Chapter 36

36

RAEGAL

I leave Reya sleeping peacefully in her bed. At first, I had hoped that covering her in my scent would drive the mutts away, but it isn't working. The numbers continue to grow and it's making the residents of Shadow Valley anxious. Rumours spread of a Night Realm invasion, despite years of no sign of life from the Night Borne. Technically, there is no reason for me to join her in her bed every night now, so why do I hesitate not to?

Because you like the feel of her, my shadows whisper.

Because she's ours.

I growl inwardly at that voice in my head. I will tell her I will leave her to sleep in peace tonight. No doubt she'll be pleased to me see the back of me and have her bed back to herself. My shadows grumble in disagreement and I choose to ignore them. Some distance between me and Terror will be a good thing.

I'm looking through the latest intelligence we have on the missing Shadow Kissed but there's still no firm lead. I doubt the rebels would do any harm to the girls, given they say that they rescued them from their terrible fate. In some ways, I agree with them. We are forcing Asen women to marry us and leave their homes forever, but without doing so, my kind would cease to exist, and I will do anything to protect my people.

There is a sharp rap on my door, and Jasiel strides into the room. He takes a seat opposite me and gestures to the documents in front of me. "We'll find them. It's just taking longer than we hoped. We have our sources out there in the towns and villages."

I nod my head and return the papers to my desk drawers. "Let us hope so, otherwise our king is going to be enraged that we have two fewer girls at the reaping ceremony." I reach for the leather notebook on my desk and push it across to Jasiel. He quirks a brow, looking intrigued, and I gesture for him to open it. He flicks through the pages, his eyes skimming over the content, and he looks up at me, puzzled.

"What's this, some kind of shadow guide to the Asen world?"

"So, you agree it reads like some kind of guide or study of the Asen realm?" I ask him, glad to see he has made the same assumption.

"Where did you get this?" he asks as he flicks through the pages and the puzzled furrow of his brow deepens.

"Reya's mother's workshop. Buried in the back of a drawer. From looking at some of her other books and scripts, this is her mother's handwriting."

Jasiel directs his attention towards me, his eyes widening. "So, what does this mean?"

I sigh and shrug my shoulders, leaning back in my chair. "I don't know, Jas. Things don't add up. The mutt's reaction to Reya, the words her mother spoke when she was dying. I think…ah, this sounds crazy…"

"Go on," he urges me, sitting up in his seat and leaning forward.

"Could Reya's mum have been Night Borne?"

If Jas is shocked by my words, he doesn't show it. "There is something different about her. And that whole thing the other week when we attacked the mutts outside the valley walls. A gateway in another realm only forms if…"

"Someone came through it," I say, finishing his sentence.

"And you're thinking Reya's mum was that someone?"

I bob my head from side to side and sigh. "Perhaps. I think we need to investigate her mum's background, who her parents were, where she was born, and so on."

Jasiel nods his head. "I can do that. Do we know where her mum was supposedly born?"

I shake my head and grimace. "In the North."

Jasiel's expression turns sombre. "You realise if she has Night Borne blood, then the king will want her dead or contained."

My shadows unfurl in an angry roar in my head at the suggestion of any harm coming to her. He's right though, that realm holds the very thing that can destroy us and if the Flame Borne get wind of a living night blood, they will also hunt her to the corners of existence. Handing her over to the king would mean my people would be safe and we could finally end this war once and for all. Ultimately, I'd perhaps redeem myself in my parents' eyes for the sins of my past.

"There was amethyst all over that house, but it had traces of a dark coloured crystal infused within it," I tell him, and he shakes his head in response.

"But amethyst is like sunstone is to our kind. It weakens them and has the power to kill them. If they were of night blood, why would her mother surround them in a crystal that weakens them?"

I tap my fingers on my desk. "It does, but if you're a gifted crystal weaver and you find a crystal that you can combine with amethyst that ensures it can't kill, but it can suppress magic."

I see the moment when he comes to the realisation. He sits up straighter in his seat and sucks in a breath. "Could the other crystal you saw within the amethyst have been obsidian? What if the right balance of the crystal that harms them and the one that strengthens them means it suppresses their magic but keeps them from getting sick?"

"That damn pendant around her neck!" I jump up from my chair and Jas looks none the wiser. "Her mother gave her a large amethyst heart necklace for her birthday. I bet on closer inspection it has obsidian within the stone."

Jasiel looks dazed. "So, she's away from that house now and not surrounded by all that amethyst and onyx, apart from the one she wears around her neck?"

I walk over to the window and look out across the sun kissed valley towards the shadow mansion to where she will be sitting down for breakfast with her fellow dorm mates. What will happen if I am right in my suspicions, and I remove that crystal jewel from around her neck? Will all her powers awaken at once? Will she be able to control it? I abandon my earlier decision about letting her sleep alone. If she possesses night blood, she could open the gateway to her realm and become the most hunted female in all the realms.

‘Protect her' my shadows whisper.

"No one can know who or what she is, not until we can confirm all of this. Find out everything you can about her mother, Jas. Every detail."

"Got it," Jas says with a nod of his head. "And if we confirm she is?"

I exhale. "If she is Night Borne, then what I should do is inform my father and hand her over to the will of our king."