Chapter Seventeen WITCHING MOON

Chapter Seventeen

WITCHING MOON

Week Two, Day Six

Year 3000

Ash found Elevia in her strategy room, which was expected.

What he didn't expect was to find her leaning over an unfamiliar three-dimensional map table. It was every bit as exquisite in detail as the one that featured the Sheltered Lands, only nearly twice the size. At its eastern edge, a familiar jut of land ended in an ocean and a string of jagged islands he knew well. They lay just to the west of this castle, and he stared down at them often.

The Western Wall.

Which meant the huge continent laid out in detailed miniature across the table must be the Empire.

He strode to Elevia's side and stared down at the heart of the continent. A massive city sprawled across an area that seemed impossible , the tiny buildings filling all the space between two large rivers. If the scale of the islands in the Western Wall held true, then this city alone was the width and breadth of the entire Burning Hills. It would take days to ride a horse from its northern tip to the southern one, even at top speed.

And it was just one of eight such cities.

He wouldn't insult her by questioning the map's accuracy. But he could hardly credit the work that must have gone into smuggling this much information about the Empire past its borders. "How long have you been watching him?"

Elevia glanced up at him, one eyebrow raised. "It's your job to defend the Western Wall, Ash. It's mine to know what lies beyond it." She gestured toward the center of the map. "Kasther, Sorin's personal stronghold. It's the only one of the Nine Kingdoms that he rules personally instead of by proxy."

Sorin. Was this the first time his name had been spoken in this keep? Perhaps not, but it was certainly the first time it had been spoken in Ash's presence. He had all but wiped the name from his memory. It was easier to think of the Betrayer. Easier not to remember that his great enemy had once shared the same intimacy with him as Elevia or Ulric.

Easier to keep his distance.

Ash ran his fingers over one of the cities, tracing the tiny bumps that represented what must be massively tall buildings. The Betrayer had always imagined building cities that reached the skies, but where was the room for nature in this? Where did the wild things roam, or the crops grow? Or had he provided for that, too, with buildings dedicated to raising beasts and cultivating food?

And how many people did it take to fill a place like this? "There must be millions of citizens. How is it even possible?"

"You forget what human lives are like, my friend. How quickly they pass. It's been at least thirty lifetimes for them, birth to death. Generations of families."

Ash supposed she had a point. Even though plenty of his retainers' children had left, moving on to seek their fortunes elsewhere in the Sheltered Lands, the amount of housing they needed had expanded with every generation. From a handful of brave followers who'd retreated with him into the mountains, Ash had grown a thriving keep.

And he allowed those children to leave as they wished. There was no guarantee that the Betrayer was so generous. He'd always hated losing access to resources.

Ash touched the city in Kasther again. "Do you think this is where he took her?"

"Probably," she admitted. "But I imagine they've already left."

"To where?" He skated his fingers over the map, walking the length of it. One city sprawled across an icy island far to the north. Others hugged inland rivers or coastlines. None looked particularly susceptible to invasion, especially if whatever treasure they held had been secreted somewhere in the center. Though if an angry dragon attacked by air ...

The first thing the Betrayer would plan to thwart in any city he built.

"I've heard persistent rumors about a hidden stronghold for hundreds of years. I had always assumed it was where he planned to hole up if you ever sought him out in siege. But now I wonder." Elevia exhaled roughly. "Perhaps he was always building a place to put Sachielle."

Ash remembered the last time they'd stood around a map in this room, the blithe words Sachi had whispered. "Do you think he truly saw her during the War of the Gods?"

Elevia hesitated.

"Elevia."

"Yes," she answered softly. Carefully. "I think he must have."

It would explain the fervor in his eyes when he'd confronted them all at Seahold. The Betrayer hadn't acted like a man who had only recently discovered Sachi's existence. There had been too much proprietary interest there. Too much entitlement.

As if his old enemy had been waiting for her almost as long as Ash had.

Ash continued to circle the table. "Where?" he whispered just as softly. "Where would he take her?"

"I don't know. I've never been able to pin down the exact location. I'm working on it, but I'm getting nowhere, Ash." The Huntress swallowed hard. "We have to hope that Nyx knows."

"They told Sachi we had to wait." Ash found himself gripping the table and released it before he could shatter another precious map. "But it was easier to wait when Sachi was here . Zanya tells me we have to trust her, that she asked us for time ..." He drew in a ragged breath and met Elevia's eyes. "Does it make me a monster if I want to fly over there and find her, no matter what she says?"

"Of course not," she said immediately. "You want to rescue her. But that's exactly why Zanya is right , Ash. You're thinking of Sachi in peril, not Sachi at war."

"At war against a power-mad god who almost killed seven of us ," Ash growled. "How is that not peril?"

"It's both ," she shot back. "We're gearing up for a battle that Sachi has been fighting for days already, and in a way that only she can. You have to let her. More than that, you have to respect what she's doing—warrior to warrior."

"I know. I know ." He shoved away from the table and paced, trying to find a release for the anxious tension that curled inside him. "I just want her home, safe. She'd barely gotten a taste of a life without fear, and then my enemy and my war came for her. She never should have been forced into this fight at all."

"Even if she wanted to be?" Elevia pressed. "If I saw it, Ash, I know you did. She hated waiting here, doing nothing and feeling helpless."

Guilt stabbed through him, along with the memory of Zanya's words. She doubted herself, and we made it worse. "So now it's my turn." He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his hair. "To wait. To do nothing and feel helpless."

"Or you can make plans." Elevia touched his arm until he looked at her. "We're all going to get Sachi back. But you're the one who has to bring her home."

He heard the subtle distinction in her words, but the meaning eluded him. "How do you mean?"

Elevia turned and leaned against the edge of the massive table, her arms crossed over her chest. Her expression was thoughtful, but her eyes were almost haunted. "War is hell for all who fight," she began. "But there are different flavors of hell, aren't there? I would choose the clear brutality of the blade over the sort of covert work Sachi does any day of the week, Ash. Because my mind can still be my own."

Zanya's voice taunted him again, listing the tortures that had been visited on Sachi at her family's hands. Not for their own casual enjoyment, but specifically to send her to him. To his bonding ceremony.

Ash had taken the solitude of her own mind away from her, too. Had he simply been the latest torment, the latest test? A hell she had to survive?

No. No, Sachi had been honest with him about some things from the beginning. He could still remember the look in her eyes when she told him she'd left her own personal hell behind when she traveled to Dragon's Keep. She had never viewed him as a torment, only an impossible situation, because she'd never wanted to deceive him at all.

Would it be easier to play that game with the Betrayer because he deserved the deception? Or would it be worse, because it meant putting on a show for a monster who felt entitled to her in a way Ash never had? If she had to get close to a man she didn't care for, one she didn't want ?

Worse. It would be so much worse.

He swallowed bile. "I've never had to lie, not like that. How do I help her?"

Elevia took his hand and squeezed it. "You watch her. You give her space to be wounded, but you never stop reminding her—that you and Zanya love her, that she's home. That the war is over."

Loving her would be as easy as breathing. Giving her space ... Well, he could practice self-control when it was needed. But reminding her the war was over ...

He turned back to the table, to the vast Empire that had grown on the other side of a wall he'd made impenetrable in his mind. He'd ignored what the Betrayer—what Sorin —was doing with a dedication that wasn't just reckless. He'd let danger grow to monstrous proportions to the west, and for the worst of reasons.

The war may have ended for everyone else, but it lived on in his blood and bones.

" Will it be over?" he asked hoarsely. "Can we beat him?"

"It will be over, one way or another. But, Ash?"

"What?"

Elevia's eyes were wide. "You know she's not going to be the same person who left this keep. And I'm not talking about the vagaries of war, either. Sachi will more than likely manifest her full powers before this is all over."

Part of him yearned for it, because the strength of the Dream could keep her safe, even from the Betrayer. Most of him dreaded it. Zanya's manifestation had been traumatic, and she wasn't alone in that. So many Dreamers had had to come close to death before the magic rose up in them. Some had faced moments that had nearly shattered them.

He didn't want that pain for her, even if it ultimately lent her power. But he couldn't lie to himself, not about this. Trapped as she was in the Betrayer's hands, Sachi's pain was almost inevitable. "It seems likely."

"She'll still be your consort. Still be Sachi . But she'll need you more than ever."

Just as Zanya had, except that her manifestation had been that of a warrior. Zanya had needed Ulric and Elevia more in some ways—teachers who would help her hone the weapons that came with her powers.

Somehow, Ash doubted that Sachi's would be the same. She would never long to truly master the weapons she had been trained to use in her own brand of warfare. She would need a safe place to be herself, and only herself. A place where she wouldn't have to lie, with the truth or otherwise. Where she needn't perform or put on a smile. Where she could rage or cry if she wished.

She needed him and Zanya to take care of her heart, the way she'd always so effortlessly sheltered theirs.

She needed a home.

"She is my consort," he told Elevia finally as resolve formed inside him. "You make sure we bring her out. And I'll make sure we bring her home."