Chapter 35

The sleeting rain turned Ravenshade into a diminished, broken-down hulk of what the grand castle had once been, or perhaps I was finally seeing this place for what it truly was.

A pale imitation of greatness.

Like the watered-down world around us, our magic had fizzled the moment we'd passed through the ward, Raziel and I retaining enough of our powers for basic shielding and defense, though Tavion and Tristan doubted they could shift quickly, except under dire circumstances.

Oddly enough, that deep pool at my center simmered with power like a boiling pot left on the fire overnight, waiting to explode from the pressure. I didn't know what to make of that growing strain, that something was about to combust.

"How did you stand this?" Tavion grumbled, water dripping from his soaked hair. "All my strength is gone. I can barely lift my feet."

"I never knew anything else," I told him honestly, hopping over a puddle, only to land in the mud. "Until I set foot in Caladrius, I didn't know what real power felt like."

Bexley was the only one of us whose magic seemed undimmed, something I pondered during our trip from the forest to the outer edge of Ravenshade's once-sculptured gardens.

They were overgrown from a hard winter, the long grass matted and brown, the paths already softened by moss and weeds. No sign of the faelights and uniformed butlers and silk-draped party goers that had last trodden these paths.

I swallowed, staring down at my boots outlined by that fine, gray gravel.

The last time I'd been here…No, I wasn't doing this. I wouldn't get caught up in the past and everything that had happened to Berenger and Estienne, and besides, they'd fucking deserved everything they'd gotten.

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to calm my panicked breaths and racing heart.

"Anaria…are you alright?" Raz skimmed his hand up the back of my arm, putting his lips to my ear. "Your scent changed just now, and…"

"I never thought I'd see this place again." The miserable, pathetic words slipped out before I could stop them, Raziel's hand bracing against the small of my back, Tavion and Tristan closing in on either side of me, heavy boots and bare feet crunching on the wet gravel.

"We should get under roof," I told a shivering Tristan, his skin so pale I saw the blue veins underneath. We'd brought the ill-fitting clothes from the palace and Tavion's soaking wet cloak which barely covered his bare legs. There hadn't been a single pair of boots to be found.

"The duke was about your size and he loved clothes. There will be plenty to choose from in his chambers if this place hasn't been ransacked."

But from the look of the outside, no one had set foot here since the night Solok came.

A lifetime ago.

Several lifetimes ago, considering everything I'd been through since that night. If only Ember could see me now, I started to think, then I shut that thought down fast, locked into a box in the deepest part of my heart.

There, by the edge of the forest, was where Solok emerged like a wraith from the shadows.

There was where Berenger caught me on my way to the privies. To my right was where Estienne Rivière kicked me in the stomach so hard I thought he'd burst something vital. Every memory carved away at me like a knife, a cruel reminder of how vulnerable I'd been back then, how na?ve, how utterly innocent and unprepared to face this world.

A fatted calf hauled off to slaughter.

I peered up at Ravenshade's ominous facade. "Let's get Tristan out of this rain before he freezes to death."

A line of fat, baleful crows perched on the edge of the slate roof, peering down in either hunger or curiosity as we passed beneath them, boots catching on shards of broken glass when we reached the patio slicked over with moss and drifted half-rotted leaves.

"Watch the glass," I warned Tristan. "There's more inside."

"You don't have to do this, Anaria." Raz's hand trembled where his palm pressed tight against my skin, his voice filled with quiet worry. "We can find a place to rest in the forest; Tavion and I will scrounge us up some food from a nearby farm."

I couldn't answer, my feet moving forward as if some invisible force was pulling me toward the castle, chest heaving as we approached that room with the elegant black-and-white checkerboard floor.

The glass doors hung from broken hinges, the floor covered in smears of red-brown blood. Tables were overturned, the once plump roses withered and dried. Rotting bodies were strewn where they'd fallen, picked over by rats scuttling into every dark corner the second we entered, more crows watching balefully from the broken-out windows.

Bones protruded from once-elegant, embroidered waistcoats and silken ballgowns, matted oily hair spilling over eyeless skulls. Rings glittered against gray, tattered flesh.

"Holy gods." Bexley's breathing turned erratic. "What is this place?"

"We need to get upstairs," I said, automatically heading for the grand staircase. "To the duke's rooms. If there are any clothes to be had, they'll be there. His chambers are untouched; there should be wood for a fire."

Our footsteps echoed as loudly as our breathing as we crossed the ballroom as quickly as possible, dodging bodies and embroidered slippers, shattered wineglasses and silver trays. A gold tiara lay forgotten in the debris, gleaming with diamonds.

I locked myself down so completely I felt nothing, my eyes focused on the staircase leading to the duke's rooms, not allowing a single glimmer of the horrors around us to creep inside my head.

Clothes for Tristan. Food for the rest of us. Drop the wall. Kill Corvus.

I kept repeating the mantra over and over again as we climbed the steps, as I automatically found candles and matches on the side table at the top of the steps and lit the heavy silver candelabra before continuing down the hall.

I'd walked this hall a thousand times, had memorized the slight pitch of the floor, every creaking board, how many steps it took to reach Evangeline's room, thirty-four, and the duke's, fifty-seven.

Dust spilled through the air when I pushed through the door, billowing in my wake as I crossed the room and opened the armoire. I pulled out a shirt, a woolen coat, and breeches. "Finest in Varitus," I told Tristan gently, laying them on the bed while the others stood stock-still, watching.

"Let's find you some boots and clothes that actually fit and a dry cloak. Tavion, can you light a fire?"

"I can do it," Tristan ground out, his voice like rough gravel

"No, conserve your magic, we'll need it later." I set my hands on my hips, watching Tristan dress, his hands too numb to work properly. Tavion stacked logs in the hearth, the dry kindling crackling the second the flame touched it. "At least we're out of the weather. That's something."

I felt…helpless coming back here.

Too exposed with them all watching me like a glass about to shatter apart.

But beneath my seething, helpless anger lurked something worse. I'd slipped right back into my role as a slave in her master's house. Like these past months hadn't happened. I didn't know what that said about me.

Only that I wanted to curl in a ball and cry.

But crying wouldn't do any of us any good, so I went to the closet and sorted through the duke's boots, each set tooled by Varitus's finest cobbler, and still…not even close to anything Fae-made. I settled on a pair of brown hunting boots with a thick sole, heavy enough they'd hold up until we returned to Blackcastle.

It took effort to work one boot free from the jumbled stack of footwear, but the other got stuck on something, so I ended up dragging out the boot and a small metal box the laces had become caught around.

I pulled the box into my lap, running my fingers over the top.

Why would the duke hide something like this in the back of his closet?

The thing looked ancient, all four corners knocked flat, the carvings worn down, the finish chipped. A different colored metal was inlaid in the decorative top, but years of grime had coated the entire box black, only a few hints of gold still showing.

I frowned at the box in my lap and the pile of jumbled shoes it was behind. Definitely hidden. Duke Edric and the duchess kept separate chambers, but I was most familiar with Evangeline's bedroom since she was the Ravenshade I'd served most often.

Served. I paused, pinching the bridge of my nose.

Gods, I'd despised them, and I hadn't even realized how much, not really. Not until I'd gotten out of Varitus and discovered what it meant to be free.

I wound the long laces around the boots, set them aside, and tugged the box closer.

Tavion and Raz were in front of the fire arguing over how far they'd have to go to find food, Bexley was poking curiously around the duke's desk covered in papers and books and dried-up ink wells. Tristan, thank the gods, was hunched over the blazing fire, his hair steaming.

The front of the box had a lock, a small keyhole that didn't seem the right shape for any key I'd ever seen. The hole was too small, too round. Another glance to make sure they were all distracted, and I sent a pulse of magic streaming into the tiny opening, grinning at the faint metallic click of success.

I flipped the lid back and promptly stopped breathing, blinking at what was nestled into a bed of forest-green, fraying velvet.

A keystone, that much I knew, set into a golden setting, finer than anything that had ever existed in this realm. The setting was engraved with markings and runes I recognized as witch-made, the symbols vaguely recognizable, most likely from all those books I'd paged through at Stormfall's library.

A keystone, the light at its center gently pulsing.

A keystone set into a witch-made setting.

How had a relic this old and this valuable ended up in Varitus?

I peered at the top of the lid then carved the thick, oily dirt out of the grooves with my fingernail. The keystone in my pocket throbbed in tandem with the one in the box like two beating hearts that were slowly becoming synchronized, and I shivered.

"What did you find?" Raz crouched down, hands hanging loose between his knees.

Since I couldn't find the words, I turned the box and flipped open the lid.

Raziel's eyes flared. "What the fuck is something like that doing all the way over here?"

"Thieves and criminals, isn't that what this place was made for?" I looked around the duke's sumptuous chamber with new eyes. "It seems the duke…or his ancestors, had sticky fingers. But a keystone?" I shook my head. "There aren't many of these, Raz. Not many at all."

I pulled the one out of my pocket and laid them side by side where they pulsed gently with the same inner light, slowly coming into rhythm, as blood pulsed in my ears to that same, soundless beat.

They were the exact same shade of bone white. The same size. The same curve to the top and slightly flattened bottom. In fact, without the engraved, golden setting, I doubted even I could tell them apart.

"When I was inside the Oracle's head, not this last time," I clarified, "but before, in Southwell, these were everywhere. Strewn through the black sand like stars in the night sky. I thought I was imagining they were all the same, or by some strange coincidence they looked so similar."

"And now?"

I closed the lid and scraped my nail through the groove one final time, a line of gold shining brightly. A circle with a meandering line through the center, exactly like a wyvern's sinuous body. An exact match to the mark branded into Tristan's chest.

"Now I wonder if these stones once belonged to us." My voice was the barest whisper. "If we brought them here. As talismans, or lucky charms, or weapons, I don't know, but Torin told me they've been sought after by kings and queens."

Raz stared at the stone but made no move to touch it. "These stones give power to whomever possesses them. The duke…the Ravenshade bloodline…could have used this to remain in power. There is more latent power contained inside that stone than a full-blooded Fae can command."

"So if a royal house possessed one of these stones, could that be the source of all their power? Not the magic a Descendant comes into when they turn eighteen?" I shook my head. "Was the whole coming-of-age thing smoke and mirrors?"

But after living amongst these monsters, that explanation made more sense than magic being bestowed upon the likes of Berenger. Or Estienne.

My skin prickled before I managed to throw the memories off, focusing on the stones and the box and the truth I'd uncovered.

The Descendants would have used any means to remain in power, while those who were magicless continued to serve on their knees. Nothing ever explained where the Descendants' power came from.

Gods-given magic. I snorted. More like stolen.

"Keystones are so rare, I have only ever seen one other in my entire life. And never two at the same time." Raziel frowned. "Can you feel their power now that they're close?"

"Gods, yes," I whispered. "Like I can feel my own heart beating."

Like my very soul was yielding to that throbbing power, but if I told Raziel that, he'd most likely snatch these stones away from me and shuck them into a deep ravine.

The Oracle said we could never go back home, but it had never occurred to me that we might have brought a piece of our world here with us. Suffused with the magic from which we'd been born. There had to be a message here I was missing, some kind of clue, something we could use against Gelvira and Corvus…unless they, too, each possessed one of the stones.

Tavion was watching us keenly from the other side of the room. Tristan was asleep, slumped in front of the fire, firelight dancing across his face as he dozed.

"Where did you see the other keystone?" I murmured quietly. "Who had it?"

"The Shadow King. A hundred years ago. I'd forgotten all about it until now, but that bastard was like a fucking dragon; he hoarded everything. Chances are the thing is hidden somewhere in the Keep."

"What do you think would happen"—I swallowed, my mouth dry—"if we each had one of these?"

Raz didn't even stop to think. "We could rip this world to shreds."