‘What?’
‘I thought they were ugly.’
My husband smiled his smile, the one that I was certain I had loved before I even loved him. ‘How foolish you were, pretty boy.’
I kissed him. My hands undressed him but I didn’t let him do the same to me. I wanted to see him, and made him lie on the rug before the fire. I looked at him carefully, every inch of him. I touched each of his scars in turn – there were so many I felt momentarily dwarfed by this thing that he did, this constant defense of the life he repeatedly made himself worthy of. I saw and touched him every day – it was too easy to forget how brutal these moments had been, when they’d come for him because of me, because I represented a weakness.
‘Each one of these,’ I said, sitting atop him, ‘is proof of how strong you are.’
Ambrose frowned. He knew me too well. Knew this was the build to something brutal, because he didn’t need to be told how strong he was, and I’d never tried before. But I held his eyes now. ‘Any scars to come are as bearable as any of these.’
He sat up slowly, reaching to move his hands through my hair and against my cheeks. He knew what I meant: the scar I might leave were I to die. Softly, so softly, he said, ‘How foolish you are, pretty boy.’
And it was then that the ache built inside my chest to the point where it spilled out of my eyes in salty tears that slid onto my cheeks and his cheeks, and onto our lips as they pressed together.
Later we both crept into the girls’ room and slid into bed with them, one with each.
‘Ma …’ Ella complained at the intrusion, but then she curled against me, her fingers clutching my neck. I saw Sadie nestle into her father’s arms as he stroked her hair.
This was it, then. An ugly part of me reached back and understood that the grief I’d felt upon losing my first bondmate would be nothing to how I felt if I lost these three people. It would be nothing. Even leaving them … even this. How could I have imagined the trauma of children? Of a family? What right had I to such joy? Was this the moment when fate stole it back?
Ambrose’s eyes found mine in the dark. We looked at each other and our gazes shifted to gold. I decided then that fate would be what I made it. And my fate was to return to my family, no matter what stood in my way.
Chapter Four
Falco
It was four of us, in the end. Ava, Queen of Pirenti; Finn of Limontae; Osric, first tier warder of Kaya; and me, Emperor Feckless. None of them trusted me to go alone, and to be honest I was actually rather grateful for the company. We rode south towards the border, our packs filled with supplies.
‘If I wasn’t the only one evolved enough to bond with a pegasis we could have made much better time,’ Ava pointed out.
‘Booo,’ Finn exclaimed. ‘From now on, no rubbing our privileges in each other’s faces. And I’m looking at the royals in the group.’
Ava grinned. ‘It’s not a privilege.’
‘Whatever! I don’t have a flying horse, so kindly shut it!’
Travelling with Finn was clearly going to be a challenge.
The farewell had been painful. Watching Ella and Sadie wave from the wall was a gut-punch, but I’d looked over at my cousin and seen her eyes turn a perfect clear blue, and I’d known my pain at leaving them was as nothing to their mother’s.
It took us several days to travel south to the border. Crossing into Kaya was where it would get dangerous, for no one could know who we were. I wouldn’t be recognised, because if anyone had ever glimpsed me it was from a distance and with half my face covered. Osric looked every inch the warder, which could help us but also draw unnecessary attention. Finn wasn’t recognisable as anyone important, which she’d taken great offence to when I pointed it out. But the terrible wolf scar on Ava’s face marked her clearly as the Queen of Pirenti. She had to wear a scarf over the bottom half of her face, which was another unusual touch that would draw attention to our group.
Ava and I rode in a small carriage driven by Osric, while Finn preferred to flank us on a horse. I could hear her chatting away to Osric up front, though the warder gave no sign he was listening to her.
‘… and I didn’t think I’d miss it as much as I do. Da makes this delicious spicy dish with it and you just die, you die when you taste it. You’d die, Os. Do you eat fish? Do you eat anything? Or do you just exist on a diet of droll boredom? What’s your favourite food? Where did you grow up? When did you become a warder? Do you know people trapped in the city? Am I talking to myself? Should I use my invisibility for good or evil?’
I couldn’t help laughing.
Ava smiled. ‘One guess who does the talking in that marriage.’
‘Poor Thorne,’ I agreed.
‘I heard that,’ Finn said through the window.
‘Go ride further ahead so I don’t have to listen to you prattling on.’
‘Someone’s in a bad mood,’ she commented, then kicked her mount forward.
Ava shot me a look.
‘What?’
‘You’re always so rude to her.’
‘She doesn’t care. She knows I’m playing.’
‘Are you in love with her?’
‘What?’ I blinked. ‘Of course not.’
‘You’re sure doing a good job of acting like you are.’
I groaned, resting my head in my hands as though this was embarrassing to me, when actually it was exactly what I’d been angling for. What was all too real was the fact that the slow jostle and bump of the carriage was making me nauseous. I would have preferred to be on a horse.
Ava was waiting for an answer. Over the last six months I’d made my feelings for Finn clear whilst also managing to seem contrite about them. It helped me to be even more reprehensible if everyone thought Emperor Feckless lusted over his best friend’s wife. Honestly, I didn’t know what all the lies were for anymore, except to build a web of armour against the entire world’s gaze. Funny, I supposed, that this lie also happened to be true.
‘I’m not in love with her,’ I told Ava. ‘But I … When I met her, I took off her blindfold because I thought I was going to bond with her, and I wanted to.’ I didn’t have to fake how pitiful that sounded.
Ava’s mouth fell open. ‘Sword.’
‘You sound like your husband,’ I said. ‘In any case she bonded with a man who became my best friend. And that’s fine. I suppose there are just … lingering thoughts. Or something.’
Or perhaps, you moron, you’re allowing there to be lingering thoughts because frankly you’d like to distract yourself from the far bigger romantic problem looming in your near future.
‘How did you bridge the distance?’ I asked my cousin abruptly. ‘Between you and a man who was your enemy?’
Ava thought about it, putting her boots up on the seat beside me and reclining. ‘No one has to be your enemy. It’s a choice.’
‘The things he’d done to you …’
‘Ambrose did nothing to me but love me,’ she said firmly, her eyes challenging me to argue by sliding to a burnt-umber shade.
I let it go, sensing this was a touchy subject even after all these years. ‘Will you seek out your parents when we pass through?’
Her gaze found the trees outside the window. ‘Orion isn’t on the way.’
Ava’s mother, Pria, had been my mother’s older sister. They’d grown up together in Limontae until one of them married an Emperor and the other bonded to a fisherman. Pria had moved away to live with her mate in Orion, while my ma moved into the palace with Da, a man she’d been permitted to marry purely because she hadn’t bonded with him. When my family was slaughtered, all ties were cut with Pria to keep her family safe from attack.
Ava’s family still regarded her as a traitor for marrying a Pirenti soldier. Pria had refused to meet her grandchildren, and that had been the final straw for Ava. She’d stopped trying to have any kind of relationship with her parents, though I was fairly sure she occasionally visited her brothers.
‘We can
detour,’ I replied. ‘To see if they’re safe.’
‘There isn’t time,’ she said flatly.
I understood. She’d cast them out. They belonged to the life of a woman she no longer was. ‘You dressed as a boy when you first came here, didn’t you?’
She nodded.
‘Why?’
‘So I wouldn’t be treated the way women often are by men who are cruel and violent.’
I too watched the trees outside the carriage, thinking about the unfairness of that. She’d donned a mask of her own, a very good one that no one could see through – not even her mate.
‘It … grew difficult,’ she admitted after a while.
‘How so?’
‘Telling the difference between that boy and the real me. It warped me.’
‘So what’s the real you?’
‘This,’ she said, tracing her finger over her wolf scar. ‘This,’ she said, gesturing to her whole self. ‘Exactly what you see.’
I was wracked with a nasty wave of envy. She was exactly what she seemed; she was proud of being exactly what she seemed, and most of all, she had known what she was in the first place.
‘We’re about to cross through,’ I heard Finn call, cantering her horse back to our side. ‘I can feel the wards.’
I climbed out of the carriage and looked around. On the road ahead a sign had been erected.
‘The Emperor Dren and Empress Galia welcome you to Kaya,’ Finn read aloud. ‘All with Pirenti blood may turn back now or suffer dire consequences. How cheery.’
‘What are the wards?’ I asked.
‘Rudimentary,’ Osric muttered with a roll of his eyes. ‘Pirenti blood will alert the nearest warders to its entry. There’ll no doubt be a checkpoint nearby that houses low tier warders to keep the wards up. They’d come and kill us if we were foreigners.’
‘Are you sure there aren’t any other wards?’
Rather than responding, Osric flicked the reins and drove the carriage through the border. I had time to swing onto the back as it rolled past. Finn followed, and inside the boundary we paused again.
‘Huh,’ Osric said, sounding bored. ‘Guess there was another ward.’
‘What?’
‘To detect anyone with soul magic.’
We stared at him. ‘So …’
‘So they’re on their way to kill us.’
My mouth fell open.
There was a trickle of laughter from Finn. ‘At least his laziness is consistent.’
‘I ought to kill you myself, idiot,’ I snapped as the carriage hurtled forwards.
Osric shrugged. ‘It’s not as though we wouldn’t have crossed had we known. The whole border’s probably warded.’
That was true.
We needed to get off the main road and even though the carriage offered us valuable anonymity, it was slowing us down. ‘Dump it,’ Ava decided, though it felt a shame to lose it so soon. Osric untethered the horses.
‘Ride with me, Ava,’ Finn offered, reaching a hand down to her.
‘No need.’ The Queen sheathed her sword at her waist and slung her bow and arrows over her back. She then put her fingers in her mouth and gave a loud whistle. It wasn’t long before her pegasis, Migliori, careened through the air and came to an excited, thunderous landing.
He whinnied and lowered his front legs so Ava could swing gracefully onto his back. She whispered in the horse’s ear as he exploded back into the sky. ‘Follow me,’ she called, riding fast and high.
If we hadn’t been in such a rush I might have taken pleasure in the glorious sight, but as it was I had to grab my twin swords, my pack, and swing quickly onto the third horse. Osric, Finn and I plunged off the road and into a denser part of the forest. It was hard to see Ava here, but every now and then she whistled down to us so we’d know which direction to take.
‘Why are we running?’ Osric asked at one point.
‘Because when someone hunts you, it’s best not to be caught,’ Finn answered archly. ‘It’s kind of concerning to me that you don’t find that obvious, Os.’
We emerged at a gallop onto a stretch of plains; the grass was high enough to reach my knees atop the horse. I slowed her, not wanting her to lose her footing.
‘Three behind and five ahead,’ Osric warned calmly, dismounting.
‘What are you doing?’ I demanded, letting a panicked edge into my voice.
He looked at Finn and smiled. When Osric smiled, it meant trouble was afoot. ‘What’s not obvious to me,’ he said, ‘is why the hunters would run from the prey.’ And with that he walked deep into the grass.
Finn and I shared a look, and then three warders arrived at our backs.
I angled my horse to face them.
‘Throw down your weapons,’ the female warder at the front of the trio ordered. ‘You’ve been detected to be harbouring illegal soul magic.’
‘It’s not as though we can unload it at the door,’ Finn pointed out.
Ava soared down on her horse and let fly an arrow. She used one of those huge Pirenti longbows, and was famous for being the only woman who’d ever been able to wield one. If you were shot with one of those arrows, you died, no question. But the warder lifted her hand and the arrow fell uselessly out of the sky.
It didn’t matter. One by one the three warders before us went stiff and dropped to the ground. I stared at them, confused, until Osric waded through the grass, his skin tinged with an unearthly blue and eyes so white they’d lost both their irises and pupils. The air was prickling so badly that all the hair on my body stood on end.
‘Stop, Osric!’ Finn shouted at him. Osric walked closer to the warders and I realised he was still using his power on them. Each second that passed drained them of more colour and life, as though he was sapping their very souls.
‘Stop!’ Finn yelled again, and dismounted so she could shove him to the ground.
Osric blinked and his eyes returned to normal. ‘What?’
‘You don’t have to kill them!’
‘Of course I do.’
I dismounted and walked to the bodies, checking them.
‘Are they?’ Finn asked.
I nodded.
She rounded on Osric. ‘So now we just murder our way through the country?’
‘They’re warders,’ he spat. ‘And warders in Kaya are loyal to the Mad Ones, otherwise they’d be in prison or dead. So not only will I kill any I come across, I will make it my business to seek out and slaughter as many as I can find.’
Finn looked pale and furious as she stared at him.
‘Easy,’ I warned them both. ‘Take a breath.’
‘Finn,’ he pressed, lowering his voice, ‘they’re killing more innocent people by the day. They’re twisted with power and too dangerous to let live.’
‘What if they could be …?’
‘Rehabilitated?’ he snorted.
‘Saved.’
‘Listen to me carefully,’ Osric bid her. ‘Once the power has twisted you, there is no going back. It’s why we must be so careful with it. And why I allowed myself to be outranked by less powerful warders than I. I curb the pull, the seduction, every day.’
Finn took a breath, relaxing her aggressive stance. Her eyes moved to the three dead bodies. ‘I think today it bested you.’
Osric shook his head and mounted up, riding ahead.
Finn and I looked at each other. ‘Don’t be too hard on him,’ I murmured. ‘If we survive to tell the tale, this will be a time in Kaya that will live as the most ruinous in our history. Osric carries the great shame of his kin deep within him.’
Just as I carried the shame of having allowed it all to come to pass.
As we passed the three bodies I reached out to take Finn’s hand, understanding as I did so that she wasn’t nearly as unshakable as she let on.
Isadora
I walked into the kitchen and everything stopped as every damned member of the household stared at me.
‘Gods above,’ Elias exclaimed.
‘She’s so pretty,’ Anders boomed.
‘Beautiful!’ Sara agreed.
‘More than beautiful,’ Wesley muttered with a wink.
Jonah was staring wide-eyed at me and the heat of his desire was like a furnace. Thank Gods for Penn, who was the only one who didn’t seem mesmerised.
The powder and ointment I applied last night had taken effect. It had deepened my hair to a honey colour and my skin to a sun-kissed bronze. Sara had done my makeup to cover the bruising on my face, and had also blackened my eyelashes and coloured my lips red to match my eyes. The whole effect was utterly bizarre, and I’d stared at myself in the mirror this morning for a good twenty minutes.
‘The only question they might ask you,’ Anders said from where he was kneading dough at the counter, ‘is why haven’t you been working here the whole time?’
‘Be careful,’ Elias warned me. ‘If they ask you a question, answer it.’
Apparently they all thought me simple-minded. I headed out.
‘Iz,’ Jonah called, hurrying after me to the back door. ‘Your knives. They’ll search you.’
I hesitated, realising he was right. A sick feeling flooded my stomach as I carefully removed each of the blades and left them to him.
‘You’ll be alright,’ he laughed. ‘I’ll look after them.’
He thought it amusing. I strode for the wall and climbed over.
‘Iz?’ I heard him call, but I was already down the street.
For the first time in my life I didn’t need to hide what I looked like. Nobody stared at me, or if they did it was with an entirely different look in their eyes. No warders stopped me just to taunt me.
I made it to the palace and handed over my work chit. The two guards looked me up and down and nodded me through to the next part of my registration. Here I was strip-searched by two female servants; it was humiliating for everyone involved and I let the lake of calm settle upon me, shutting out anything and everything that could ruffle it. They garbed me in a white dress, cut low between my breasts and sleeveless. I might as well have been naked. My hair was left out, and I was given no shoes. The two girls didn’t talk to me or to each other, and they looked terrified the entire time.