Chapter 50

The storm rolls offshore, its bulbous clouds pulsing with a fierce, electrical heartbeat while it continues to rumble like a restless beast that nests beyond the palace. Another wave crashes, dusting my face in salty spray as I stare at the bridge—long and lit and daunting. Picture it crumbling beneath my feet the moment I climb back up the rocks and step onto it.

I just want to sleep, but despite being able to see my balcony from here, my bed seems so far away.

So foreign and unreachable.

I’m a different person now than I was this morning. I left that room a maiden, naïve, and packed full of questions.

I left that room Orlaith.

Now, I’m Serren—plucked, snipped, so achingly aware of my fragile existence and painted in another layer of murder.

I’m struggling to bridge the gap. To force myself to power on with the knowledge of my slain species sitting heavily on my shoulders. To picture myself sleeping in those pure white sheets without feeling compelled to bunch them up and feed them to the fireplace.

I’m living in a shell that doesn’t fit right anymore. Perhaps it never did.

This plush life feels so exorbitant compared to the bigger, uglier picture.

The distant clop of hooves snaps me out of my reverie. I clamber up the craggy face, peeking over a rock to see a gold-brushed carriage pulled by two horses clatter down the otherwise desolate esplanade.

The carriage.

Kolden follows on another horse, posture strong and sturdy. His long sheet of tawny hair stuck to the back of his equally sodden garb as he looks around, pinched gaze sweeping in my direction.

I duck, heart leaping into my throat.

I won’t get another chance like this. Either I sit here staring at the sea, feeling sorry for myself, avoiding all my problems until they metastasize or I shove it all deep, pick myself up, chase that carriage down, and try to convince Kolden not to snitch on me.

Perhaps they saw Gael.

Perhaps they know if she’s okay.

The thought has me leaping up just as they turn down the bridge, and I chase them on silent steps—dashing from one slab of shadow to the next. The carriage spills onto the palace grounds, and I wait until the soldier manning the bridge has his attention dug into a pine-leaf pouch, pipe caught between his teeth, before I peel free from the darkness and flit forward on feet that barely hit the ground.

Pausing behind a bush while I gather my breath, I watch the carriage settle close to the gates. Watch Kolden steer his horse onto the patch of grass below my balcony, a frown staining this face.

My gut cramps, guilt crouching heavily on my chest.

He looks pissed.

Stealing a nervous glance up the tall walls, I lift my chin and step beside him as he heaves his leg over the back of his horse and drops out of the saddle.

He spins, jolting, hand slamming against his chest. “Fu—”

“Hi.”

He blows out a breath, gaze sweeping the grounds, before shielding me with his horse, looking straight at me. “Permission to speak frankly?” he bites out, and I wince.

“Yes …”

“What the fuck?”

“I deserve that,” I admit, tucking sodden hair off my face.

His gaze snags on my split knuckles, eyes widening.

I whisk my hand behind my back and pretend he didn’t see. “Have you heard from Gael?”

He watches me for a long moment, unblinking, stare tracking over the throbbing spot on my temple. “Orlaith—”

“Have you?” I insist, desperation riding my tone.

“Yes, I have.”

A pit of emotion swells in my throat that’s hard to swallow past, my hand stabbing back to steady myself against the wall. It takes every ounce of self control not to crumble into a ball of relief.

She’s alive … She’s okay …

I didn’t kill her.

“A maid came out with a scroll baring Gael’s family seal.” He digs through his pocket, pulls out the scroll, and waves it at me. “Said you’d decided to walk back to the palace because you needed some air. Is that what happened? Did you need air?”

I nod, too scared to blink for fear of sending tears dashing down my cheeks. “Yes, that’s exactly what happened. I’m sorry to have worried you.”

“Not only did you worry me,” he growls in hushed tones, pointing toward the carriage, “but these men were under strict instructions not to let you roam the city on your own. You put us all at risk! Forgive me …” He clears his throat, jaw clenched as he regains himself. “I’m done being frank.”

“Well, I’m back now, so …” Cainon doesn’t even need to know.

Kolden sighs, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose—a look that reminds me of Baze and makes my throat ache. “Fine. You go upstairs before the High Master gets back and sees you like that,” he says, flicking a hand at me. “I’ll talk to the other men.”

I offer him a small smile. “Thank you, Kolden.”

“Just promise not to throw another knife at me,” he mutters, jerking his chin toward the palace’s front gate.

* * *

“Orlaith!”

Cainon’s voice booms through the foyer, slamming me to a halt with my fingers stretched toward the railing of the grand staircase that leads to my suite.

I draw a deep breath that does nothing to quell the frantic beat of my heart, then turn to see him striding across the polished floor toward me. He’s a vision of wind and rain—cheeks flushed, his dark blue top soaked through and clinging to the tailored slabs of his muscled physique.

My gaze drops to his gray pants, a similar shade to that of which the Shulák wear …

My heart flips.

He has connections to the faith, that much is clear from his reliance on Elder Creed. But how deep do those veins dig?

Does he condone the slaughter of my people?

I swallow the bile burning a trail up my throat.

Brow buckled, his stare carves over me as he rolls his sleeves. “Did you just get back?” I catch sight of his lapis lazuli cupla caught around his strong, sun-brushed wrist, and my heart leaps into my throat, my own wrist burning with an emptiness I stab behind my back.

Shit.

“Yes, we ahh … we got caught in the storm.”

He pauses, frown deepening as he assesses me from a few strides away, and then he’s charging forward, snatching my wrist from behind my back, holding it between us.

He steps so close our bodies are flush.

Our breaths mingle—sharp and harsh, a crackle of tension snapping at my wet skin. “Where’s your cupla?” he whispers against my ear, the words too quiet to have such a grating effect.

Why didn’t I think to ask Gun to fix it?

“In my bag,” I rasp. “The latch broke ...”

Seconds slip by to the beat of my hammering heart while I stare at the buttons on his shirt. At my grazed knuckles bunched between us.

He pulls back, looking down into me, and rather than the expected wrath I was shoring myself up to weather, there’s concern swirling in his eyes. “You should have come directly back the moment it did. Anything could have happened to you. This is your protection,” he urges, squeezing my bare wrist. “Your safety net.”

I suck a bolt of air through parted lips …

Safety net.

I don’t want one of those. Not anymore. I haven’t since I stepped a toe across my Safety Line at Castle Noir. Not even with the newfound knowledge that the me beneath this skin is being hunted every second of the day and night.

Perhaps that’s been our problem from the start. Perhaps he wanted the naïve, scared, moldable girl he found barefoot and broken at Rhordyn’s castle, thinking he could bend her weaknesses into his own strengths.

But the new me doesn’t bend.

I snap.

“It’s okay, though,” he says, brushing his knuckles against my jaw and flashing me a smile. “Nothing I can’t fix.”

Keeping a tight grip on my wrist, he leads me out across the concourse and through a small door on the other side. A coil of stairs drills us down into the bowels of the palace—an area I’ve yet to explore, though I know where we’re going the moment the distant ting of metal on metal hits me like sharp nails to my tired, unfortified brain.

I’m smacked with a smoky, metallic scent I’ve smelled before—on the southern border of Vateshram forest, and only ever when the wind blew a stiff northern breeze.

He’s taking me to the smithy.

Those sounds keep pecking, pecking … until we come to a massive room that’s carved into the cliff face. Flaming kilns line the walls, workbenches packing the space, each occupied by hunched-over men dripping sweat down their temples, banging away at their various projects, most of them swords from what I can see at first glance.

The open wall at the far end, windowing an empty wooden pier glazed in moonlight, exposes the space to the elements, though it does nothing to alleviate the dense humidity.

“Get out!” Cainon bellows, and the shrill racket is sponged in an instant, followed by a symphony of clattering tools that makes me wince.

Boots scuff against stone as the men leave, their heads down and gazes cast on the sooty floor. Cainon seems to pick a workbench at random, drops my wrist, and reaches out his hand.

I dig through my bag, throat clenching at the sight of the tiny, blunted crystal bloom tumbling around in the bottom. Retrieving my cupla and the piece of gold that broke off, I hand them over.

He studies them, eyes cast down. “How did it break?”

“I knocked it against something,” I lie, and his eyes flick up, down again.

“Our gold is very soft because it’s such high quality. I’ll replace the latch with an iron one.”

“Iron?”

“A type of metal. Not so commonly used anymore, but it’s hardy.”

He gets to work, melting, tipping, pinching things with long pliers, then dipping them in a bucket of water that boils instantly. Then he’s banging—making sharp tinking sounds with every determined strike, concentration knotting his brow.

I pull a deep breath and blow it out, teeth gritted as I force myself to maintain my composure, picturing myself cross-legged in a grassy glen with soil between my fingers.

My gaze wanders across the bench, landing on a vicious-looking chisel with a bulbous wooden handle, the flat metal length honed to a squared tip.

That looks handy …

Cainon turns to the forge behind him, the glow of the flames licking at his bronze, sweat-dappled skin, and I blindly reach for the tool, pluck it up, and tuck it in my bag.

He turns, eyes narrowed on a small, dull piece of metal pinched between a pair of blackened pliers. More sharp taps with a small hammer, and then he holds up my cupla, looking at it from all angles. “Much better,” he murmurs, gesturing for me to reach my hand across the wooden table dusted with shards of metal and marred with messy black divots.

He threads it onto my wrist, and clips the dull gray latch into place. “I know they’re uncomfortable sometimes, but they’re not supposed to be unclipped,” he says, looking up at me with a knowing glint in his eyes. “It weakens the latch.”

I stare at him, heart pounding so hard I can hear it.

Does he know I’ve been taking it off?

“Perhaps it was loose?” he asks, a single brow raised. “Did the latch ever unclip on its own?”

“Yes,” I blurt, locking onto the offering like the lifeline it is. “That happened a couple of times. Very frustrating.”

I meet his gaze, daring him to challenge the lie.

He nods and plants his fists on the table, broad shoulders bulging, flashing me a friendly smile. “How about we use a little solder? That way you never have to worry about it coming off again. Ever.”

The words hit like stones to my chest, planting seeds of wild panic that root around my ribs.

No.

I don’t want this.

The voice screams at me, over and over again as I twist the conversation, look at it from all angles, and realize there’s no way for me to free myself from the crushing jaws of this verbal trap.

His brows lift. “Orlaith?”

“Yes,” I whisper, then clear my throat. “That’s a good idea.”

“Right. Then let’s get it sorted,” he says with a satisfied smile.

He turns and plunges a thin metal rod into the flames, letting it sit for a long moment while my heart beats me up from the inside. When he pulls it out, its pointed tip glows with a fiery pulse, much like my needle after I’d fire the tip in my candle flame.

He threads a tiny piece of silver wire against the pinched mouth of the iron latch, then brings the blazing prong close.

I swallow words trying to bludgeon my throat, desperate to jerk away—to escape the radiating heat and my tethered fate.

The scalding metal chews the fragile skin on the inside of my wrist—the smell of burnt flesh smacking me in the senses, gouging through my conscience, dashing visions across my mind.

Burnt bodies.

Blistered skin that slid away. Stuck to my palms.

I clench my teeth, watching through a sheen of unshed tears as he touches the flaming tip against the wire, and it turns to liquid, seeping into the latch’s nooks and crannies. Cainon tips a cup of water over the permanent seal, and it sizzles much like the blood in my veins and the hurt on my wrist.

He just burned me …

Soldered my cupla in place …

Turned it into a shackle …

What’s more, I practically asked him to.

I swallow, pulling my arm close to cradle it, fingers trembling, a fireball burning on the tip of my tongue.

“That should prevent any further breaks. You’re happy, yes?”

Similar words are soldered through the folds of my brain from the night he first slipped this cupla around my wrist …

This is what you wanted, yes?

No.

This is not what I want. Who I am.

I can’t live with a bitten tongue and unsaid words in my chest.

A little part of my soul slips further away with every deep throb on my wrist—the part that thought I could secure these ships without burning myself to the ground.

“Petal?”

I look up, give him a small smile, and nod.

“Good,” he murmurs, easing around the table. He takes my hand, brings my knuckles to his lips, and plants a gentle kiss on the wounds there. “What happened to these?”

“I caved a man’s face in for hurting someone I care about,” I say, holding his unflinching stare.

He laughs, low and throaty, brushing his lips across them again. “Seriously, though. Did you fall?”

You have no idea.

“Just a little trip. Grazed them on a wall.By the way, I enjoyed seeing your city today.”

His eyes light up. “You did?”

I nod. “Though I did overhear someone mention a Vruk was roaming not far from your city wall …”

“What?” His head kicks back, a flash of fear in his eyes. “Did you tell anyone?”

Who have I got to tell?

I shake my head.

He swallows, nodding slowly, then pushes between me and the table. Leaning against it, he weaves his arm around my back, pulling me closer, and straddles me with his outstretched legs. “Rest assured, you’re safe here. Nothing can get through that wall, and even if it did, I could crumble the bridge in seconds.”

A wave of nausea makes the insides of my cheeks tingle, but I keep my face smooth. Pretend I’m the girl he met in Castle Noir as I look up at him with worry-filled eyes. “Really?”

He tucks a loose tendril behind my still-damp hair, making me want to flinch away.

“Flick of a lever …”

No …

He grazes his lips across my knuckles again, holding my gaze. “I’ve been quietly building up the outer islands. Our future is certain, no matter how far the Vruk infestation spreads.”

My heart dives, mind churning, the world seeming to fall out from under me …

No wonder he wants to keep his fleet to himself. His back up plan relies on it, but at a steep cost.

Everyone else on the continent.

Again, I think of those ships—of the flames that tore them to shreds.

A single word powers through my mind, spoken in his blunt voice while his people sizzled and screamed …

Sacrifices.