CHAPTER 18

I tracked the Draeic, their speed horrifyingly impressive as they barrelled through the night. Magic flooded my veins. My nerve endings sparked. I tried to breathe, but a serpent had coiled itself around my chest and squeezed. I didn’t need air in my lungs when my pure, undiluted power fuelled my body.

Let them come.

The world slowed to the detailed ebb of clarity. Rafaela’s command rang continuously through my mind. “Fight with everything you have in you.”

I glanced back toward the castle, my castle, and imagined talons tearing through the stone. My ears mocked the sound of the destruction. I heard the monstrous tails, thick as the oldest trees, wrapping greedily around spires, snapping them like dried twigs beneath their weight.

I wouldn’t allow it. This felt like a test, Altar seeing me steady on my path as king but needing proof I was worthy. I’d show him – I’d show the world what I was capable of.

Although my mind screamed for me to do as Rafaela commanded, to run back into the safety of Imeria’s walls, my heart refused, the decision further confirmed by my iron will. It kept me rooted to the spot as the violent beat of wings and thunderous roars grew louder as they flew closer.

Cold winds ripped around me. I heard their whispers of warning – their chants. The wind longed for me to let go of the power that shook within my core as though breaking free from a cage. This was my home. I’d not been here to stop the first unwanted assailants when they came, killed and left this court in ruins.

For their memory, I wouldn’t run and hide.

History would not repeat itself this night.

The gale forced my back as though a hand urged me to face the incoming attack. My feet barely touched the floor as they lifted me. To its power, I was nothing more than a puppet tangled at the end of their strings. The sudden release intoxicated me until I felt as though my very being was no longer my own.

Because it wasn’t.

My body was a vessel, a gift that was granted to keep the demons at bay. I supposed I would start using it for its true purpose by sending them back to the dark pits they’d desperately crawled from.

“I’m not leaving,” I growled, more to the universe than Rafaela. Icy winds enveloped me, picking my admission and amplifying it. It tore the dark locks of hair from my forehead as it picked up in a frenzy.

Rafaela hoisted her hammer above her, gritted her teeth and then nodded. In a blink, she shot skyward. Rafaela was airborne, charging toward the three creatures with a scream of war. I admired her strength and prowess, it inspired my own.

This was my land, regardless of how, on the surface, I was disconnected from it. Deep down, swirling among the power my bloodline permitted, it was mine.

No longer held aloft by the welcoming torrent of my conjured winds, my bare feet pressed back to the cold stone as I prepared myself. Even at a distance, I could hear Rafaela’s war song.

The Draeic were equal in size, but each born from different shades of night. Their hulking bodies were covered in an armour of sharpened scales. The closer they grew, the more I could see a form of what seemed to be light exposed beneath their layer of scales. Crackling red fire. As though lava flowed beneath, shown only through the cracks. Much like Duwar had looked when he presented himself in the mirror, standing proudly behind Aldrick. The monsters belonged to him.

My eyes devoured the creatures, searching for a weakness. The one that flew to the left of the formation struggled to keep height. It was subtle but enough for me to notice.

Its leathery wings were covered in tears and jagged holes. Moonlight easily speared through the thin membrane that stretched between their boned frames.

I wouldn’t allow them to get any closer.

She met one of the Draeic head-on with equal confidence, hammer swinging in a blur of gold, colliding with the side of the creature’s maw. There was no sign of hesitation as Rafaela’s stone-grey wings carried her toward them. The hammer ruptured against scale, the Draeic roaring in agony, thrown into the front of another one of the creatures. They collided with a sky-shattering boom.

Wasting not another moment, I ran. This time to the outer edge of the balcony that we had, not moments before, been talking together by. The peace of our conversation was a distant memory. The harsh presence of stone pressed into my hip as I leaned as far over the edge as I could until all I could see was the darkened drop below.

Instinct drove me. I pushed my power into the surrounding air, and it welcomed me. Like a leech upon flesh, the winter air drank from me. I envisioned every flake of snow and ice entrapped within the winds that whirled around the castle. Honing my focus was as easy as conjuring a thought. Every one hardened and sharpened in my mind’s eye, forming the snow into intricately crafted blades.

I blinked, and the dark glittered with static flakes that hung like stars across the landscape. There were so many of them that I couldn’t fathom a number large enough to guess. Then, with clear precision, I guided the winds and pushed those crafted blades of ice straight toward the Draeic.

Another boom echoed across the landscape as Rafaela’s hammer crashed into the snout of one beast again. Beside them, she looked small, but her strength was mighty. Unrelenting just like the storm I’d conjured.

My assault met the third of the Draeic. I felt every shard tear through hardened skin with the ease of a knife through butter. Over and over, I willed the ice to return, ripping, scratching, stabbing. A gust of silver wind engulfed the large beast completely in a vortex of my blizzard.

I revelled in the monster’s howls as my power tore it to shreds. It was ripped part, bit by bit, caught in a web of my own making. My body tensed against the power, arms still outstretched, as I forced more of my essence into the winds until it was as much a part of me as my own hands.

A sudden, sharp tang of copper filled my mouth. My teeth bit hard down into the sides of my cheeks as I focused on destroying the creature. I brushed my tongue over the mess of flayed skin, using the pain to hone my focus.

I knew the very moment the Draeic stopped struggling within the vortex of ice and ruin. There was no noise anymore, no struggle. Only the continuous roaring of the Draeic Rafaela still fought. I couldn’t look to see if she needed help, not until I was confident my victim would no longer be a threat.

A sudden heavy, unwanted rush of tiredness overcame me. Fog shrouded my mind, the world spun out of control. I withdrew my power, falling over onto the stone wall of the balcony as my knees gave way. My lungs burned as I inhaled frozen air deeply, forcing as much breath back into them as I could muster.

Something warm trickled down from my nose. Lifting a finger to check, it came back red and wet with blood. But all of my discomfort was not strong enough to stop me from witnessing the annihilation my power had achieved.

Lightheaded from the draw back of my power, I watched the Draeic as it fell from the sky. Its body was a bloodied, broken mess of limbs and bone. Meat hung from its corpse. The wings were so torn that even if it had survived, they wouldn’t have kept it airborne.

I glimpsed its gouged eyes and shattered jaw. Then it was gone. Falling into the dark. Its death was so terribly silent, until the shattering explosion of its body meeting the ground far below echoed up the sheer face of the castle’s walls.

My relief was short-lived as Rafaela’s scream cut through the daze of power and tiredness. I looked up to see her body, grey wings folded protectively over her, hurtling through the night. From the arcing swing of one of the monster’s spiked tails, I knew it had hit her.

I screamed her name, my voice filling the dark void between us. No room for thought, only action, I released my power again, recognising the slight strain on it. I thickened the air, trying to soften the inevitable fall. There was resistance, but it worked enough to give her the time she needed.

Just before Rafaela slammed into the castle walls below the balcony, she threw her wings out and regained control. Blood smeared her cheek as she looked up at me. I spotted a dark stain spread at the side of her waist that she had not seemed to notice or care about.

Everything that followed happened so quickly.

Rafaela flew upward, wings cascading powerful gusts down upon me. “I need to get you out of here.”

“No, I can stop them.”

Rafaela’s bloodshot eyes suggested she didn’t believe me. “You can’t. They are Duwar’s creatures – made of dark power – the more you use against them the more it will drain you.”

Was this what was happening to me? How I’d reached the limit of my power so quickly.

“This is my domain; I’ll not let them take it!”

“A wasted wish if you are dead.” Rafaela glanced behind her, and we both watched as the remaining two monsters righted themselves and focused back on the castle. Not on me or Rafaela, but on the towering walls behind me. Globs of saliva dripped from their maws; ferocity twisted like red fire in their large, snake-like eyes.

“You,” Rafaela shouted above the roars of war the monsters released, “are my priority.”

My thoughts drifted to Duncan. Had he woken to the noise and thought it was more sinister than a crash of thunder? I wondered if Seraphine glanced out her window, expecting a storm, instead finding winged monsters claiming the sky of Icethorn as their own.

How much time had passed since we had first been attacked? I had to hope they were aware, preparing themselves for the horror that would follow if I failed.

“We destroy them,” I snapped, lip curling over bared teeth. “It’s the only option.”

Rafaela just looked at me, her brow creasing as she came to her own conclusion.

I longed to tell her I could deal with it, but every inch of my body ached. The power I had exuded had taken it out of me. Looking at the two monsters that flew with frenzied determination, I knew deep down I couldn’t take them. Not like I had with the other – not without them draining me.

I watched in frozen awe as the two creatures careened toward me. They showed no signs of stopping, no signs of slowing down.

“You’ll one day forgive me for this,” Rafaela said a moment before she flew directly toward me.

Rough hands grabbed at my body, and the ground fell away from my feet. Rafaela’s nails pinched into my skin as she tore me from my castle and threw us both into the air. I gripped onto the bloodstained ivory shawl she wore and screamed.

Winds swallowed my cry with their own. The sound ruptured against my eardrums. My eyes streamed with tears from the slapping of cold upon my face.

“Wait!” I shouted, unsure if Rafaela could hear me above it all. It was one thing running, but leaving Imeria behind, forgetting those who still were inside of it… “Rafaela, release me.”

Her hold on me only tightened, until I felt as though my ribs would snap. I struggled to breathe as the pressure worsened. It then filled my head. The higher she climbed into the sky, the more I felt the hands of air press into me, the harder breathing became.

I forced my eyes open, streaming tears, and glanced back toward the two remaining monsters.

They didn’t follow us in chase as I expected. Yet there was no relief as I realised it. Because they never wanted me – that wasn’t why they were sent here.

I finally discovered what the Draeic desired a split second before they got their wish.

Both remaining monsters split apart at the last moment, before smashing straight into Imeria’s outer walls. Their power and speed gave the impression that they melted through stone as they disappeared into the castle’s body. But that was wishful thinking.

It took a moment for the explosive sound of carnage to reach me.

Rafaela slowed in her flight. I felt the breath leave her lungs as she looked down at what had caused the noise.

The monsters hadn’t been sent here to claim me. This was a suicide mission – and they had succeeded.

An entire side of Imeria Castle buckled and fell before our eyes. Towers folded in on themselves, walls exploded outwards, unable to hold the weight of stone above them as the two gaping holes the creatures left weakened them to the point of no return.

Soon the sky was full of dust and rubble as the castle continued to break and shatter, a cloud of it rupturing up from the distance around and swallowing the entire castle – or what remained of it – from view.

My mind screamed for one person. Duncan.

He was in there. The castle was falling around him. I imagined him in the bed, asleep and unaware, as bricks fell upon him. It took everything in my power not to blink and see visions of his head caved in, his body squashed to a pulp by the mounds of the castle that had stretched above the room he slept in – the room I’d left him alone in.

As the castle continued to fracture, as though made from glass and held in careless hands, my heart shattered in a symphony. Each brick, each slab of stone that crumbled beneath me, matched that of the pieces my heart snapped into.

Pain reverberated through my chest, and my grip on Rafaela fell slack. She was saying something, repeating the same words over and over. But I lacked the care to listen to them. There was nothing I could focus on more than the massacre laid out beneath my dangling feet. Or from the cavernous hole of loss that returned, like a vagrant tenant, to my soul.

The light of dawn revealed every horrific detail before me. Shards of golden light cut through the wisps of clouds and graced the mountain of rubble that stretched ahead of me. Dust clung to the air, invading my lungs, and making it feel like each inhale was full of grit and dust.

I cared little about my pain compared to the sea of agony that had overtaken me. If anything would destroy me, it was the knowledge of what I’d just lost.

Standing on a boulder, I looked out over the remains of Imeria Castle, and cried for Duncan until my throat bled raw. His name was a blade in my throat, scoring deep marks into it each time I shouted for him.

Rafaela didn’t try to stop me. Instead, she continued her solitary search among the ocean of broken brick and dust-covered ruins for bodies. Corpses. Death. One of the Draeic had been completely buried, but another was still visible at a distance, a single ripped wing stretching out of a mound of stone like a sail of a submerged ship.

Now and then, she would find signs of what she searched for. A hand reaching out beneath a blood-covered stone. A face covered by a layer of dust, skin ripped and skull shattered. Seraphine’s body wasn’t found. There was a man Rafaela uncovered, his torso had been severed, spilling the tangled knot of innards out in a puddle of red and black gore where his legs should have been – legs that were never found.

What Rafaela did find was death in abundance. But never life – hours had passed and not a single person had been found alive. My hope, what little remained of it, abandoned me soon enough.

I was thankful Rafaela had run her fingers down the Asp’s grit-coated face to close his eyes. They had still gleamed with the fear he beheld in the moments before he’d died.

In another life, I may have grieved the Asp’s death, the one my presence had brought to his new home. But I had no room for him, Seraphine or the other broken lives the castle had stolen.

There was only room for Duncan. He occupied every part of me.

Each time Rafaela found another body beneath the rubble, she would look up at me and shake her head.

As frozen tears melted down my cheeks, I wondered if she looked for Duncan to ease her own guilt. The emotion was the clearest in her eyes. Unspoken but bitter. I recognised it well the moment she’d returned us to the ground as we watched and waited for the fall of my castle to calm.

It took hours to settle enough for it to be safe for us to begin our search.

Rafaela hadn’t said it with words, but she carried the weight of death on her shoulders.

At some point, I noticed the thundering of hooves in the distance. Weakly, I looked over my shoulder to see a hoard of stags rushing toward us, a wall of them blocking the horizon. Althea rode ahead, her poppy-red hair billowing behind her as she cantered toward us. Toward me. Following her was a formation of Cedarfall soldiers, fanned out like wings behind her.

You’re too late.

Rafaela was airborne again, ready to fight, until she realised who was joining us.

Althea threw herself from the stag’s side, almost tripping at first, before running toward us. She navigated over the rubble, wide eyes not leaving mine as she did so. Shadows hung beneath them, telling a story of the worry she held inside.

“We saw it, all of it!” Althea shouted. “I thought… I thought… I thought you’d died, Robin.”

There was a part of me that felt like I had perished, alongside those beneath the rubble of my castle.

“They’re dead,” I interrupted her, unable to bear the weight of her sorrow atop my own. “All of them. Duncan is…” I couldn’t say it. Didn’t dare speak it aloud in case it made it real.

“Robin.” Althea clutched my shoulder, her touch rooting me to the panic glistening behind her eyes. “Duncan is–”

“Dead!” I screamed, ice bursting from beneath my bloodied, scratched bare feet. It devoured the stone I stood upon, coating it entirely and cracking beneath my weight. “Duncan is dead, joining the number of those who died for simply being near me. Why don’t you turn back to Berrow and run before I bring your end? Go on… GO!”

Althea stood firm, unmoving, although flinching slightly as she studied my magic. Part of me wished to throw myself into her arms, but then I blinked and saw her body crushed beneath stone or her chest pierced with a blade.

If my curse was that anyone who loved me died, I would make her hate me, just to save herself.

“Robin, listen to me,” Althea said softly, as though my name alone was enough to break me entirely. “Duncan is not dead.”

A wave of rage flooded through my body. Overwhelmed by the feeling, I threw my head back and roared. I shouted to the sky until my throat stung and my fingernails were embedded in my palms. I didn’t stop until every breath lodged in my lungs had been expelled, and the world trembled from the suffocating lack of air.

I fell forward onto my hands and knees. The ice and stone cut into my hands and tore through my dust-coated trousers.

Every passing second that followed, I waited for Althea to tell me she was joking, that this was all some fucked-up hateful punishment. But she didn’t. The two words she managed were as broken as I felt inside. “Robin, please.”

I took a moment to gather enough strength to lift my head and look back at Althea. My sobs were heavy and all-consuming. It was strange to hear my heartbeat thundering in my ears when I was certain I no longer had one.

“Duncan is alive. I do not know how to explain this, but he is in Berrow… someone saved him. It is best I take you to him.”