CHAPTER 26

My wrists burned as the rope binding them rubbed viciously and without peace. But the agony was nothing compared to knowing I’d left behind Duncan, Althea and Rafaela to their promised end at the Hunters’ hands.

I tried to focus on counting my footsteps but couldn’t reach the count of ten before my mind trailed back to their bodies. Kayne had ignored my attempts at pleading, which left my throat dry and sore. Then he had a cloth knotted around my head and stuffed between my teeth, stopping me from making much more than a muffled gasp.

There was no distraction from my truth of failure I’d been forced to leave behind.

Night had fallen upon Cedarfall, blanketing the sky with impenetrable obsidian. Still, I looked to the starless sky and prayed to anything or anyone that listened. Because there was one person Kayne had not found yet – Gyah, and I had to believe she’d return.

I focused, trying to discern her fearsome body among the cloak of night. But time passed, and she never revealed herself. I soon added her name to my list of grief, wondering what kept her from us.

Had she fled in time, or died just without us knowing.

It didn’t take long for us to reach Aurelia, the Cedarfall city which lingered beneath the monstrous golden-leaved trees. And it wasn’t the same as it had been the last time I’d seen it. Once a city of fey, it was now overcome with the enemy. As the band of Hunters, led by Kayne, paraded me into the fey city, I knew it had been lost from the amount of humans I saw filling the streets.

Cedarfall had fallen, just as Kayne said. And the city now belonged to the enemy.

With each footfall, I ground the golden leaves to dust, itching at the sound my destruction made. Everywhere I looked, I witnessed what had become of Aurelia.

The streets were empty of life, the ground now littered with the bodies of fey. Beneath the sweet kiss the trees graced the city with, I could smell death lingering. Pungent, the scent smacked into the back of my throat and stung my eyes.

Hunters, marked clearly by the stark white handprint of their leader upon their chests, swelled throughout the streets, ransacking homes and buildings, even so much as burning them down. I watched as some kicked at the bodies of the fey, whilst others buried swords through them, over and over, just to ensure they were truly dead.

And for so much death, I sensed the atmosphere of excitement.

The rope at my wrists relaxed. I tore my gaze from the destruction to Kayne, who spoke with another at the barricade that had been erected at the city’s entrance. At first, I thought the barricade was constructed from mounds of silver until I noticed the horrifying truth. Cedarfall soldiers, dressed like the Hunters who’d tricked us, lay in heaps. Blood oozed from the piles, creating rivers of red that spread far beneath the Hunters’ boots. They didn’t care.

“Halt,” Kayne announced.

I stared daggers through his head, wishing to slay him in a thousand different ways.

“Before we proceed further into the city, have our enemies been dealt with, and I mean all of them?” Kayne asked a willowy blonde Hunter. Her face was stained with dark smudges of brown that matched the gore she cleaned methodically from the sword outstretched across her lap.

“Those that matter have,” she replied. It was obvious from the lack of attention she gave Kayne that she believed to have greater authority than him. She paid more attention to her weapon than him. “There are a still a few fey remaining in that pompous building in the city’s north, but it will take only a few hours to deal with them.”

“We don’t have the time to spare,” Kayne spat, snatching the sword from her and throwing it to the ground.

She stood quickly, finally addressing him, pressing her face close to his as she seethed through bared teeth. “Do you require a reminder of who you speak with, deserter ?”

Lucari screeched upon Kayne’s shoulder, distracting the nameless Hunter from his hand, which disappeared into his belt where the handle of a small knife waited. In a blink, Kayne drew the blade free and sliced it across the woman’s neck. She was dead before her body hit the ground.

“Let that be a reminder as to who Aldrick favours,” Kayne said, sheathing the blade without bothering to clean it. “Who’s in charge here?”

Another Hunter pointed downward at the body of Kayne’s victim. “No one… now.”

His posture straightened, his face easing from its mask of anger. Kayne stepped into the position of command like a snake shedding new skin. “Wrong answer, the right one is that I’m in charge.”

I watched as the Hunters shared a look, one screaming of trepidation. I almost hoped they’d turn on Kayne just to save me an eventual job, but that wish dwindled when they submitted to him.

“It is imperative we leave for Elmdew and return the keys to Aldrick.” Kayne pulled on the rope at my wrist, making me trip over my feet. They laughed at me as I almost fell atop the dead Hunter.

I made sure to look them each in the eye, hoping they saw the dark thoughts I beheld for each and every one of them.

“What has become of the Cedarfall key?” Kayne asked, reminding me of the terrible loss this city endured.

“Daveed has already left with it,” another Hunter answered. I memorised his face as I did with all those around me. He was young, with his chin and cheeks speckled with white-tipped spots. Dark circles surrounded his blue eyes, making them sink into his skull. Unlike the other Hunters, his clothes hardly fit him. A human boy, likely thrown into a world of promises made by the Hand. And, unlike those who circled him, I sensed guilt across his face. He didn’t smile, nor did he spare much of a glance at the surrounding dead.

“The teleporter?” Kayne said, unable to hold back his sudden fury. “He left without us? I was told he would wait, who gave the command – was it you?”

The young boy flinched away as Kayne drove forward. He cowered beneath raised arms, pleading through a snot-filled nose. “Please, please don’t hurt me. Sir, I’m sorry. I didn’t give the order, I only know of it…”

Kayne paused, hovering an open palm above the boy as though frozen in place. Then he lowered it. “Pathetic. Is this an example of those who wish to fight for the Hand and the future he promises? Boys like you would have never passed initiation. Desperate.”

The young Hunter scampered away from Kayne on an awkward footing. Those watching on laughed; even Kayne cracked a smile. “See that the boy is flogged for his weakness. It may toughen him up. In the meantime, someone tell me when Daveed will return.”

“By morning.”

The answer didn’t please Kayne, but this time I watched as he swallowed his anger. “It will have to do. And do you know why he left before we arrived?”

“Truthfully, those who were in charge didn’t think you’d succeed…”

“Well.” Kayne mocked a bow. “I do enjoy exceeding expectations. If I’m forced to wait until morning, then something must be done about him. I have been cursed with his presence too long already. See that he is locked away until the teleporter returns.”

“Yes, sir.”

Kayne stepped to me. I flinched as his pale, freckled fingers drew toward my mouth. With rough hands, he pulled the cloth from between my teeth, ripping the skin at the corners of my mouth deeper.

“I would suggest you act carefully going forwards, Robin,” Kayne warned. “There is no one left to save you. Perhaps, depending on the accommodation these fine Hunters seem fit to provide, you should get some rest.” His voice lowered. “I hear that the extraction of the key is rather… uncomfortable for the person experiencing it.”

I drew my head back and thrust the hard part of my forehead into Kayne’s nose. The sound was beautiful. Kayne rocked back, hands slapped across his face as he choked on a curse. “How was that?” I snarled. “Equally as uncomfortable, I hope.”

A trickle of blood slipped down my forehead, catching in my brow. Sweat made the cut sting with vengeance, turning the pain into a throb all across my skull. Not that I cared – nothing seemed to matter anymore. Seeing the smudge of Kayne’s own blood spread between his cupped hands was worth every ache.

“Lock him up, hurt him, do whatever it is you wish,” Kayne commanded the crowd of Hunters. “But make sure, come morning, he still breathes. I want him to experience every ounce of suffering that waits for him.”

With his final words, Kayne swept away, clutching his bloody nose, Lucari following in flight. That left me to drown in the wave of Hunters who suffocated me where I stood, all before I could fight my way free.

Far above me, Lyra Cedarfall’s body swayed in the night breeze. Her neck was bent at an ungodly angle, tied by three thick knots of rope. The noose was the only thing keeping her up, the rest of her body weighed down by death.

She’d been stripped down to the thin garment that would have once been pure white. It, too, danced in the winds, turning her into a vision of a phantom before my very eyes. The dress was torn and stained with blood. Her wild locks of red hair would blow away from her face, exposing the wide, all-seeing eyes and gaping mouth. Only then would I turn away. Unlike her husband, who hung to her left side, or the line of red-haired children hanging to her right, Lyra was the only one whose arms showed signs of mutilation. Two angry slashes marked both wrists. Her hands and fingers were almost black with dried blood. Her death hadn’t been caused by the noose around her neck, not like her family’s. Lyra had been bled dry, forced to expel the Cedarfall power – the key – until she was nothing but a husk.

The Cedarfall family was dead, every one of them. Faces I’d seen at the banquet during my last stay in Aurelia. I thought of Orion, killed by Hunters and now reunited with his siblings and parents. But mostly, my mind drifted to Althea. I saw her in all of them.

I had no tears to shed. Grief was not the emotion that claimed me as I watched them move from side to side above me.

It felt like violence – the burning need to set the world on fire with Cedarfall power, just to get vengeance for this heinous crime.

My wrath devoured me from the inside, searching for a way out. It was all-consuming, but I had to keep it in. There was nothing I could do with the emotion here. Buried in the narrow, deep dungeon carved into the ground. A place to be left and forgotten with only the prison bars crisscrossing, out of reach, above me. There was little room to move. Only enough for me to shuffle on my feet but not to sit or lie down on the sodden ground. All I could do was look skyward and watch the haunting dance as the wind toyed with the bodies of the slain Cedarfall family.

There was nothing I could do but wait until Kayne returned for me. Altar protect the poor soul tasked to pull me out of this dungeon. I might not have access to my power, but I had my will and boiling desire for revenge. For Althea, for Lyra and her family. For every soul who had been killed as the Hunters invaded the city and claimed it as their own.

I would fight, tooth and nail, in their memory.

It was easy to lose track of time within the dungeon. It slipped away from me like sand through parted fingers. The horror of watching the hanging, dead bodies of those I’d known lost its power. I grew numb to the view. The pendulum sway within the brisk night winds entranced me, hypnotising me to the point of exhaustion.

At some point, I must’ve fallen asleep leant against the wall. I woke abruptly to my name, ready to fight the instant my eyes opened. I first thought it was Jesibel warning me from my dreams as she had many times before – warnings I didn’t listen to. But when my name came again, I recognised the voice, despite the hissing whisper it was spoken in.

I’d recognise it in this realm and the next.

I blinked away the sticky sleep that clung to my eyes as I peered toward a face looking back down at me through the dungeon’s bars.

“Good, you’re still alive, little bird.”

“Erix?” His name clawed out of my throat; my voice was painfully hoarse. My nails scratched the narrow stone walls surrounding me. If this was still some terrorising dream, then the pain should have freed me. Even as they bent back and the rough stone tore at my fingers, the vision of Erix didn’t fade away.

“What have they done to you?” He growled, reluctantly taking his eyes off me as he scanned the area out of my line of sight.

I dared to welcome the relief that rushed over me, and yet I couldn’t find the words to answer him.

“I am going to get you out of there, but I need you to be patient.” Erix’s eyes glowed with his promise. I couldn’t help but believe him, cling onto the determination he emanated. “Can you do that for me?”

The pleading desperation in his steel-silver eyes was palpable. Erix radiated his urgency in undulating waves.

I opened my mouth, forcing something out. “It was Kayne. He… They’re all dead.”

There was no need to specify who exactly Kayne had seen killed. Duncan, Althea, Rafaela; I’d not seen them since I was dragged away from the forest where Hunters had been left to finish them. Perhaps I referred to the swaying bodies of Althea’s family that danced in the breeze just beyond Erix’s protruding clawed-tipped leather wings.

Erix flinched, his lips pulled taut. “He will pay for his deceptions, don’t worry.”

Our gazes locked, and I felt every shield of vehemence crumble within me.

“I’m so scared.” The revelation burst out of me in a sob.

Erix’s face pinched into a scowl that gave a view of the berserker that lurked within. His lip pulled back from his teeth, revealing the sharpened canine. “I will not let anyhing happen to you. Do you hear me?”

I held his gaze, witnessing the mask of sadness that did little to hide Erix’s own fury. The berserker lurked within him still, and I cared little if Doran’s death meant Erix had full control over himself or not. There was an entire city of Hunters. He could tear through them all, and I would never think of them again.

I nodded, swallowing down bile. “I hear you.”

“Good. Wait for me to return,” Erix said, fingers gripped around the bar far above me. “You will know when the time comes, but I need you to be ready. Remember our training, you are going to need to utilise every ounce of it.”

“No,” I half gasped and shouted. Erix didn’t pull away as I reached up to him, my fingers barely grazing his own. “Don’t… you can’t leave me again.”

“Little bird,” Erix breathed, his shoulders sagging from the weight of the world he carried. “I never left you. I never will.”

The walls could have closed in on me at that moment, and I wouldn’t have cared. “You came back for me.”

“Always. No matter what has happened, you are still my duty.” Erix unravelled his grip on the dungeon’s bar and stood tall. I watched his every move, holding my breath as he surveyed the surrounding area before speaking a final time. I thought he was going to say the final words that always followed when he referred to me as his duty.

And my pleasure.

Instead, Erix said, “Our allies live.”

Then he was gone, the powerful burst of his wings forcing winds down upon me. I squinted against the torrent, feeling the fresh breeze brush the hair from my sodden forehead.

Our allies live. His words played over in my mind.

It wasn’t long before the sky answered my pondering. Stark, white-blue lightning forked throughout the dark, revealing a swell of clouds that rivalled the obsidian of the night. I lifted my head as the sky opened and droplets of ice-cold rain fell upon my face, mixing with my tears.

Our allies live.