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CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 4

SLADE

I’ve raced against a storm before.

Many times, in fact.

Most of the storms have caught up to me in the past. Drenched me in a pouring shock of tepid water that smeared my mood and cut through my clothes with benign heat. Or pelted me with icy sleet so sharp it cut through my skin.

But to have to race against it now feels like a betrayal of the gods and goddesses. That they could be so fucking cruel as to add this to an already dismal fucking situation.

So I refuse to let the storm win this time. I refuse to let it catch up to Auren.

Argo is the fastest timberwing in Fourth Kingdom. Probably the fastest beast of his kind, and his stamina and skill alone give us a fighting chance. I demand every burst of speed he can give me, drive him harder than I ever have before, and he allows me my demands.

We race the tempest who’s clotting the clouds as she wails and beats at our backs, throwing a fit to catch up to us. But Argo isn’t going to let the bitch win, and neither will I. I won’t allow another storm to touch Auren. She has been flooded and wrung out, left to take the barrage without shelter. But so long as I’m here, I will be her shelter.

We fly, like lightning shot across the skies, arcing over the ground.

Against my chest, buried beneath two cloaks, Auren breathes. Breathes, but doesn’t wake, doesn’t stir.

Wretched hours pass as we fly. Every single second of them, the cold batters us, the very air sodden with overflowing dampness gathered from the pursuing storm. My face has long since gone numb, my ass soaked through on the saddle, my fingers unable to feel the clutch of the leather reins. If my eyes could still water, each drop would be nothing but frost against my skin.

Miserable cold and suffocating dark is all I know, but I trust Argo to guide us where we need to go. I keep Auren so far buried beneath layers that I can’t see a single inch of her, but I feel the hot press of her breaths against my neck, and that is all that keeps my protective fae nature in check. Keeps me from rotting the clouds and raining down the poison from my rage. I count her breaths like my own heartbeat, using it as the tempo to quell my seething power.

Time and distance drag on.

Then, out of nowhere, a sudden gust of wind knocks into us from the left, and Argo balks out a furious cry as his entire body is slammed from the force. The slippery saddle shifts from the jarring movement, sending both me and Auren tipping.

I lurch forward, hands scrabbling to tighten my grip on the reins, but my numb hands miss the grip. My heart leaps into my throat as we go sliding over.

Digging in my knees, I throw my weight to the side at the same time that Argo banks, shoving out his full wingspan to catch my knee. He straightens us with furious attention, another roar of indignation crawling up his throat as I slump over the saddle, breath heaving from the close call.

All that holds us to this saddle is a single leather strap buckled around us both. If Argo hadn’t caught himself...

As if the shoving wind was a personal affront to him, Argo turns feral.

He continues to roar at the sky with a renewed vigor to his flight, like it’s now his personal mission to battle the wind, refusing his own tiredness and beating it back with sheer fury.

It takes an hour for my hands to stop shaking, for my heartbeat to go back to normal, to not hold the reins to the point of pain. The crash of adrenaline seeps out of me like blood from a wound.

I need to get Auren somewhere safe, somewhere warm, and Deadwell is the closest option I have. Yet the dark landscape mocks me, like instead of moving mile after mile, the snowy world of Fifth beneath us isn’t passing by at all. Instead, we’re glued to its ether, the shadows mocking us as endless distance stretches, threatening to never give way.

But Argo’s sheer will and pissed off determination is unmatched.

Our race brings us closer to the dawning morning, though I thought it would never come. It brings the hint of an angry, curdled sky. I blink against the brightening horizon, and I don’t know whether to be relieved or filled with dread at the coming of the sun.

Yet even when the first spikes of daylight cast through the corrugated clouds, Auren doesn’t stir. I make sure the cloaks are still wrapped around her, every inch of skin covered. I don’t know if she even could produce gold right now in her current state if something were to touch her bare skin, but it worries me. She can’t afford to use any magic, and if it starts spilling from her uncontrollably, even Argo won’t be able to keep flying.

Beneath my thighs, Argo’s chest heaves. His breath is ragged, muscles shaking from the strain. In the gray light, I can see patches of feathers have been ripped out of his tree-bark wings from the violent gusts that have assaulted him. Stalactites of frost hang from his foamy muzzle like extra fangs, but he doesn’t stop roaring, doesn’t stop racing.

“Keep going,” I urge him, though whether my voice reaches him over the wind, I don’t know.

Guilt churns in me as he dives for another pocket of air to help carry him. Even with the burst of furor, he’s tiring. I’m pushing him too hard, too fast, too long, but there’s no other alternative.

Dawn finally wins over the last of the night. It shines like a beacon, lighting the way for the storm raging. I look behind us, eyeing the clouds that seem to be galloping forward, ready to crush us beneath frozen hooves.

In my arms, Auren shivers, making me grit my frozen teeth and gnash the ice caught between. Thunder rumbles with a grunting nicker and threatening huff, yet Argo rages back at it in a guttural roar that’s hoarse with fatigue.

A thousand scenarios play in my head. That we aren’t going to make it. That Argo will have to land. That Auren will be even more exposed. That the storm will overcome us.

But somehow, the familiar silhouette of cracked mountains comes into view.

Deadwell.

We made it.

Hope leaps in my chest at the sight of it.

From the ground, all you see is rotted snow and cracked peaks. From the air, all you see is a shadowed, frozen valley caught between the mountains like a row of crooked teeth. It’s inhospitable. Ugly. Empty.

But that’s only if you don’t know where to look.

Out of habit, I cut a whistle through my teeth to signal Argo, though the beast doesn’t need the heads-up even if he can hear me. His eyes are sharp, his sense of direction far better than mine. After all, he’s been flying me here for years. He could probably make the trip with his eyes closed.

My chest expands as we get closer, and I cup Auren’s cloaked head against my chest. “Almost there. We’re almost there,” I murmur.

Leaning into Argo’s turn, I keep Auren and myself braced as he swoops down toward the craggy tops of the mountains. The tips are shaped like a serrated knife, with cracked crevices that make a jagged sightline and dangerous rockfall. The largest mountain in the middle tilts slightly, like the wind has shoved at it so much for so long that it’s finally beginning to bend to its will.

Mountains should know better than to bow to the wind.

But the ridge isn’t the only eyesore here. It’s the stretch of my magic that truly taints the land.

What once was an empty and bleak breadth on the border of Fifth, is now a crisscross of rot-infected ground. Fetid roots reach all the way from Fourth’s border, delving through the snow to curl around the base of the mountains here like insipid crawling vines.

My magic responds to the massive amounts of power that I’ve already leached into this land, my skin snapping with its presence like it’s welcoming me. I can feel it soaked into the snow-packed soil, can feel the call of it thrumming like bloodlust in my veins. But my power has to wait.

Although the mountains below are cracked and crooked, and though the massive roots of rot have made this land ugly and spoiled, it’s still the best damn sight to see. I brace myself as we drop down below the clouds at a breakneck speed, my stomach nearly coming up my damn throat as Argo dives.

For years, this small strip of land has eluded my control. But now, I finally lay claim to it. With the deal I made with Midas, we are officially out of Fifth Kingdom and in my own territory.

Argo swings wide, heading directly for the tallest mountain, right where the rotted lines of rubbled rocks make up the base.

It’s the combination of all of it, really. The leaning mountains. The dumps of snow and piles of rock. The festering rot. It all distracts, it all hides.

Anyone who might pass by this part of the world would have no reason to linger and no desire to. Argo bypasses the cracked fang-tipped peak, heading for the smallest mountain. It has a side like a mantel, and the rocky shelf overhangs far enough to offer shelter to the hidden village below. This nearly invisible lip in the leaning mountain looks inconspicuous but it calls to me as much as my rot does.

You’d only see the small town if you purposely came poking around or knew where to go. The buildings are all made of the same gritty rock, blending against the mountainside effortlessly, hidden beneath the snowy shelf.

It’s here, shrouded in the forbidden cold, that my greatest secret hides.

Drollard Village.

Just then, the chasing storm lashes out, punishing us for reaching our destination. The clouds slash open and frozen rain pours, soaking through my clothes immediately.

Argo heads straight down to the village, rain streaming off his outstretched wings and freezing against his feathers. He only circles once before his exhausted body slams into the ground so hard my teeth clack. He sways where he stands but manages to stay upright, his talons digging into the snow for purchase as frozen froth batters from his mouth.

“Good beast,” I praise him. He turns his head to blink at me, and though he looks exhausted, the gleam in his hawklike eye is also smug. “Yeah, you earned every fucking jerky strip you want.”

I look around, squinting through the downpour, but all is quiet in the early morning pause. Twenty feet away, rows of rocky houses are lined, lazy smoke rising from chimneys beneath the lip of the mountain, ice gathered on top of the overhang like sheets of shingles.

My frozen hand reaches down for the buckle on the saddle, but it’s a struggle to unstrap myself. My fingers are too numb to get them to work right, and now with the sleet lashing down, it’s slippery. But I can’t risk letting go of Auren with my other hand because I need to keep her dry and secure.

A noise of frustration tears from my lips like a growl. “Come the fuck on.”

“Sire?”

My head snaps up at the voice, and I zero in on one of the villagers walking up from the small pavilion that’s stuffed between the cracked cave of the mountainside. He hurries over, hood pulled up to try and fend off the deluge that’s just started to pour, his bulbous nose showing beneath. “Let me.”

With deft fingers, he quickly undoes the strap, and I jump down with Auren.

“Thank you, Theo,” I say. He’s not as wary of me as some of the others, but he still won’t quite look me in the eye.

“Should I alert the watch?”

I shake my head. “No need. Just see that Argo’s taken care of in the Perch. Tell Selby to give him whatever he wants and as much of it, including extra blankets in his roost. He’s more than earned it.”

Theo tips his head, already walking over to grab Argo’s strap. To his credit, he only slightly balks at the timberwing’s appearance before leading him to the Perch where he can be cared for.

As soon as they walk away, I hurry off with Auren, my booted feet stepping onto the white stone path that blends into the slushing snow. My rot doesn’t spread into the village itself, instead kept strategically around the border like a barbed rampart to keep our enemies out. And although it doesn’t spread here, this place is still steeped in dreariness.

By all accounts, Drollard Village doesn’t exist. Maybe that’s why it’s always felt so dismal. By keeping it secret, I’ve somehow made it feel even more devoid.

This place is by no means picturesque. It’s harsh and cold and gaunt, with lonely homes cut into the hollowed mountainside, cast in perpetual shadow. The people who live here don’t have the conveniences of being in a city where travel and trade are abundant. Instead, they toil to live off this bleak land, while supplemented with the supplies I can bring them. Even so, not one of them will ever leave.

They can’t.

Aside from the village watch, everyone is asleep at this dawning hour, windows shuttered in anticipation of the storm. I quickly pass by the slanted walls of the slate-faced houses, each wooden door not even a stone’s throw apart from one another. Yet the sizes of the homes themselves are deceiving since their depth is made up within the recesses of the mountain. Prickled lace vines stretch up from craggy splits in the rock floor and spider web around the doors and windows, their white-skinned berries still hanging in clumps from their stems.

The stone beneath my feet is slick with the new rain, so I take measured steps. I don’t want to slip with Auren in my arms, but I still try to go as fast as I can, boots digging into every step.

There are a few hardy evergreen trees clinging to life along the path, their frosted limbs carrying the weight of the endless cold and giving me some reprieve from the rain as I tuck Auren closer against my chest.

When I get to the bend in the path, I follow the curve of the mountain where the homes end, leaving the rock face bare save for the snow frozen against it. Above, the mountainside curls like a riptide, creating a giant, protective awning. A sheet of frozen rain drips down from it like a thin waterfall, and I hesitate, trying to think of a better way to get Auren through without soaking her completely.

“Here, let me.”

My arms automatically tighten around Auren, and I whip around at the sound of my brother’s voice. “What are you doing here?”

Ryatt stalks through the rain and, without a word, removes his cloak and flings it over both our heads to block the downpour. I have a feeling he does it more for Auren’s sake than mine. We duck beneath the sheet of rainwater as quickly as we can, and once we pass beneath the rock shelf, we’re blessedly out of the storm and into the mountain’s cave.

“Thanks,” I mutter.

Ryatt lowers his arms and brings the cloak down again but doesn’t bother to put it back on.

Now encased in the shadows of the cave, it would be completely pitch-black if it weren’t for the soft blue glow that comes from the fluorescent veins that run through the belly of the mountain. These cerulean streaks branch off in every direction, running through the walls, floor, and ceiling, while colorless beetles cling to their surface to nibble on their sediment. Stalactites reach down from the ceiling, pointing at us in accusation.

“So? You going to tell me what you’re doing here?” I ask as we walk, my voice echoing bleakly.

“Did you really think I wasn’t going to come?” Ryatt’s hands clench around his cloak in bitter twists. “I wanted to come here the moment Midas issued his threats, and you know it, so you can just save your fucking commands,” he snaps, jaw locked tight.

I feel my own teeth grind in response. I probably have no right to be frustrated with him, because I understand his anger, and yet, I am. As he often is with me.

“Fine,” I relent. I’m too cold and exhausted to argue. “We’ll talk more tomorrow. But I need to get her warm and dry.”

He glances at Auren from the corner of his eyes. “Fucking storm had to hit tonight of all nights.”

My brother and I walk in tense silence through the cave. Without even trying, our strides match, our shoulders at the same height, our clothes nearly identical. When my fae nature isn’t out, we could pass for twins, a fact that I’ve used to my advantage many, many times.

Despite the fact that we always effortlessly fall into stride with one another, we always seem to step on each other’s toes.

I would die for Ryatt, and he’s given up a lot to be at my side, but most days, we’d gladly pummel each other.

Tonight is no different.

We eat up the rest of the distance, and then, we’re here, at our house in the cave, descended in blue shadows with stalagmites like standing guards.

The Grotto.

“Home sweet home,” Ryatt mutters.

Something sours in my stomach. “Yeah. Home sweet home.”

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