Chapter 32

Chapter 32

T he familiar woods that lay between the palace and the Attlehon Mountains smelled of spring, rebirth, change, and new beginnings.

They differed from the Ivory Forest Mariah had grown up in. The way the rustling of the leaves brushed her ears was less comforting, the birds chirping in the branches above less soothing. But they were still woods, and it was grounding to be surrounded by the wilds once again.

Which was great, since nothing in her life truly grounded her. Not anymore.

Especially not after yesterday. Her resolve had shifted and steadied as she’d sat in her window, soaking in the sun as it crossed over the mountains, watching for eagles.

It was now late morning as Mariah walked briskly down the forest path. Trefor walking beside her, the sun dappling through the trees warm against her too-pale skin. Her clothes were loose on her frame, her hair was too short to be braided, and her lungs already burned with the effort of the walk, but to her surprise, those things didn’t bother her.

They only served to remind her that she had survived. That she was stronger now.

That she would become strong again and she would find her vengeance.

Her retribution .

Something flitted at the edge of her vision. She froze, a bolt of surprise racing through her, as a black butterfly darted out of the trees and danced its way down below the canopy. It landed on a branch just off the path, near her head, watching her much the same way it had before.

Beside her, Trefor paused. “Mariah? You okay?”

She hushed her blond-haired Armature, attention still fixed on the insect.

There was no way it was the same butterfly she’d seen on the journey from Khento. That would be impossible.

Yet something in her cocked its head at the insect. Her magic pushed its way up from her gut and into her veins. Those threads of silver-gold light slipped free from her skin, dancing to the butterfly.

The second her magic touched its delicate black wings, an image slammed into her skull, shoving her back with a gasping step. Trefor’s hands gripped her shoulders and her magic pulled back into her, coiling around her soul with a wild protectiveness.

“M! What’s wrong?”

Mariah couldn’t answer Trefor, not yet. Not with an image burned into her skull. When she closed her eyes, she could see it, clear as the day.

It was a dragon, maw parted in a great roar, massive wings stretched wide, taloned claws digging into soft earth.

And its color … its color was unlike anything she’d ever seen.

Not a color—not exactly. At first, it was black with flickering streaks of gold. Then, that black shifted to silver, but the gold remained. It kept morphing, back and forth, from black to silver, dark to light. Only gold remained, but hardly made the image any clearer.

Mariah’s eyes flew open, chest heaving as she stared back at where the butterfly had been.

Of course, it was gone.

“N-nothing.” She shook off Trefor’s hands, forcing herself to stand straight. “I’m fine. Just … trying to get used to my magic again. That’s all.” She tried her best to ignore the tremor in her voice.

The image was fading, but she was still filled with an emotion she’d become far too acquainted with those past few months.

She was terrified.

Mariah gulped deep, steadying breaths as she stood there on the forest path, Trefor’s concerned stare grazing her cheek. She let her heart rate settle, let the image fade fully from her mind.

A trick of her imagination, nothing more. Brought on by an actual night’s sleep, one that followed too many restless, cold, terrified ones.

Once her hands had stopped shaking, and she felt as normal as she ever did now, she turned to Trefor. She forced a smile when she met his worried sea-green gaze. “I’m sorry. I’m fine, I promise. Let’s keep going.”

He gave her a wary, tight nod, pale hair shifting in the breeze. They continued down the path, and she inhaled deep breaths of his sea salt and citrus scent, like the groves of the trees that grew along the northern coast.

His wariness fell away, giving way to an excited energy, as they pushed past a line of hedges and into the training clearing hidden deep within the confines of the forest game park. That energy spilled into her, and she couldn’t stop the smile that spread across her face.

She’d made it out. She would be strong again.

Trefor darted from her side, already pulling out equipment and arranging it around the clearing. Mariah didn’t quite know why she’d asked Trefor to be the one to train with her that morning. Perhaps it was because he’d been recently injured, struck by an arrow meant for Mariah herself, and had just retrained himself.

Or perhaps, of all her Armature, she knew him the least, but something in her needed his vibrant, excited energy, right at this moment.

She’d only failed to listen to her gut once. And it had resulted in her leaving her dagger on her nightstand and strolling into captivity, unarmed and defenseless. She had no intention of ignoring those instincts again.

Her fingers toyed idly with the hilt of her dragon-winged dagger, strapped once again to its familiar place on her thigh. She’d run from some things since returning home but swore to never let that blade leave her side again.

“You sure you don’t want to talk about what happened on the trail?” Trefor was still watching her with concerned curiosity. “How are you feeling?”

She couldn’t blame him for his worry; they’d only returned two nights ago, after all. And before that, it had been three days of hard riding through the harshest of Onita’s northern terrain. It would make sense if she weren’t feeling up to training yet.

While her body certainly protested, her soul cringed at that idea. Idle rest meant stagnation, and if she let herself sit, she feared her wounds would fester.

So, she’d opted for movement.

“It was nothing. And I’m tired,” she admitted, “but ready to train.”

Trefor’s smile faltered. “You know, you don’t have to. You should get some rest?—”

“Please, Trefor,” she pleaded. “I don’t want to rest. Not now. I want to train.” She hoped he read her desperation, her burning desire to no longer feel as she did. To regain everything that was stripped from her, to come back stronger than before.

After a few heartbeats, he nodded. “Okay. Then let’s train.”

Mariah’s boots clicked down the marble hallway, feeling lighter than she had in months.

Her muscles ached. Every inch of her was sore. She had shed the tunic she’d worn down to the game park, now dressed only in a thin-strapped camisole and cooling underclothes. Her skin was coated in a thin sheen of sweat, but she reveled in it: this feeling of being alive, and in control, and a bit more like herself than she had that morning.

“I need to grab some lunch,” Trefor said, running a hand through his hair. They paused at the landing of a descending staircase, one that would lead down into the palace kitchens. “Do you want to join me?”

Mariah considered it for a moment. She was hungry, but the thought of being around so many, of being the focus of every set of eyes in those tunnels …

She swallowed.

“I’m okay. I’m sure Mikael made something before he left this morning.” She turned, facing Trefor fully, and let a real smile spread across her face.

“Thank you for this morning. I needed it. More than you’ll ever know.”

Trefor smiled back. “Of course. Same time tomorrow?”

She lifted her chin. “Earlier.”

With a crooked grin, he pulled her into a lopsided hug, pressing a quick kiss into her hair.

“We’re so happy to have you back,” he whispered. “You have no idea.”

She fought back tears as she stepped away from him, tugging lightly on their bond, the one that shimmered like a golden citrus sea. “You have no idea how happy I am to be back.”

He squeezed her one more time before releasing her and jogging toward the stairs, descending into the lower palace levels. She watched him until he vanished from sight, smile lingering across her lips as she turned back down the hall.

She wanted a shower. Desperately.

Mariah took the stairs that would take her to her rooms one at a time, muscles protesting every step. Reaching the landing, she meandered down the white and gold marble hall. Her fingers grazed the gilded walls as she basked in the daylight streaming in through the windows. Something in her soul continued to lift as she walked, stretching before her, pulling her along into brighter days.

She rounded the final corner to find a man wearing clothes as black as his hair, tanzanite eyes widening with surprise.

The bond between them crackled and sparked in the air, an invisible pulse of energy. It was like that day so long ago, before the Choosing, when the world had shrunk to encompass just them. Only this time, with their souls now bridged, it was so much stronger, a powerful vibrancy that nearly buckled her already-shaking legs.

One day apart, and her soul was crying out for him. Begging for him.

But her mind and body still recoiled from that thought, and despite the pull between them, she felt herself freezing, rooting to the ground. Unable to take another step closer.

The slam of the box he’d been carrying hitting the floor echoed through the hallway.

“Mariah.” His voice was a low, strangled sound that sunk into her blood and settled into her bones. A knife through her stomach. He took a staggering step toward her, closing the distance.

And though her soul screamed to move closer, her body took a step back.

He stopped. Pain twisted his face.

“Please,” he said. He sounded so much like he had that day before the Solstice, when he’d confessed to her everything she hadn’t known she’d been desperate to hear.

Those words were too perfect. Had they even come from him?

The scars on her back tingled.

“I can’t,” she forced out through her teeth, entire body vibrating with emotions that warred and clashed.

“You can’t what ?” he pleaded. This time, there was a flash of anger in his blue gaze. He took another step forward, shrinking the space between them, and she stayed rooted to the spot. Rooted by a feeling.

Fear.

He didn’t stop until he was within arms-length. His chest rose and fell with heavy breaths, and something desperate and wild danced in his eyes. His shoulders were wreathed in tendrils of shadows, another sign that he was frustrated and confused and angry.

“Why are you avoiding me? No one can give me a straight answer. You are the only one who knows what happened back there in that Enfara-damned place. Yet you won’t share it with anyone. I told you—I was just as much a prisoner there as you were, and I think you know that.”

“I do know that,” she whispered, surprising herself with her interruption.

He leaned back as if he’d been slapped, some of the rage fading from his eyes. His shadows softened, drifting closer to his body.

“I know that you were a prisoner there. I saw it … you … many times.” The words burned as she forced those memories from her mind. She was not prepared to relive that—not now, not here.

“But … Andrian, don’t make me do this.”

“Do what ?” His words leaked of desperation. “Tell me why you can barely look me in the eye? Why you flinch every time you hear my voice?” His voice cracked, and he paused.

“Mariah, I don’t care what happened. I am yours, and I love ?—”

“Don’t say it. Say that . Please.” Tears burned in her eyes.

Andrian blinked again in shock. “Just … give me a chance again. Please. Let me prove to you that no matter what happened, this is still me.”

Tears fell, spilling down her cheeks. “I can’t do that.”

“Can’t, or won’t?”

“Does it matter?” A sob clogged her throat. “I’m not the girl I was on the Solstice. Too much has happened, too much has changed. I’ve changed, so many times that I don’t even know who I am anymore. And you …” She couldn’t complete that sentence. Couldn’t even complete the thought.

“And I … what? Tell me, Mariah. Let me be there for you. Let me help you.”

“I’m sorry, Andrian. But you can’t help me.” With those final words, her voice still a choked whisper, she moved around him, staying just out of his reach. Every instinct in her screamed, thrashed, pulled her back, but despite her resolve to listen to those instincts, she ignored them.

Mariah couldn’t give in to them now. Not with this.

His eyes tracked her. But he didn’t try to reach for her, to stop her.

Until his sharp inhale hit her like a drop of lead in her stomach. New emotions raced down their bond—horror, unfiltered and unmasked. And then rage, monstrous in its depth.

Her back was to him now. And in the camisole she wore, the skin of her shoulder blades was bare. Deep, roughly healed scars were on full display.

“Who the fuck did that to you?”

His voice was quiet, a shadow of a sound, but filled with an endless, eternal rage. She could’ve sworn the temperature in the hallway plummeted several degrees, that unearthly shadows dimmed the sunlight outside.

Time froze. The world stood still. Mariah clenched her hands together so hard, she felt her nails pierce the skin of her palm. A trickle of blood dripped to the white marble floors, its splash echoing like a torrent down the hallway.

She gave herself to the pain as she turned slightly, looking back at him over her shoulder. He looked like a dark, avenging god, ready to tear the world apart once she confessed the identity of her torturer.

She swallowed thickly, blinking away the tears. So many tears. She was tired of them.

Her voice croaked, low and hoarse, when she answered him.

“You did.”