Chapter 2

Breakfast was a rushed affair and what we didn't eat we packed into our saddlebags as we inspected the horses Lyrae had procured for us.

"I hope you paid for these," I told her, only half joking as I stroked my fingers through my mount's thick, fluffy coat.

Dove, my mare, was beautiful, the exact color of the dark gray skies overhead. She had matching wiry whiskers poking out of her chin and watched the proceedings with sedate, limpid brown eyes while Tavion's skittish stallion, a brash bay that snorted at every little movement, danced across the courtyard.

Lyrae's pale-blue eyes narrowed as she watched me double-check my supplies—extra cloak, food, blankets—tied to the back of my saddle before I scrutinized the snow-covered peaks we were heading to. Tavion swore we'd run into harsher weather in the high passes, but down here the balmy air left a sheen of sweat on my brow.

"The royal coffers are overflowing with gilder, so when our queen ordered me to secure five horses, I figured the sky was the limit."

"That was a request, not an order. And I am not the queen."

"Everyone in Blackcastle would beg to differ." Lyrae flicked back her straight black hair before her expression turned a shade exasperated. "I purchased these from the city stabler yesterday and paid him a fair price. When he heard they were for the princess who freed the city, he gave me the best steeds on hand."

For a long moment, I considered her.

Exotically beautiful. Efficient. Dangerous.

These past weeks, Lyrae had become—at least on the surface—a loyal member of our group. Torin had taken our former enemy into her confidence; even Zephryn swore she'd turned over a new leaf. But I'd spent most of my life pretending to be someone I was not, and I saw the signs in Lyrae.

Her cooperation was nothing but an act.

Perhaps she'd been acting for so long she didn't know how to stop. But behind her easy smile I saw the cold calculation. As she stood quietly beside me during royal audiences, I watched her scan the crowd with that assassin's stare that discerned too much.

For weeks now, I'd watched and wondered what her end game was. Why she stuck around when the smart move would have been to head south to the Havens, get on a boat, and never look back.

But I'd never asked the questions that swirled in my head.

"I'm not a princess either," I muttered, re-buckling my saddlebag, tugging the belt tight. We were alone. As alone as we'd ever be, and even then, I considered walking away. But Lyrae had fucked me over in the worst way and I couldn't leave without saying something.

Without knowing why she'd forced me to kill Ember.

Besides, I might not get another chance.

"I have a hard time trusting someone who tricked me into killing my best friend." I held up my hand when she went to answer, this…murderer who'd allied with the Oracle had slaughtered innocents in the name of a sadistic king.

"I never had a mother or a father. Never had siblings. All I had was Ember, and she only came to Caladrius because of me. I'd told her enough stories to make these realms seem so…wonderfully magical, she didn't see the rot hiding underneath. Not until it was too late. I'll carry her death as long as I live."

I swallowed. "Tell me why you tricked me that day. Why you were working for the Oracle."

Lyrae blinked, her blue eyes the same shade as Adele's. In fact, she reminded me more of the witches—long, sleek black hair, pale eyes and skin—than High Fae.

"Torin knows the story. Ask her, since you clearly don't trust me." Every word was clipped.

"I want to hear the truth from you."

Her lips thinned out. "Fine, but not a single word to anyone. Nobody can know." Like me, she scanned our surroundings, her eyes skating up the front of the Keep before she shifted behind my horse and dropped her voice.

"My sister was a thief, not out of necessity but because she enjoyed stealing. And she was good. Really good. She came by the profession honestly enough since our parents were two of Tempeste's most wanted pickpockets and she only followed in their footsteps."

I didn't know what surprised me more.

That Lyrae was from Tempeste, or that her parents were criminals.

Light flickered in Lyrae's cold blue eyes then went out. "She went after something she had no business stealing, and she wasn't fast enough to evade the king's elite guard. She ended up in the Fae King's dungeon, scheduled to be executed."

Lyrae's shrug was too stiff to be nonchalant. "I was a low-level grunt in the army but had always wanted more. The Oracle caught me outside the Citadelle's dungeons sneaking in to free my sister and made me a deal. Be her eyes and ears in the Shadow King's court, and my sister would be spared."

Her smile turned bitter. "I made the deal. Of course I made the fucking deal. What else could I have done? But even freedom didn't save my sister. She died in a shitehole prison somewhere in the Shadowlands while I was killing royals in the Shadow King's daily audiences so he could feel powerful."

A low, quiet laugh. "I've served the Oracle longer than my sister was even alive. How do you think that makes me feel?"

"So the Oracle blackmailed you to do her dirty work in an enemy realm. I assume you passed vital information back to her?"

Lyrae nodded. "Simon was the main courier, flying back and forth between Blackcastle and Tempeste. Torin went along…because none of us could stand up to her. We were all her puppets."

Alright, that tracked but still didn't explain why Lyrae stuck her neck out to help us.

"So you…what? After all those years, you had a change of heart?"

Another one of those stiff shrugs. "Maybe I grew tired of all the killing."

"It didn't look that way when you shoved your sword through Crux in front of the entire royal court."

Her lips twitched. "I never said I didn't enjoy killing that bastard. I said I got tired of killing everyone else. There's a difference."

"You're making it hard for me to trust you, Lyrae. Why did you help us, and don't tell me another sad story. Or another lie."

She bristled. "Neither were lies…but fine. Crux got what he deserved and so did the king." Her pale-blue eyes turned nearly white in the stark sunlight. "I'm helping you so when the time comes the Oracle gets what's coming to her too."

She tugged back her sleeve to reveal a long, hideous scar running from her wrist to the bend of her elbow. The raised scar wasn't new but was still red and painful looking.

The location was familiar enough to turn my stomach.

"Over the years, I became as trapped as my sister in that prison cell. The king sold you to fund his war. What do you think I faced every fucking day as a female in his court? And I realized there was a difference there too. Unlike you, nobody was coming to save me." She yanked her sleeve back down.

"Your friend Ember…she reminded me of my sister. Stuck in a situation she could never get out of. Stupid, I know, but there it is, and after Ember died in that alley, I knew I'd gone too far. I tried to find a way out. I paid good coin to a mage in Southwell to burn the Oracle's mark off me."

Holy gods, Lyrae was marked as well.

"Did the mark go all the way to your heart? A circle with some other symbol in the center?" I asked, and when she nodded, I winced.

Every time I brushed my fingers over my mark, the sensations became…uncomfortable, to say the least.

Taking fire to that mark…I blew out a shaky breath.

"When Torin approached me to join your little uprising, that was the opportunity I'd been waiting for. And the fact I got to pay Crux back for everything he'd done to me was icing on the cake."

Her voice was raw when she added, "I'm glad he's gone."

"Me too." Because for what Crux had done to Ember, even though the Reaper hadn't really been Ember, I was glad Lyrae had slaughtered him. I took a breath and shoved my bloodthirsty thoughts back down.

"I don't think removing the symbol worked, not entirely." Lyrae absently rubbed her fingers over her chest. "More like…dulled the connection, though I haven't sensed her presence since that night we fought in Southwell. Do I have you to thank for that?"

"She's locked away. For now. That's all I'm willing to say." My head snapped up when Zorander shouted for us to hurry.

"But I don't know how much longer she'll be…gone. Which is why we're moving out while we can, to get a head start. Don't fuck us over, Lyrae," I warned her as I mounted my horse and gathered up my reins. "Torin and Cosimo are in charge of Blackcastle. Raziel's men will keep what's left of the army under control."

We were leaving Raziel's freed former soldiers in charge because Zorander didn't have time to vet the three thousand men that remained, the ones with no families or homes to return to. But Raz trusted his men, and now we had seventy-seven of the fiercest, strongest males I'd ever seen positioned around the Keep and throughout the city.

"And what am I supposed to do while you're gone?" Her eyes brightened. "I could come along if you could use another sword. It's been years since I've left this fucking shitehole. I could use a few weeks in the mountains." The offer seemed genuine, but we had no idea what dangers we were riding into. I shook my head.

Trust, which had never come easily, hovered out of reach when it came to Lyrae.

No, better to guard myself than allow anyone to take advantage.

"You don't want to go where we're heading. You know this city and its people. Keep them fed. Make sure Torin is informed of any plots. Let her know what you hear through your grapevine of spies." Lyrae pretended to look affronted, and I grinned.

"With luck, we'll see each other again."

"Don't die, Princess." She groused. "One revolution is enough. I don't have the patience to deal with another." Then she prowled away, head held high, people shrinking out of her way as she passed.

"Let's go. We can reach Nightcairn by dark if we stop fucking around." Zorander cursed, especially grumpy today, and looking at the shadows beneath his eyes, I wondered if he'd gotten any sleep last night.

"Coming," I yelled, and I urged my horse beside Raziel's. "Who pissed in his ale today?"

"We're leaving while the city is in chaos and Zor doesn't handle chaos well." Raziel's expression was troubled. "Corvus is coming, the forest is a tangled mess, and we're riding into…fuck." He looked away, shoulders stiffening.

He wouldn't go as far as to say we were riding into certain death, but after Zephryn's latest report last night, we knew this would be a dangerous journey. And Zorander Vayle took our safety very, very personally.

But Corvus and the Oracle had to be stopped.

The question was, how?

We only had clues and rumors and hints, too vague to be of any real use. But there was one place we could go where the visions did not lie. Where we could see the truth with our own eyes. A dangerous, awful place, but…

The truth lay down in those tunnels.

The Oracle had practically admitted the answers were there, talking about destroying the chamber and keeping secrets hidden forever.

I knew that somewhere, trapped within those skulls, in those memories of the past, we would find the answers we needed to kill a god.

I closed my eyes, letting warmth kiss my face. A few glorious days at Nightcairn, then we'd head into those tunnels one final time and hope those ancient skulls held the key to saving this world.

But guilt weighed me down, especially when I looked out over the bustling city. "Maybe Zor's right. What if we waited a few days?" I murmured. "Until things are more settled?"

"We're of little use here." Raz's voice was quiet as we looked out over a bustling Blackcastle. "We've done all we can for these people, but what comes next…only we can fight this battle, Anaria, abhorrent as it is for me to say that."

Because all the rebuilding in the world didn't matter—not really—if Corvus and the Oracle continued to suck this world dry.

We were, in essence, wasting our time.

"Nobody else can face Corvus." Raziel's tone took on that lethal edge he only used when he was under extreme duress. "I don't like saying that." He grimaced as if he tasted something foul. "But it's the hard truth. This is up to us. We're leaving the city in good hands, and that's the best we can do."

Torin and Zephryn emerged from the Keep's doors, hands raised in goodbye. Simon was already soaring overhead, a speck against the gray sky. "He'll fly with us for an hour to scout for signs of blight, then turn back when it's too dark for him to see," Raz explained quietly, watching the clouds swallow him.

"I hope we see this place again," I added. "I made myself a promise once, a long time ago." I stared up at the Keep's walls, solid enough to withstand any storm. "I promised myself if I ever had any power, I would free every slave and make this world a better place."

"You're off to a great start. Two kings down, two gods to go." Raziel winked, but behind that humor was a bleakness I couldn't stand.

"No one can do this except us," I repeated, wishing it wasn't true.

"I know, princess. Zor knows too, just give him some time to work through his guilt over leaving the city unprotected. That's all this is. Guilt and anger. Maybe we'll run into something in the mountains we can kill."

"If Corvus's magic doesn't catch us first, there's sure to be some stonewraiths. Or Howlers," I suggested, half-jokingly.

"Now you're thinking. A bit of hand-to-hand will snap him out of this."

"Anaria." Sophie flew down the steps, a bundle tucked beneath her arm. "Wait. My queen, wait."

I wheeled my horse around and trotted back to her, leaned down, and caught her in a hug. "I didn't think I'd see you today. But I'm glad you're here. I don't know when we'll be back, but if you need anything, ask Torin."

She grinned and shoved a box into my arms. "Martine just finished, and I barely got here in time. She wanted to make sure you got this." I flipped open the lid and lost my breath.

"But…how?" I swallowed hard. "I already have my leathers."

"This is an extra set. Commissioned by the general," she whispered, her eyes riveted on Zor's ramrod-straight back, his shoulders stiff as he whispered to Tavion.

Sophie lowered her voice. "Martine said General Vayle made some modifications to the design but insisted you have them in time for leaving today. I ran the whole way and almost didn't make it."

One glance back at me and Zorander's harsh expression softened, his gaze warming as his eyes dipped to the box I was practically crushing in my arms.

And the smile that curved his lips—I melted inside.

Sophie sighed, a dreamy look in her eyes as she gazed at my four males. "Have I ever told you how lucky you are, Anaria?"

I could barely get the words out, but I managed, "I really am, aren't I?"