognise it.

“Are you all right?” I asked as Rafaela dropped her wide eyes to the ground.

“If… if that monster made it this far from the gate, it means it got past the Nephilim stationed there.”

The sudden understanding of her visible distress became clear to me. She was concerned for those she’d left behind. “I am sure they are–”

But before I could finish consoling Rafaela, her wings burst outward. It took only two powerful flaps with undeniable force and she was skyward, shouting down one last command. There was not an ounce of sadness or concern left in her eyes. “We must reach Wychwood. It’s no longer safe. Robin, urge your ships forward, use your power to buffer the sails with the winter winds coursing through you. We must not allow for any further delays.”