Chapter Eighteen

C HAPTER E IGHTEEN

I had called all my brothers and friends to the foyer where Arlayna and Faye were still standing as soon as I left the dungeons. Freya bombarded me with question after question and once I told her what happened, she was on board straight away with helping me get answers.

Soon after, some Aerian guards brought over the cage where the Galgr was being kept and we all stood in a circle around it.

‘Is it frightening? Pretty? Creepy?’ Rydan is the first to ask as we all stare down at the burlap covering the cage.

Dark skies have settled over the clouds, marking night-time, and I roll my eyes at Rydan before swiping the burlap off. Grey scaly arms slam against the cage, causing Rydan and Iker to jerk back. No one else reacts, and if they did, then they did an excellent job at hiding it as the Galgr’s face slowly appears behind the shadows of her small prison.

Hollow eyes snap at me instantly and sharp teeth shine through her sinister smile. ‘Solaris,’ she hisses, and I glance opposite me where Freya is, then past her towards the princesses, both with straightened spines and cautious glances between one another.

Arlayna has never liked this part of interacting with the Galgr.

The Galgr sniffs the air, tilting her head towards my brothers. ‘The Ambrose siblings. All together again.’ She snickers. ‘Though a bond that ties a family together can also loosen with each passing day.’

With one step, Idris erases the gap between him and the Galgr’s cage. ‘What did you say?’

‘The writer and the crafter.’ The Galgr grins, her dull-coloured lips stretching wide and horrifyingly.

I approach Idris, lightly touching his arm as I look over at Iker. His solemn eyes jump from a confused Freya to Idris. ‘Don’t listen to her,’ I say, adjusting my tone to sound soothing and calm. ‘Galgrs can also manipulate.’

‘Wise observation, Solaris.’ The Galgr taps her sharp fingernails against the metal bar. ‘I also see that you wish to help your other half – the dragon with three powers, the reincarnation of Crello.’

‘Your kind are known to resurface memories, old and new,’ I say. ‘I need you to do that for him too.’

A few seconds of silence tick by before her hand slumps onto the floor and she turns her head. ‘I cannot.’

I am starting to despise that word.

Anger bubbles up my throat and everyone can see it; they can feel me losing it. I march two steps forward, almost slamming my hand down on the Galgr’s cage. ‘You managed to restore a forgotten memory of mine once. Why can’t you do it again with him?’

She cocks her head in an unnatural way that makes a cracking sound. Another slant of her head to the left, and she eventually answers. ‘Because his soul is slowly breaking.’

‘Then how do we fix it?’ Freya demands.

‘You do not.’ The Galgr’s black tongue darts out, long and oozing a strange substance I never saw the last time. ‘If he is breaking, then he must do so alone.’

That is just absurd. She is lying. She has to be.

I shake my head. ‘No,’ I say. ‘No. There is always a way, and you know there is.’

She moves closer to the edge of her cage. ‘What do I get in return if I am to help you?’

‘Your life,’ I answer. ‘I think getting to live seems fair under these circumstances.’

‘Nara, think about—’ Idris is saying, but Iker presses his hand to Idris’s abdomen and stops him.

The Galgr grins. What I have said must have enticed her. ‘No wonder you were chosen,’ she drawls. ‘All those years of waiting for the fierce trapper to be born, and the result did not disappoint.’

‘Tell. Me.’ I am done with her teasing remarks.

Somehow, her hollowed eyes darken as her expression falls serious and her sigh sounds like the hiss of many snakes at once. ‘A source,’ she says. ‘In order to restore his memories, you must reach the source of what memory is important to him.’

I ponder over her words, not knowing what to make of them. I had tried to get him to remember so many things at once that the idea of trying again seems futile.

‘That’s great!’ Rydan clasps his hands together, grinning at me as I look over my shoulder. ‘We already know it will likely have Nara in it.’

The Galgr hums, amusement seeping through her terrifying tone. ‘But which?’

Rydan’s grin drops almost comically. ‘Well, I was hoping you would tell us that part.’

‘I have said enough,’ she says, angling her head as if to look at me. ‘It is up to her now.’

I slowly shake my head, wanting a better answer, needing a better answer.

But begging is not enough. Dropping to my knees wouldn’t even be enough. The Galgr told me the things she wanted to tell me, and I was too daft to think the outcome would be positive.

Drained and frustrated, I go to turn away when her hand darts out, seizing my wrist tightly. Fingernails dig into my flesh as I gasp out in pain and my head snaps towards the ceiling.

The world around me fades into darkness as an unseen force envelops my senses and images begin to materialise across my vision, emerging from the shadows like apparitions. Faces and fragments play out before me – a blur of colours, each with a detail etched with a haunting clarity as Darius appears. I don’t know where we are, yet there we stand in front of each other. An overwhelming tide of emotions sweeps through me, and it is as if I can feel everything, every painful thought, every bit of sorrow and uncertainty as he pleads with me over and over to kill him with a blade pressed to his heart and my hands wrapped around the hilt.

I can taste the saltiness of my tears, I can hear the crack of my heart, and then, as abruptly as it began, the vision recedes. I desperately try to reach out for Darius, but he becomes a speck in the distance, and soon I’m falling, falling, falling until everything stops.

A dull throbbing ache resonates in the back of my head as I come to, and a blurry vision of Tibith’s bright face appears above me.

‘Miss Freya, she is awake!’

I can barely make out the scuffle of voices as Freya’s curls tickle my cheek, and I scrunch up my face, shielding my eyes.

‘Oh, thank Solaris—’ Freya is saying when the image of the Galgr materialises and I jerk up into a seated position, almost knocking heads with Freya.

‘The Galgr,’ I gasp, my hands violently grabbing at my clothes and legs.

Freya takes hold of my shoulders, leaning over the bed I am on, her wide eyes written with concern. ‘Nara, stop. It’s okay—’

It’s not. It’s not, it’s not.

‘The Galgr – she showed me something.’

‘And she also made you black out completely.’ The soft linen mattress beneath me rocks as Freya sits by my side.

Another person speaks, and I look up to see that it’s Idris by the doorway of . . . the infirmary?

‘She’s gone, Nara,’ he says, and it only takes a split second for me to register the meaning of his words.

‘I was never going to kill—’

‘I know,’ he says softly, and feeling dazed, I sink into the cushion of my bed and glance at the environment I find myself in.

A female with long blonde hair is at the edge of a cot opposite me, her bent phoenix wing being attended to as she remains in half-human form. I look to my right, and a few more warriors rest upon beds before my gaze settles on Iker, almost nodding off to sleep in one of the chairs, and Idris and Link by my side.

‘Miss Nara, you should lie down, Miss Freya said you had a terrible fall!’ As Tibith climbs onto my knee, my gaze rips away from my brothers, and the infirmary’s sterile scent wafts past my nose.

My smile is so weak that I’m unsure if I should even call it a smile. ‘I’m fine, Tibith. Especially now that you are here.’

His ears flutter.

‘Nara,’ Link says warily. ‘What happened in there?’

I direct my attention to him.

Honestly? I am not sure where to begin.

I struggle to get the right words out but ultimately find my way. ‘I don’t think she was trying to harm me.’ I look at everyone else. ‘I think she was warning me of what could come.’

Illias exchanges glances with my two other brothers. A look that speaks of a million worries.

Freya, however, lifts her gaze to Idris and says, ‘You should have let me speak with it. I could have helped.’

Idris’s cold features seem to soften at the same time as Iker rises from his chair and walks up to the cot.

‘The Galgr hurt our sister,’ Iker states, the weight of his words carrying that fierce protectiveness the three of my brothers share. ‘We weren’t going to take any more risks.’

Idris agrees with Iker for once, nodding at him. ‘The creature likely put thoughts into Nara’s head. Why should we trust it when it hurt her?’

I shut my eyes as Freya tries to reason and I exhale a tense breath. There is no use explaining to my brothers why the Galgr did what she did. Yes, I have come to realise they are ruthless creatures, killers in fact. But what she showed me . . . what if it was a look into the future? What if . . . what if Darius asking me to kill him comes true?

I cannot, I cannot do—

‘Nara?’ Freya’s voice cuts through my contemplative thoughts, pulling me back to the present.

‘Sorry.’ I shake my head, wincing once I remember the hit I must have received from the fall. ‘I—’

Lorcan’s appearance by the doorway prompts me to stop talking. His hair is tied back and his clothes aren’t the usual burgundy armour. Instead, he looks . . . comfortable in his casual red shirt.

‘Can we talk?’ he says, and I huff. It is the only question he knows to ask around me.

I glance at everyone else and nod that it’s fine for them to leave the infirmary. They all kiss the top of my head before walking out one by one, with Tibith toddling behind and squeezing past Lorcan.

An awkward sense of restlessness and quietness in the air doesn’t seem to disappear, even with the whispers of Aerians talking to one another as Lorcan comes to the foot of my cot.

‘I heard about that—’ he starts to say.

‘Galgr,’ I clip, and shift my weight on the bed.

‘You’re still mad about what happened, aren’t you?’

My eyes snap up at him.

The answer must be clearly written across my face because he quickly adds, ‘Look, I think it’s best if I stay away from him. At least for now.’

Guilt consumes him as he looks directly at the bed and not me.

I sigh a big breath, surrendering to the vexation I felt previously. ‘He still loves you.’ His jade eyes flicker up at me. ‘Whatever Aurum taught him to believe doesn’t mean he stopped being your brother.’

‘Stepbrother,’ he rectifies with a frown.

I give him a pointed stare. ‘You’re making this really difficult, you know that?’

The first form of a smile marks his lips, and though we are far from how we once used to be, I surprise him with a closed-mouth laugh.

‘I know,’ he says, a smile lingering through his words. ‘Just . . . take it easy, Nara. We’ll get there with him. I think he might even be as stubborn as you, if not more so.’

I roll my eyes. ‘He wishes.’

Lorcan taps his hand against the wooden post of the bed twice and chuckles before walking backwards towards the door.

Tipping my head to the side, I watch him in curiosity and think back to what Leira once said.

‘A beast no less, though a heart of gold.’

I’m starting to see that maybe that beast has always been Lorcan without us knowing.

‘Ah, Lorcy!’ Rydan stumbles through the doorway, almost face-planting into Lorcan. He rears back, grinning as he looks Lorcan up and down. ‘You look . . . well?’

Lorcan’s face is an unreadable mask as he tersely mutters, ‘Get out of the way, Rydan,’ and strides away.

My lips contort into a grimace as Rydan approaches. ‘And I thought my flirting skills were bad.’

‘Ambrose, there’s a difference between your flirting and mine.’ He drops onto the bed, nearly crushing me as he leans against my legs. He points. ‘ You can’t; I can, just not when I actually do like someone.’

Ouch.

‘And yet it never worked with me.’ I try to push him off me, but he remains firmly in place.

He just clicks his tongue and smirks instead. ‘ Yet . I give it five years before you’re obsessed with me. It’s in my five-year Get Ambrose to Love Me plan.’

‘There won’t be any five years if you keep cutting off the circulation in my legs.’

He looks down just as I manage to wriggle my legs free and promptly raise them to my chest, using the motion to shove Rydan off the bed. He hits the floor with a thud, and before he can make a complaint, Arlayna’s gentle knock on the side of the door cuts him off.

I invite her in with a smile while Rydan struggles to get up from the floor. He rubs his rear end with a pinched expression, and I ignore him, turning my attention to Arlayna. I try to get up, but she shakes her head, lightly touching me by the shoulders as she pushes me back down.

‘Goodness, Nara,’ she scolds with a tsk . ‘You know how dangerous Galgrs are. We should never have come.’

‘It was worth it,’ I grumble as she holds on to my wrist and I stare up into the grey clouds of her eyes. ‘How else would I know Aurum is slowly decaying?’

Her brows furrow, a hint of uncertainty crossing her features. ‘Listen, Nara, it pains me to say this, but . . . ’ She pauses, sighing. ‘If you ever need an ally, Kirian would be your next hope, more than the people of Undarion.’

I stay quiet.

‘Even with the possibility that Aurum may be suffering from the Isle’s consequences, he has still taken most of our soldiers. So just . . .’ She bites her lip. ‘Think about it.’

I can see the weight of the stress bearing down on her, not just for me but for her family and her people back in Olcar.

Covering her hand with mine, I offer a soft, reassuring glance. ‘I will,’ I whisper. ‘Thank you, truly. Not just for this but for everything you have done for us.’

She smiles, aiming her eyes at the floor, and begins to speak, but Aeron’s voice interrupts, calling out to her.

He gives me a farewell nod as Faye comes up beside him, looking tiny next to his height. Arlayna then bids me goodbye before I watch the three of them depart from the infirmary.

Rydan’s whistle catches the attention of Aerians trying to rest. He doesn’t seem to notice their glares. ‘That tension.’ He shakes his head, eyes wide. ‘Looks like the princess wants some of the guards—’

‘Don’t finish that sentence.’ I glower. ‘Besides, Arlayna knows she can’t be with him.’

Rydan chuckles, his brows rising as if he knows a secret that I don’t. ‘Oh, I wasn’t talking about her.’

I frown and he winks at me, his brown eyes sparkling with mirth.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Ambrose.’ He walks up to the doorway and looks over his shoulder at me. ‘Unless you feel like joining me in bed later, which I perfectly understand—’

I throw my pillow at him, though he perfectly manages to dodge it and leaves me here with the rest of the Aerians.