Chapter 51

Ikicked at the dirt, sending a scattering of gravel cascading over the edge of the ravine that Roxy and Gwen had jumped headlong into almost an hour ago.

"They said thirty minutes," I snarled, glaring out at the distant jade castle and gritting my teeth against the desire to follow them to it.

"I'm pretty sure you were the one to put that timescale on it, not them. Besides, as a loyal subject of the queens, should you really be questioning them on anything?" Xavier asked, earning a scowl from me.

"I bowed to the might of their power and my belief in their ability to rule. I did not sign up for being left on this frigid tip of a fucking mountain doing jack shit while they run off into danger and-"

"Maintaining this illusion isn't jack shit," Xavier grunted.

I looked to him again, noting the sweat on his brow from the prolonged effort of keeping the magic going.

It wasn't easy by any means, especially as we had to make the supposed army move without allowing the individual pieces we'd constructed to collapse and give away the ruse.

The Councillors had moved down from their position on the opposite mountain, hiding in the centre of the illusion and giving life to it, while using their considerable power to destroy any scouts sent from Lionel's ranks, or flying Orders foolish enough to rush into battle before the bulk of my father's army. They had the worst of it, but Xavier and I were hard pressed too, keeping up the expanse of movement behind them, feeding into this lie for as long as we could. And all the time the twins were gone, we had to keep it going.

My thoughts roamed over the others and what they were currently attempting at the Nebula Inquisition Centres, all of my hope pinned on the distraction we were causing with this false army. We needed this win. Needed Solaria to see that the rebellion wouldn't forget its people or allow them to suffer in those fucking Inquisition Centres. Especially in the wake of that footage of the supposed twins destroying one.

I didn't know what Clydinius had been thinking when the star had done that or whether its alliance with my father had already been in place then, but his name was high up on my list. Just beneath those of my father, Lavinia and the fucked up thing they had claimed as an Heir.

"Do you need a breather?" I asked Xavier.

I studied the illusion he'd created, taking in the details and preparing myself to take on the burden of maintaining his part of it too so he could rest, but he shook his head.

"I'm not as useless as I was before you died, you know," he teased, though there was a touch of steel to his tone which said he meant that. He hadn't wasted his time while I'd been gone; training relentlessly, working to make sure that he was able to wield his power as well as possible so he'd be ready to stand and fight in the coming battle.

"I know," I said gravely. "And I never thought you were useless. Not once."

"Not even when my Order emerged?" he asked, the words coming out flat where I suspected they'd been intended as taunting.

I thought back on the day that I had discovered him locked up in his room as a newly Emerged Pegasus, terrified and utterly alone, abandoned to the mercy of our father while I could do little more than stand and gape at him. I'd been immobilised with terror and yes, I could admit that I'd been devastated, but not because of what he was, but because of what I had known it equalled for him while he lived under the roof of the man who had sired us.

"I'm sorry for how I reacted when I realised," I told him, the words thick in my throat, shame stoking heat in my flesh. "I should have done something more, said something helpful, or even just told you that I loved you and I didn't care if you were a worm shifter or a Dragon, I just-"

"So a Pegasus is on par with a worm?" he growled, and I flinched as I realised how that had sounded. Not that worm shifters would have been shameful if they were a thing – hell, maybe they were a thing once upon a time or in some distant land but that hadn't been my point. I was fucking terrible at this.

"No. Fuck, Xavier, you know I don't think that. I was terrified of what it would mean for you with Father. I should have done more, I should have stepped between you more firmly, but mostly I should have just hugged you and told you it was amazing. Perfect. Exactly who you were always destined to be. Roxy did a far better job of it than I did."

"Yeah," he agreed, no doubt remembering the way she had beamed at him and how he'd hugged her in pure gratitude for nothing more than her happiness for him. Something I should have offered him instead of focusing on fear. "She really is out of your league. I dunno how you managed to bag her."

"Fuck you," I grunted. "And it was brutal persistence until I ground her down," I added.

"Oh that's romantic. Kinda fucked up, too."

"Shut up. You know I don't mean it like that I just… Me and her were…"

"Inevitable," he said in such a smug tone that I was tempted to shove him into the snow.

"Is this the bit where you say I told you so?"

"You fucking know I told you so. Over and over and over again, while you just denied it and growled about her coming for your precious throne. I will admit to gloating loudly to Sofia and Tyler after seeing you bow to her in the end."

"Before or after you got done celebrating my resurrection?" I mused.

"Before. Clearly my gloating took precedence over your return from death."

"Of course."

"I just wish that Mom…" he trailed off, seeming to realise that praying for the impossible to happen twice was too much to ask.

I frowned, thinking of our mom too, wishing she had gotten to live, wishing she and Hamish could have built the life she'd deserved. She'd suffered so much and for so long, been deprived of every little solace she might have claimed, right down to embracing her own children.

"She's happy where she is," I swore to him, clapping a hand to his bicep and squeezing. "But when I gut that piece of shit, and he lays begging and bleeding in the dirt at my feet, I will make his suffering go on purely in retaliation for all he stole from her."

"I'd like to see that," Xavier agreed, the dark edge to his voice a far cry from his usual bubbly demeanour but in our hatred of our father, there was no room for anything less than the most acidic of emotions, the kind which were laced with poison.

"But then who would be our guiding star?" a voice questioned behind us, and I jerked around, drawing my axe and baring my teeth at Tharix who paused several feet away as though surprised by my violent reaction.

"If I had wanted to attack you, brother, I'd have done so by now," he said, eyeing my axe with interest but no sign of fear.

"Darius," Xavier hissed wildly, his hands half raised like he intended to cast, but with his power concentrated on the illusion he was maintaining, I knew he would be hard pressed to do both.

"Wait," I told him, easing myself forward a step and putting myself between him and the monstrous creation who kept insisting he was our kin.

"I heard a rumour that you trade in bloodshed now, brother," Tharix said, holding his hand out and allowing shadows to pool there before they swelled and shaped themselves into a mimicry of my axe. "Each moment you've stolen back on this plane paid for with a drop of blood from those you've struck from it."

"Where would you have heard such a thing?" I sneered, knowing it wasn't the truth and yet not entirely certain of the cost of my return either. It hadn't ever been presented to me as a transaction like that and I was sure that if Roxy had any knowledge of any such bargain she would have told me by now.

"The water whispers to me sometimes. If I dip my fingers into its sweeping current, I can almost hear a voice offering up secrets," Tharix said.

"What kind of water would want to talk to you?" Xavier asked, scepticism thick in his tone.

"As the Siren so aptly put it, I have souls hungering for death within me. Sometimes I feel like I stand with one foot here and the other there. I find myself on the bank of the river often enough. On occasion, I even spy The Ferryman as he passes by in pursuit of easier prey."

"Are you claiming to be able to talk to the dead?" I asked and Tharix actually laughed. The sound was rich and full, not a cackle or a snigger, but a true bark of laughter which sounded all too Fae for my liking.

"No, dear brother, the accolade of having conversed with those long-departed will remain forever yours. I suppose you guard the secrets they gave you well enough?" Tharix asked.

"The truths they offered up were all to one purpose," I replied. "Each with the intention to help part our father from the burden of carrying his head about on his shoulders."

Something passed over Tharix's face at that threat. A flinch. Fear perhaps. There then gone again and too hard to read on his too familiar features.

"I suppose I should tell him you're here," Tharix mused, running his thumb along the blade of his axe and watching as the pad split open, spilling blood.

He let it drip into the snow, his eyes on the motion, the stain blossoming between us and no sign at all that he had registered pain with the wound.

"I'm guessing there's a reason you haven't already done so," I countered, my mind filling with an idea which I didn't dare voice because even considering it seemed like madness. But this was the second time Tharix had found me creeping around our father's war camp and though he'd taken me to him the last time, he'd helped me escape too. Was there any chance that he might be interested in changing sides in this war? Could I risk trusting him even if he claimed to want that?

"Well, there are several." Tharix looked from me to Xavier, a slow smile moving across his mouth almost as though he were testing it out. Xavier didn't respond in kind and Tharix sighed, relaxing his face into ambivalence again. "Firstly, we're brothers."

"So you keep claiming," I ground out.

"Brothers hold a special bond with one another. One which cannot be usurped or replaced. It is not always gilded in love, but it is always there. We were born of the same seed and that means-"

"Nothing," Xavier interrupted. "It means nothing aside from the fact that Darius and me were damn lucky to have taken after our mother and to be as unlike that bastard Lionel as possible. You, however, came from Lavinia's womb, meaning you are as like us as the dirt beneath my boots. You were born to bad and worse. We at least have salvation in half of our bloodline."

Tharix considered that. "Is that how it is? I was born of a rotten tree so I must be a rotten fruit? Is bad and good all there are? And can you really claim to be either?"

I pursed my lips, knowing damn well that I couldn't claim purity in goodness, though perhaps Xavier could.

"No," I said quickly before Xavier could throw any more insults or accusations, giving my brother a sharp look to warn him to back down. "The choices make the man."

"You truly believe that?" Tharix asked, his tone making it unclear whether he liked my answer or not.

"If I didn't then I couldn't stand here before you. I chose to be better than the monster who made me and though that path may be the harder one, I am glad for every day I walk it."

"So righteous," Tharix sighed, again unclear in his meaning.

"What will it be then?" I pushed, wondering if he really was looking to offer us his help, or what other possible reason he could have for coming here and striking up this conversation.

"Nothing," Tharix decided. "If choices make the man then perhaps I will see what I become by making no choices at all."

"That's impossible," Xavier demanded. "Even inaction causes a reaction. There is no anything without choice."

"We'll see." Tharix grinned then stepped backwards, falling away into the rocky hole in the ground and disappearing from sight.

"Fuck," I cursed, the pounding of my heart offering up reassurance that Roxy was still alive, but I couldn't check on her in any other way. We'd decided bringing communication devices here was too risky in case they had technology which could locate them, so my only options were to wait or to try and traverse that narrow crack of doom myself.

"You can't go down there," Xavier said, catching my arm and forcing me to look at him. "Your queens gave you an order. Our job is to stay here and maintain the illusion for as long as possible. I don't know what the fuck Tharix is up to, but even if you wanted to follow him, you have no way of traversing that ravine."

"I'd figure it out," I muttered, trying to ignore the ring of truth his words held while wondering if I could navigate the narrow crevice well enough with water magic.

"You'd die trying and Tory is too stubborn to follow you into death a second time," Xavier replied, tugging me back out onto the snowy pinnacle at the top of the mountain so that we could concentrate on our illusions once more. "If we fuck this up then Lionel is far more likely to notice the twins sneaking around in his castle. And Tharix…" I could tell by the look on his face that Tharix scared the shit out of him, but for some reason I believed what that monstrous creature had said; he was going to test out what would happen if he made no choices, meaning Roxy and Gwen might just be safe from him even if they did come across him. Not that I liked the idea of trusting him on anything, but what else did I have?

Xavier was right; our plan demanded these illusions last for as long as possible and my queens had issued me with a direct order to stay here. Even if I could navigate that ravine with my water magic, Tharix would be far ahead of me and I had no real way of locating the twins. They were probably heading back here already and all the time my pulse remained steady enough in my chest, I had to trust that they were doing okay.

"Fine," I growled, hating the word and the cold and this entire fucking day.

But when Roxy got her ass back here, I'd be giving her a piece of my mind for running off on me like that.

Queen or not, she wasn't going to be making a habit out of leaving me on the side-lines while she darted off into danger. And I would drive that message home to her in whatever way I had to.