Chapter Nineteen

Raith had finally figured out what the enchantment was on the blade he’d stolen from Salizar. The wound in his side still hadn’t stopped bleeding, though the rest of his injuries had faded in the long hours he’d been flying. The loss of blood was slowly sapping his strength, but it didn’t matter.

He just had to make it long enough to fulfill his four-part checklist, and then it was inconsequential what happened to him.

He flew the rest of the night and half the following day before he finally found Castle Fera—Queen Furie’s domain. The South was a desolate land. Mostly flat, covered with red sand dunes and the odd towering cliff face, there was little vegetation to be found and almost no water. Here and there, oases sprang up to nourish thirsty travelers, but beyond that, there was nothing but cracked, dry earth. Raith remembered waking up on that very earth with no idea who he was.

Now, he knew all too well.

When he looked at his hands, all he saw was the blood that stained them. Corporeal or incorporeal, it didn’t matter. What he had done… There was no coming back from it, no way to right his many wrongs, especially knowing what he’d done to the one person he valued above all others.

Before tonight, he would have said the one person he loved. Now, he didn’t believe a being like him was capable of love. Those blissful days in the tavern with Harrow were a blessing he didn’t deserve, and he would greedily cherish the memories until the moment he drew his last breath.

Which likely wouldn’t be too long from now.

The wound in his side continued to bleed steadily, and he wasn’t deluding himself into thinking he had a great chance of success in killing Furie. Yes, beheading would end her, but she knew this and would have protections in place. In the end, it didn’t really matter.

Part of avenging Harrow meant meeting his own end. Possibly taking out Furie was just a bonus.

Within sight of Castle Fera, Raith found a small patch of dying shrubs at the top of a hill to hide behind and rest while he waited for nightfall. He wasn’t a full wraith anymore—he was something else entirely, some new abomination that warranted no title—but he was still much stronger in the darkness and could cloak himself in shadows for camouflage.

He studied the castle from his vantage point. He remembered it all clearly now. Too clearly. The hill he was atop sloped steeply down to a moat that surrounded the outer curtain wall around the fortress. The moat had never held water, so perhaps it was best labeled as a pit. The bridge was down. It was never lifted. None would dare attack here.

Fire burned in countless torches atop the stone walls. At the center, the keep rose ominously, its turrets stained pink in the fading sunlight. A row of tiny windows glowed with firelight from the tallest tower—Furie’s chambers. At the base of the keep were the dungeons Raith had spent months in, and halfway to the top was the Room of Jars—the place where the wraiths were kept.

Furie had created a hundred of them. One by one, she’d formed them from her magic and bound them with her hatred. It had taken centuries before she’d been ready to strike against Darya.

Years were spent perfecting the process of wording her orders, exacting precise vows, and experimenting to find the limits of a wraith’s power. By the time Raith was made, she had finally struck the balance, and he’d been forced into playing Furie’s pet assassin for decades until he’d finally been sent to kill Harrow’s clan and everything had changed.

Every wraith hated Furie as much as they hated their cursed existence, but it was a futile emotion. Why waste energy on the absolute? They were powerless against her.

When the sky finally darkened to indigo, Raith spread his wings once more and launched into flight, still holding tight to Salizar’s blade. He flew high into the cover of the clouds, circling the castle until he was positioned above where he wished to land. From there, he tucked his wings against his body and executed a sharp dive toward the earth.

As if shot like an arrow, he plummeted, wind whistling in his ears, freezing temperatures nipping at his bare skin. He remained clad in only a pair of loose trousers—the ones he’d worn to sleep beside Harrow the last time before everything had fallen apart. He’d taken such a simple act for granted, he realized now.

He had never been worthy of her, had been a fool to believe he could try to be. He was worse than unworthy.

He was her worst nightmare.

Raith shot straight down toward the bottom of the west wall, aiming at a row of windows so low, they were nearly underground. Seconds before he would have crashed into the stone, his wings flared, pumping hard, and he pulled up sharp. It was a flawless landing.

He might have been proud of his aerial abilities had he not been using skills he acquired as an incorporeal assassin. The last time he had swooped down like that, he had solidified a claw to tear open a Seer’s throat as he shot past.

He landed in a crouch outside the specific window he’d been aiming for. There were others on the same level, but they were all lined with thick steel bars. Dungeon cells. The window he’d chosen was the only one without bars—they’d been destroyed by Darya on the night she captured him. She’d liberated him from Furie’s wrath only to unleash her own special brand.

Stomach churning at the memories, Raith forced himself to climb through the narrow gap. He leaped down lightly into the cell, ignoring the slight trembling of his hands, and surveyed his surroundings.

Steel beams usually barred the outside hallway, but the door was open, still bent out of shape from Darya’s damage. The ground was lined with old straw. Manacles hung from the stone beneath the window.

Raith had spent months chained to them.

How had Furie shackled an incorporeal creature? By forcing his vow. He gave it, and that easily, the chains had held him—he hadn’t possessed the strength or motivation to fight his vow a second time.

What glaring need had he to save himself from pain? An innocent child had been worth the agony that ensued. He was not.

Again, the memories threatened to overwhelm him, but he forced himself to focus. He had not come to this dungeon to contemplate. He had a purpose—his four-part checklist.

Holding his dagger at the ready, he stepped out of the cell into the narrow passage and crept to the far end, searching in every cell for signs of life. He saw none. At least a dozen more identical prisons lined the hall, but they were all empty. Relief filled him.

Striking step one off the list, Raith focused on his next objective.

Heading back down the passage, he followed his memory and climbed the narrow stone staircase crawling around the inside of the tower. He didn’t hesitate as he passed countless hallways and doors. He knew exactly where he was going.

Exiting the winding stairs, he found the hidden tunnel and followed the worn red carpet to the end. A small door waited, bolted shut. Beside it, a lit torch rested in a holder on the wall.

There, he hesitated. Fire in the torch did not necessarily mean someone was inside. Furie was the Queen of Fire, after all. It burned everywhere here. But it did make him pause, scenting the air and listening very carefully for signs of disturbance.

He heard and smelled nothing, so he unbolted the handle and pushed the door ajar. There was no lock. Furie needed none. The tunnel was hidden to all who didn’t already know it was there, and no one would dare intrude and risk her fearsome retribution anyway.

No one but Raith.

Inside, more chills raced over his body than even in the dungeon cell. It was pitch-black, but he knew where the torches were, and now that he understood his origins, he understood his strange ability to light fires. He used it now, and the two beside the door flared to life, illuminating the room in a dim glow.

Heart hammering in his chest, he took in his familiar surroundings. The front of the room was empty, the floor singed black by countless Fire traps burned upon it. Behind it, long shelves lined the back wall.

Upon them…were jars.

One hundred jars, to be precise.

Within each jar was a black, smoky shadow, a lid securely fastened to the top. Feeling sick to his stomach, Raith crossed the open part of the room, heading toward a particular shelf and a particular jar.

The top shelf, far left, thirteenth from the end…and there it was.

An empty jar. His empty jar.

He had been trapped there. When he wasn’t forced into service by his hateful mistress, he had sat in that Goddess-damned jar, confined and isolated. Even if he had found a way to escape, Furie would have simply summoned him back. The very nature of his existence made him powerless against her.

Most of his life had been spent in that tiny glass enclosure, and for what?

Whenever the Fire Queen was ready to release him, she opened his jar and trapped him within a cage of impenetrable magic. She used her magic to force him to vow to commit whatever unspeakable act she wanted done before unleashing him upon the world to obey. When he returned, she forced him back into the jar, securing the lid tightly and placing it back on the shelf.

That was it. That was all he had ever done, all he had ever achieved.

Imprisonment, mindless obedience, violence. Repeat.

He hated his life. He hated Furie for forcing him to exist and then making that existence worse than whatever oblivion he’d come from. He hated that ninety-nine other beings had lived lives as miserable as his. He hated that they were stuck here even now, at the mercy of one cruel woman with too much power. He hated the injustice of it all, hated his powerlessness, his utter futility. He hated the pain and agony he had caused untold innocents.

With a roar, he struck with the dagger, swiping several jars off the wall. They fell and smashed upon the floor in a great explosion, glass shards flying everywhere as the shadowy beings within braced themselves for whatever fresh horror was surely upon them.

They hung in the air like deathly clouds, and Raith saw their fiery eyes gazing at him in bewilderment. They were like ghosts, but their forms were distinguishable. Shadowy bodies, with pupils of fire and white fangs. Sharp claws and talon-tipped wings. Just like him.

“Go,” he told them, using his voice of his own free will. “You’re free to go.”

Comprehension dawned. They didn’t hesitate—within seconds, the wraiths were gone, dissolving into thin air.

Was it smart to release the deadliest creatures in creation? Probably not, but Raith had once been one of those creatures, and he understood their nature. When not forcibly bound to the physical plane, the incorporeal entities generally wanted nothing more than to disappear, dwelling in an unseen realm they called the Void. They were not of this world, and it held little interest to them.

Raith systematically smashed every jar in the room, one after the next, knocking them from the shelves until there were no more. When he was done, he sank to the floor amid the destruction and buried his face in his hands.

There was no hiding the trembling now, and he didn’t try to.

Two of his four objectives had been achieved—check the dungeons, free the wraiths. The third he would likely not succeed in, but it wasn’t going to stop him from trying.

The end was finally near.

He thought of those five short days of happiness he’d found with Harrow. He remembered lying in bed with her, stroking her hair. Hearing her laugh. Making love to her. The softness that filled her silver eyes when she looked at him.

His chest ached like he was burning alive, but he took solace in the fact that he was doing this for her. This was the only way he could help her heal the wounds he’d given her.

Raith picked up his blade and his still-bleeding body from the floor and went to hunt down the Fire Queen.

…

“You have to take me to him,” Harrow begged Nashira, all but shaking her by the slender shoulders. “Please.”

But the Ether Queen remained impassive. “It’s already too late. It will be too late. It was too late. Now he has to come to you.”

“I’ll die before I sit back and wait for that. Furie could kill him!”

“Yes, she could. She might. She may!”

“Then help me. You brought us here from wherever we were—I know you could find him, and I know you could take me there.”

“That’s plausible.”

“Then please, help me!” Harrow was bordering on frenzied now. Still in her and Raith’s bedroom, she and Nashira were surrounded by Salizar and half the circus laborers, Ouro and his gang, and Malaikah, all witnessing her undignified collapse.

She didn’t care in the least. She only cared about finding Raith.

“You got us this far. You told me how wrong I was about Raith. Now I want to stop him from getting killed, and you won’t help. Why?”

“It’s too late,” Nashira said yet again. “Will be too late. Was too late. Now he has to come to you!”

“He can’t come to me if he’s dead!”

“It’s too late! Will be too late! Was too l—”

“For the love of the Goddess, will you stop saying that!”

“Harrow, honey, maybe we’d better go.” Malaikah’s hand landed gently on her shoulder.

“No.” She was sobbing now. “No, I have to find him. I have to find him!”

“I’m not saying give up. I’m saying that maybe there’s another way.”

“What other way? She can take me directly to him. What better way is there than that?”

“But she’s not going to, Harrow. Take a second and think about it. She’s not budging.”

Harrow did, gulping air into her aching chest, forcing her head to work through the panic. She met Nashira’s blue gaze again. The Ether Queen appeared calm, almost peaceful, as if she had some secret assurance about the future that she wasn’t willing to share. Or maybe she didn’t care either way.

Beside her, Ouro was running a hand over his skull, looking uncomfortable. At the far side of the room, Salizar paced while the circus workers rested on the floor. A few of the more seriously wounded had left already, including Loren, escorted by one of Ouro’s men to the nearest healing facility.

“How are you so calm?” Harrow snapped at Nashira, not caring in the least that she was being rude to one of the oldest, most powerful beings in the world. “Doesn’t it bother you at all that an innocent man is about to be killed?”

Nashira nodded excitedly. “Yes, yes, I’m being terribly coldhearted about all this, don’t you think? Best forget about me and take matters into your own hands. It’s the only way to get results these days. Folks are becoming so unreliable in modern times.”

“Fine. If you refuse to help me, then I will.” Harrow spun around and grabbed Malaikah’s hand. “Come on, Mal. We’re leaving.”

She stormed to the door with Malaikah in tow but stopped suddenly. Dropping Mal’s hand, she went back to the table and scooped up her Seer cards. Then she grabbed the bag with her scrying bowl, Seer herbs, and jewelry box containing her mother’s necklace, and snatched her cloak off the back of the chair.

A week ago, she’d been in a panic over what to pack. Now she knew she’d taken everything of value she owned. Leaving the rest meant nothing.

She went back to Malaikah and threw open the door. Before leaving, she said to the room, “I’ll be back at my caravan if any of you decide to help me. But not for long. As soon as I figure out the fastest way to get to Raith, I’m leaving.”

Without another word, she strode from the room, Malaikah at her side.