3. Vale

Chapter 3

Vale

I n the days under the mountain, I longed for the comforts of the ruling class more than anything. I'd wanted decent food and a soft bed and chairs with cushions. It wasn't until I was remanded to this singular set of rooms did I realize just how much I hated being cooped up.

Tying the laces of my boots, I contemplated the history lesson Idris had provided the night before. The scary part of it was, I knew he wasn’t lying—that the lore of the Luxa was based on a very real truth. That realm was a problem I hadn't realized I had until it nearly killed me.

Again.

A part of me absolutely hated that I might have been that close to Nyrah and left without her. The other part of me knew just how sinister the dreaming world could be—just how violent, how dangerous. Had the Lumentium under the mountain kept me safe from the Dreaming? Had it blocked the Dreaming from calling me home? Or was I grasping at straws, trying to find reasons to go back to that prison of the guild to find my sister?

“You have got to be joking,” Rune rumbled into my brain. “There’s no way you’re going back there. You know it isn't safe.”

So the overgrown pigeon was speaking to me again? After our spat last night and his demands that I learn what being a Luxa meant, he’d refused to actually explain what the fuck he’d been talking about.

“Mind your business. It was an errant thought, not a plan. I’m fairly certain the execution attempt negated all travel to the Perder Lucem for the foreseeable future.”

I’d need more than just determination to infiltrate the guild. I’d need a whole damn army and way more power than what I had. Grumbling, I pulled the laces of the scaled corset, cinching it tight over my torso. It had managed to keep me alive during the second trial, and I had no intention of leaving this room without it. It fit nicely under the emerald-green dress I’d chosen for the day, which I’d paired with a set of jeweled daggers at my belt.

“Sure. And your desire to find your sister didn’t nearly kill you last night. That must have been some other Luxa.”

Rolling my eyes like he could see me, I shoved out of the dressing room. “And like I said last night, it was an accident. I ? —”

“Didn’t mean to,” he growled, cutting me off like the jerk he was. “Funny, that didn’t stop you from nearly taking away everything. It didn’t stop you from nearly leaving me to this life—alone—forever. It’s like you want to die. When are you going to figure out that if you die, I’m stuck like this?”

In the grand scheme, it sounded a little like bullshit. I wasn't the only Luxa alive, now, was I? There was a whole damn line of us, right? Plenty of them could still be born, plenty of them?—

“Are you insinuating that I am the last Luxa? Because you and I both know that's not true. Nyrah is alive, and though I don't want her to go through any of this—” Just the thought of her being in my shoes made me want to smash something.

“Forget I said anything. It doesn't matter,” he grumbled, and then it was as if he fled from my mind. Since Rune started speaking to me, he had been there, just lurking in the recesses of my brain, waiting to give his opinion. Now, he was just gone.

Mentally, I searched for him, reached for him, and though I felt as if I could find him, it was as if he had thrown up a wall between us. “Excuse you. You do not get to drop that little nugget of truth and then run away. What are you talking about?”

I waited for him to answer me, but all I got was a mind full of silence. “Hello?” I shouted, not bothering to try and speak inside his head. “You cannot say something like that and then shut me out. What is going on?”

Freya raised her eyebrows, staring at me like I was losing what was left of my mind. I didn’t bother explaining. If Rune wanted to be silent mind to mind, then I would just walk down those stupidly steep stairs and talk to him face-to-face. Even though just thinking about the damned things made my stomach lurch, he was keeping something from me, and I was tired of being in the dark.

Yanking my cloak off the arm of a settee, I threw it over my shoulders as I marched toward the door.

“Where do you think you're going?” Freya asked, appearing at my side as if she materialized from nothing. “You have an appointment for a dress fitting in a few hours. Considering too many people in this kingdom are trying to kill you, you're grounded, little witch.”

Forcing myself not to jump, I shot her a glare. “Rune is being a stingy little shit with some key details, and I’m going down to that gods-forsaken cavern and talking to the overgrown pigeon face-to-face. Is that a problem?”

Freya knocked the fiery braid off her shoulder. “ Yes ,” she said like I was a complete idiot. “It's a huge problem. You have survived not one, not two, but at least five assassination attempts—especially if we include your little mage debacle on the way here. If you honestly believe you’re going anywhere, you, my tiny friend, are dreaming.”

As if dreaming hadn’t gotten me into this mess.

This felt similar to when Xavier and Kian decided I was getting on a boat to abscond off the continent for my own safety. I was tempted to do now what I should have done then and tell her to go fuck herself. I highly doubted Freya would think that was particularly cute.

She'd likely threaten to bite me.

“Am I a prisoner, Freya?” I asked, gauging just how best to play this.

I swear, that single raised eyebrow could flay someone alive. “No, if you were a prisoner, you'd be in the dungeons above Rune’s hidey-hole. You are in the king's chambers with every luxury in the kingdom.”

As if that made it any less of a prison. “But I must stay in these rooms and go nowhere else, is that correct?”

Freya’s features hardened as she moved between me and the door. “You were up on that mountain. You saw exactly what our enemy is capable of. Do you honestly think outside of these rooms is safe for you? After what we saw?”

Freya didn’t understand—none of them did. I’d lived a long life of fearing death with every step, every errant move. But those poor Luxa had died to break this curse—they’d lost their lives thinking they were doing the right thing. And if Rune wasn’t talking out of his giant ass, I might be the last one—the last chance, the last of my kind.

Then again, he could just be a stingy, fact-hiding asshole. Gods, I was tired of this shit already.

“Not particularly, no. I also don't really care for being told what to do—especially when I’m going to be a queen in a week. You do understand that, right?” I shifted to the left, trying to get around her, but she blocked me in earnest. “Would you enjoy being remanded to a set of rooms and told that you were too weak, too fragile, to defend yourself in the castle you were supposed to call home? Would you take kindly to someone stealing the very last bit of your freedom under the banner of keeping you ‘safe’ when not only is that a foreign concept, but it just plain isn’t true.”

She blinked as if I’d just slapped her, but then that mouth of hers firmed into a hard line.

“I’ve never been safe—not one day in my life. I won’t be safe here, in that hallway, or in the middle of the Perder Lucem . I will be safe next to Rune, and I need to know what he knows because I’m the only one who can speak to him and get an answer.”

She pursed her mouth as she planted her hands on her hips, seeming to contemplate my existence for a hot second. “You have a point. I would hate it just as much as you do. Unfortunately, I can defend myself without the risk of imminent death, and well, you can't.” She gently but firmly took the cloak from my shoulders and tossed it back on the settee. “I’m handling business and can’t babysit you, so you’re staying here.”

Then she guided me to a chair and pushed me backward until I planted my ass on it. Then she waved her hand at the door, and a web of magic revealed itself. Xavier might not have been able to teach me very much in the way of magic, but I did understand that she was unlocking a ward on this very room.

“You're really going to leave me here?”

“Like I said, I have things to do, and they need to get done before your dress fitting. After that, I'll take you downstairs to see Rune, but not before.”

I watched the intricate pattern of the ward breaking as she unlocked the magic to let herself out. Then Freya reached for the door handle, seeming to pause for a second. “I'm not trying to be an asshole. This is just how it has to be.”

“I understand,” I whispered, casting my gaze downward. Disappointment washed through me, and I figured that was probably enough to disguise my scent so she wouldn’t suspect anything.

Because as soon as she closed that door, I would figure a way out of this room.

“I'm sorry,” she said, and then she closed the door behind her, the bright magic of the ward weaving itself back together as it locked down every part of Idris' chambers.

She was sorry, huh? Funny, no one seemed very sorry to hide me away in a gods-forsaken tower, waiting around for something to happen. No one seemed sorry that I was being sequestered waiting for my wedding day, acting like I was too young, too stupid, too na?ve to learn about the kingdom around me. Well, I needed answers, and if I sat on my hands, I wouldn't find out anything.

I waited two, maybe three minutes before I did something that Freya could never do—something Xavier didn't understand, and Idris couldn't explain. I didn't need to pick the lock on the ward.

I could cut right through it.

Letting the heat of my power wash through me, I formed a blade of light in my hand. I'd been working on summoning my power without cutting myself. It was a work in progress, but this small blade of magic was just what I needed. In one swift swipe, the glowing ward keeping me from the rest of the castle frayed, allowing me to reach for the doorknob. The cold metal was a welcome sensation as I quickly twisted the handle and walked right through that bastard of a door that had been keeping me captive.

“I hope you heard that, you dick. I’m coming to you, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. You’d better warm up your mental vocal cords because you’re going to sing, dammit.”

But Rune didn't say a word. He didn't so much as rumble in my mind, and his silence was starting to freak me out. Sticking to the edges of the corridors, I tried to remember the way to the throne room. Close to those intricately carved double doors lay a small alcove where I’d once argued with Idris. Not ten feet from that alcove sat the doors to the catacombs and that gods-forsaken stone staircase that led to the blackness of the cavern.

Three left turns and two harrowing staircases later, I knew I was in the right place. But something had me checking in on Idris. I knew he was in that throne room doing something kingly, but what if the meeting was almost over? He'd catch me trying to talk to Rune, and then it would be a whole ordeal with his impossibly sexy frown and stupidly hot, high-handed ways.

“And you’d better not give me shit for that, you asshole. It’s bad enough I’m even admitting that to myself.”

Luckily, Rune was still quiet as a mouse. Then again, him not talking to me wasn’t a good thing. Not at all.

Sticking to the shadows, I closed my eyes and tried to search Idris out. He’d been right when he’d said our proximity helped the bond between our minds. I could feel him in the back of my brain, much like I felt Rune and, to a lesser extent, Kian and Xavier. Since the mountain, I could sense him more clearly, his thoughts not quite clear all the time, but getting there.

For the first time ever, I pushed—seeking him out, reaching for him.

Staggering into the wall, I hung on for dear life as the throne room overtook my vision. I hadn’t just peeked into Idris’ mind, I was seeing through his eyes. Nausea weighed down my tongue as a spike of pain lanced through my head. But for whatever reason, I couldn’t drop the link.

What remained of the council sat across from Idris, concern and cowardice stamped all over them as his voice thundered through the circular room.

“I didn’t stutter, did I? Or did you forget that five councilmembers attempted a coup less than forty-eight hours ago? They threatened my life, my kingdom, my bride. And you think I’ll let their kin live? They call me a beast for a reason, Dorian.”

“But, Your Majesty, their families could be innocent. There is no reason to murder them—can't you see that?”

“I see the guild’s influence has threaded its blackened fingers through my kingdom, touching everything. I see there are very few I can trust. I see that those men showed me just how far they were willing to go for their cause. I want their bloodlines eradicated down to the very last drop—do you understand me?”

I yanked my consciousness from his mind so fast, it was as if I had been scalded by Rune’s flames. Covering my mouth with a shaking hand, I swallowed bile. Idris had just ordered the deaths of men, women, and children.

Was this why he didn’t want me to see how this kingdom was run?

Was this why I’d been sequestered to his rooms?

Was this Freya’s business she had to attend to?

A lash of fury boiled through my veins, and my feet moved before consulting my brain.

“Don’t, my Queen. It won’t solve anything.”

So, the overgrown pigeon was talking to me again? Well, it was too little, too late.

This time, it was me who shoved him out, cutting Rune off from every thought, every feeling as I rounded the corner. Guards stood outside the throne room doors, their crossed spears barring my way. Power sizzled down my arms, bursting from my fingertips as I knocked them away from the doors.

A split second later, those doors were ash, exploding in a hail of debris as I strode into the throne room, staring down the man who would be my husband in a few short days.

If either of us lived that long.