Chapter 3

The road to Warrington Hollow was every bit as dusty as I remembered, so after the first few hours we diverted to a trail through the forest, filled with branches that slapped my face and gorse that tore at my ankles.

I didn't care. I couldn't feel a single thorn or briar because the boots and the leathers were the most comfortable things I'd ever worn.

We were out of that dusty stone city, out from behind those smothering walls.

Overhead, I caught glimpses of Simon's golden wings, bright flashes of color through the dark latticework of branches.

Part of me wanted to soar up there with him.

Seedpods rained down over us, whirling like small birds, heart-shaped and pale green against the dark forest floor. I looked again for that flash of gold, the keening cry that everything was clear up ahead.

Soon the woods would turn colder.

The trees would twist into unnatural shapes by the wind and harsh weather.

But here, before we began the climb into the foothills, the air was as heavy as a midsummer day, holding more than its share of moisture. I turned my face up. I hadn't set foot outside the Keep in weeks and the gentle, humid breeze felt like a kiss from the forest.

"We'll hit rain before dark," Tavion commented, tightening his furs around his shoulders. They were silver, a perfect match to his hair and complimenting the dark blue cape. "Just like I said."

Tristan and I rolled our eyes.

I told you he'd say that, Tristan mouthed, and I stifled my chuckle then slowed my horse until our knees bumped together. The forest quieted around us as we wove our way through the trees, the first hint of chill curling around my ankles.

"Are you okay?" I asked softly. "You've been quiet these past weeks."

Quiet was an understatement.

Tristan looked like he hadn't slept in a month.

He'd been this way ever since Zor and Raz had carted him back to Blackcastle, half his hair singed off, one side of his beautiful face burned so badly he was unrecognizable. His face was healing, and his hair would grow back.

But those shadows haunting his eyes…like he'd seen the other side of the veil and dragged some of that ancient darkness back with him.

He'd gone out of his way to avoid me, though twice I'd caught him watching us with a yearning expression on his face.

We'd dropped plenty of hints, Tavion—not one to mince words—had outright invited Tristan to join us, but he kept his own rooms at the Keep and never showed any interest in sharing a bed with me or anyone else.

And I wasn't about to push him into something he clearly didn't want. But just because we weren't lovers didn't mean I couldn't be a friend.

And I was worried about him.

"You can talk to me, Tristan. Whatever happened in that explosion…"

"What happened is over," he said shortly, his brittle smile bright and awful. "We're all alive, which is something to thank the gods for. No need to revisit the past."

"We have a four-hour ride ahead of us," I pointed out. "If you don't want to talk about the past, then tell me about Wingcrest Hold. I don't think I've ever seen such an enormous estate. It must have been a grand place to grow up."

Tristan stiffened, his knuckles turning white where he gripped his reins, his steed dancing nervously. "There's nothing to tell. The castle is an ancient wreck and fell into disrepair after my family died."

"Well, I think it's beautiful." More leaves and whirling seedpods drifted down over us, followed by a burst of cooler air edged with a hollow wail as if the wind was given a voice. I shivered when that chilled breeze passed over me, like some dark omen had whispered in my ear on the way past.

"Do you think, once this is finally over, you'll live there?"

He only looked more haunted before shaking his head. "I don't know. I suppose the Keep is our home now, if we make it back to Solarys after this."

Our home.

The way he said that reminded me of the warm little fire that ignited inside me whenever I thought about Nightcairn. "I think, Tristan, you could live wherever you wanted. And if that's Wingcrest, then…"

"Stop saying that name like it means something to you."

He dragged his hand down over his face and blew out a breath. "Shite. I'm sorry. I don't know why I'm so pissed off today. Just…I don't want to talk about this, Anaria."

"I shouldn't have pried, Tristan. I was only curious."

"And I shouldn't have bitten your head off, but I'm not used to talking about my past. Or anyone asking."

"Fair enough." After that, the quiet got louder as we threaded our way through the trees, then finally, jumpy nervous anxiety urged me to fill the silence up with something.

"I never had a home." I forced myself to smile, but that simmering anger in Tristan's face had me swallowing instead. "I only had a pallet in the slave barracks, then a room at the Citadelle, then a few nights here and a few nights there. I suppose the longest I've stayed anywhere is the Keep, but I hate that place."

Tristan didn't respond, but his eyes never left my face, like he was trying to figure something out.

"I liked Wingcrest," I went on. "And I like Nightcairn too. At least they felt like they could be home if I wanted them to be."

I sighed. "Maybe I'm a fool for imagining there's a future ahead of us right now, given we might never see Solarys again, but I'm just…tired, I guess. Of never staying anywhere long enough to catch my breath."

Tristan didn't smile, but a glint of gold rimmed his hazel eyes like fire. "I always forget you're not like the others. That even though you're so young, you've seen things most of us haven't." His shoulders hunched in, and mine did the same, preparing to face the dark gray storm clouds billowing up over the tops of the trees.

That frigid chill grew deeper, everything inside me went on high alert. I scanned the sky for a flash of Simon's golden wings, trying to remember when I'd seen him last.

"The past is difficult for me to talk about," he finally admitted, the words so soft I could barely make them out. "It's complicated and ugly, and I've never had anyone to tell."

"We have hours. You can tell me as much or as little as you'd like. And I know what you mean. It's not like I'm used to laying my soul bare, either. There isn't much to tell…but at the same time too much to put into words." This time, he did smile. Warily, as if he was afraid to give away too much.

"So." I slid him a sideways look that I hoped would get him talking, because now I was curious. "That place is ancient, huh?"

He rolled his eyes but answered. "My great, great grandsire built Wingcrest. Back when Solarys was a brand-new realm and the brothers' war had only begun. He chose that exact spot because the updrafts were strong from the trade winds blowing in off the ocean. Easy to take flight in case of an attack."

"So wyvern's were common back then?" I asked softly. "I've only ever read about them in books."

"Only our bloodline had such magic, as far as I know. There were three royal lines, over a hundred of us in all. We DeVaynes were the largest house. My grandsire believed in big families." Darkness crossed his face as clearly as Simon's shadow rippling across the ground in front of us.

"In a new, hostile realm still finding its feet, we thrived. The Shadow King needed eyes in the air to spy on his brother, to anticipate the Caladrius army's movements, so our family served a great purpose. Arial surveillance, trips to the outer islands for trade, across the mountains to the High Barrens and beyond."

"So were you in Serpens' court or his army?"

"We served in the army and became part of his court. For our years of service, he rewarded our bloodline with titles and land and endless riches. Wyverns and dragons are the same in that one regard—we do love our gold." His eyes glinted once more, only this time there was a glint of red flame amongst the green.

"For a time, my family was treated like royalty, my father gained more and more influence over the court, but then came the day the Shadow King realized he'd given us too much power."

Tristan's gaze slipped over the trees like he wasn't even seeing them. "Not that we would have done anything to usurp him, only that Serpens sensed he'd lost the advantage and his ego could not tolerate any threat to his throne, real or imagined."

His voice went so low I held my breath.

"I don't know how long the Shadow King plotted, but he hit us in a single night. Killed every one of us, down to the very youngest child. Boarded up our castles with the bodies rotting inside. Hung signs on the doors proclaiming us traitors to the throne. After a few hundred years, even he forgot about us."

"A few hundred years?" I blurted, but Tristan was completely lost to his story, his eyes staring inward over some long-lost past.

"The king came to Wingcrest personally to make sure everyone was dead. They killed our guards, our servants. My mother and father. Even my…" He swallowed audibly, his throat bobbing. "But the king missed one DeVayne. Serpens took everything away from me that night. Everything. I'm glad he's dead. I only wish I could have been there to see him bleed out on his own godsdamned throne."

I gripped the reins hard enough my hands hurt. "Gods, Tristan, if I had known, we would have done that day completely different." I whispered.

"You would have been part of that fight; you should have fought side by side with us that day instead of being out on the battlefield."

He lifted his head, and in that moment, I saw him differently.

Not as part of our conspiracy, but as a blooded Fae High Lord, with centuries of breeding and education and wealth behind him. The smile he flashed me was filled with ice-cold violence.

"I wouldn't have changed a thing, Anaria. So long as that bastard ended up dead, I didn't care how it happened."

"But that first day at court when we returned from Tempeste…when he gave you back Wingcrest and restored your title and your lands," I said slowly. "He must have known you were a DeVayne. And if he knew, then why did he leave you alive?"

"Because the fucker needed me." His gleaming smile was ruthless.

"Once the Oracle found me, once I was dragged into their conspiracy, he couldn't kill me. Not if he wanted his brother dead and the Fae throne back. That was the original promise, remember? One throne, one king ruling over a unified kingdom. And according to the Oracle, we were the only ones who could guarantee him victory."

His hands tightened around the reins. "With her prophecy, I became untouchable, and the bastard knew it. There was some small pleasure in that. In knowing he had to look at me and couldn't lay a fucking finger on me, even knowing what I was." A little laugh. "Proof of his failure."

"But you've been working for the monster who killed your entire family. How long have you had to…" I shook my head and blew out a shaky breath. "Gods, how could you stand it?"

A bitter wind curled through the trees as if the whole world was taking a deep breath. I thought I heard the high, piercing cry of a bird, but the wind ripped the sound away before I could be sure.

"There were days envisioning him dead got me through the day. Other days when it didn't. So now you see why Wingcrest, in fact, the whole of Solarys, doesn't remind me of home at all." His voice was emotionless, no hint of sorrow.

Tristan was so used to hiding his emotions, it was second nature. I cleared my throat, ready to…

At the head of our party, Zorander raised his fist high over his head with a sharp whistle.

Tristan scowled up at the gathering clouds. "Stay here. I'll see what he wants."

Watching him ride off, I remembered the audience when the Shadow King had given Wingcrest and his title back. How Tristan had stared and stared at the king that day. I thought that had been relief in his face, but the look had been pure hate.

It didn't take me long to put together the rest of what he didn't say.

The DeVaynes had big families.

Everyone dead, even the children. Tristan had been a child the day the king came to his home. That's how he knew the Shadow King was there that day his family was murdered. Probably watched them die. Hundreds of years ago.

He'd survived but was forced to grow up, not as the beloved son of an aristocrat in an enormous castle, but as a fugitive hiding from a ruthless king who would hunt him to the ends of the earth and kill him.

Tristan tipped his head toward Zor, nodding,

None of us were what we seemed.

All of us damaged, scarred by those in power, by their greed and cruelty. All of us fighting for the same thing. Freedom. I found that thought comforting somehow.

Tristan was as uprooted as I was. If my hunch was right, his home was nothing but awful memories, and like me, he didn't have anywhere else to go. And nowhere he really belonged.

A bone-deep sadness leached through me, and I might have wallowed in that misery, except that a cold blot of water hit my cheek, dripping down to my jaw.

A pulse of pain rippled down my face, searing away the melancholy as cleanly as if I'd sliced it away with a razor.

I wiped the droplet away then stared at the darkness smeared across my fingers.

Black as ink. Sticky. Only then I noticed every trunk around me oozed with the same foulness.

Diseased. Corrupted.

My next panicked inhale was saturated with rot.

That putrid odor invaded my nose, burning my already watering eyes as I realized another thing—the forest around us had fallen eerily quiet.

No birds. No bugs. No wind.

Beneath my horse the rich, loamy forest soil was a sea of liquid black, like we were stepping over rotting corpses. The hair on the back of my neck rose when up ahead, just beyond Zorander, darkness slithered through the forest.

Moving faster than was possible, coming straight for us.

My heart stopped dead, my shout of warning froze on my lips when Zor whirled around and our eyes met for one, agonized second before that darkness swallowed him whole.