Noc
Without our mounts or gear, we were forced to travel on foot to the port city of Invere, adding countless days to our journey. We had to hunt for food and stick to the shadows at all times. We did everything possible to reduce our tracks and stay out of the capital’s eye. By the time we hit the quiet cobblestone streets, we were beyond exhausted. Constant use of the shadows ate away at our energy, and Calem, Ozias, and I were feeling the lack of rest in our bones. Leena, too, was ragged. We hadn’t slept much. Hadn’t really rested at all. We were too afraid to be caught off guard again.
Night fell over the slumbering town, and the wrought-iron light fixtures along the streets did little to illuminate the paths. Which meant we could use the buildings’ shadows instead of our own, and we let our powers recede. The off-white structures were packed tightly together, and we snuck down alleyways to avoid the main roads. In the distance, a low horn bellowed, signifying a ship’s arrival. Perhaps the very same ship we’d try to gain passage on come morning.
“There,” Oz said as he pointed to a small inn up ahead. Tucked away in a neighborhood full of sleepy cottages, it saw far less traffic than the main lodge just off the port. “I’ve stayed here before while on a job. The owner doesn’t ask questions, so we should be safe for the night.”
With its beige brick, oak accents, and sloping roofline, it looked unassuming enough. A few unopened barrels of ale waited out front, illuminated by a lantern clinging to the building’s wall. A plaque by the door read The Slumbering Knoll.
“Are you sure about this?” Leena asked. A drunken man swayed on his feet a few houses down, his babbling incoherent. Hardly a threat.
“We need to rest. Get some solid food and new clothes. The ship heading for Kings Isle won’t depart until morning, anyway,” I said.
Kings Isle. Yuna’s Ruins. We were one step closer to my claim being fully recognized by the gods. One step closer to calling myself king—and more importantly, Leena queen. Things had gone smoothly at Tyrus’s Ruins, at least for me. I hadn’t even been aware of the beast fight that’d been occurring right over my head. Instead, I’d been floating in nothingness—the same, quiet expanse where I’d communed with Oslo. Tyrus had appeared, a ball of warm light, and spoke at length about what it meant to be a ruler. How important it was to possess a strength of spirit, a resilience, and a dedication to one’s people. These values, he said, were reflected in the child, mother, and elder statues outside of Yuna’s Ruins. And, they were reflected in me.
I wasn’t entirely certain of his assessment, but I knew that Leena possessed those qualities and more. So I received his blessing without argument, because I knew that with her on the throne, we could begin to heal our divided world. There was an unshakable heat in my chest now, as if the mage himself was guiding me toward that last ruin site. Yuna and the gods were waiting.
We crossed the cobblestone street and pushed through the door. An elderly woman with deeply tanned skin and wrinkles hooding her eyes stood behind a sturdy podium, scribbling notes onto parchment with her quill. She looked up at us through the tops of her glasses, then drew her gaze back to the paper before her.
“How many rooms?”
“Just one,” I said.
She sat down her quill and yanked open a thick guest book. Dragging her finger down the page, she nodded. “I have one available that’ll do, if you don’t mind sharing beds. Two aurics for the night.”
Slipping my hand into my coat, I dug a coin purse out of one of the inner pockets. Thank the gods I’d kept it on me instead of stowing it away in our bags. I pressed the bits into her open hand, and she stowed them in a locked drawer before leading us to a set of cramped stairs just off the tavern. Once at our room, she handed over the key.
“It’s late, but you should be able to scrounge up some food from the bartender.” She narrowed her eyes, taking in our disheveled appearance, and snorted. “There’s a bath down the hall. I have some spare clothes left behind by travelers. I can’t speak for where they’ve been, but they’re a right lot cleaner than what you’ve got. I’ll leave ’em outside your door.”
“Thank you,” I said. She left without another word, and we piled into our room. Cramped but surprisingly clean, it was more than sufficient. Leena collapsed on a bed big enough for two and let out an elongated sigh. Calem and Ozias made for the bunk beds, each of them sinking onto the lower mattress and kicking off their boots.
“I’m more muck than man,” Calem said, running his hands along his dirt-covered coat. Dust sprinkled to the sheets around him.
Ozias shoved him gently. “You just officially claimed this bed. I’m not sleeping in your mess.”
Calem let out an indignant huff. “You’re too big for the top bunk. It’ll come crashing down on me while I sleep.”
Leena laughed—the sweetest sound I’d heard in days—and for a moment everything was fine. We were safe. We had a place to sleep. To eat. To recover. We knew where we were going and how we were going to get there. And even though we’d spent more time on our journey than anticipated, we still had some time before the anniversary of Celeste’s death. With a tired smile, I sank onto the bed next to Leena. She leaned her head against my shoulder.
“I wonder how everyone is doing,” she mused aloud.
A weight settled deep in me, and the temporary happiness that had filled my chest deflated. Gaige. Kost. All our brethren. “I’ll shadow walk and find Kost. Once I inform him of our location, I’ll come back and he can shadow walk here and fill us in. In the meantime, go freshen up. Relax a little.”
Planting a kiss on the hollow of my neck, she said, “Okay. See you in a few.” And with that, she, Ozias, and Calem all left, and I reclined on the bed. Giving way to the shadows, I felt my consciousness separate, and I sped through the night in the direction of Hireath, eager to see for myself that my family was okay.
* * *
Kost stood before us in a plume of shadows as his form wavered at the edges. There were only two candles in our room, one on each bedside table, and the flickering, low light of their flames made Kost appear even more ghostly—in part due to his shadow form, but more so because of his gaunt expression. Bags had formed beneath his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept in days. His usually styled hair was lank and unkempt, and his shoulders were tight. Leena sat on our bed twirling the chain of her bestiary. Arms crossed, Ozias leaned against the wall and looked at Kost with as much concern as I felt. Even Calem was uncharacteristically still. He’d perched on the edge of his bed, forearms braced against his knees.
Standing by Leena, I slipped my hands into the pockets of my trousers. “Kost, what’s going on?” I’d waited long enough. After shadow walking to Hireath, I’d found him quickly. He’d been standing outside the library looking at nothing at all. Simply staring. When I’d asked what was wrong, he said he’d prefer to tell us all at the same time.
“Gaige is gone.” His words were soft. Broken.
Leena’s hand froze against her collarbone. “What do you mean, ‘gone’?”
“Gone. No longer in Hireath. We don’t know exactly when he left. We don’t know…why.” He swallowed thickly, as if unsure of his own statement. “We don’t even know where he went. He’s just…gone.”
“Shit.” Calem dropped his head into his hands.
Leena squeezed her eyes shut. “Gaige…”
“Both assassins and Charmers have searched for him, but something’s not right in the Kitska Forest. The monsters are more agitated than usual.” Kost removed his glasses and stared at them for a long moment. “Our sentries returned for their own safety.”
“We’ll find him. He’ll be okay,” I said. But my words felt hollow when we were so far away and without a means to make good on them. “I doubt he’s in any danger.”
“Right now, the only danger he’s facing is himself.” Kost blinked at his spectacles, as if he’d forgotten why he’d removed them in the first place. After a beat, he slid them back on his nose without polishing them. “Unfortunately, we can’t spend any more time searching for him. We need to focus on stopping Yazmin.”
“True, but…” Leena peeled her eyes open, and a tear slid down her cheek. She wiped it away with shaky fingers. “We will find him, Kost.”
He gave a tight nod. “We will. But Yazmin comes first. To which, I have news.” He cleared his throat. “I think I know what the final ingredient is for her spell.”
I knew he was emotionally drained, thanks to Gaige’s disappearance. But I expected some sort of positive reaction with that discovery. A slight smile. A look of hope. Instead, he remained as tense as ever. So much so that instead of joy, all I felt was a deep, unsettling weight in my gut.
“And?”
“And it’s a heart.”
Leena’s face fell. “Any heart?”
“No.” His brow furrowed. “I believe it’s her heart. By giving it up, she’ll become one with Ocnolog and be able to control him.”
“You believe? Kost, we need to be absolutely sure.” I hated that I sounded so harsh. He was going through way too much, and without Gaige there, without a partner to help him sift through old texts and decipher a centuries-old prophecy… The stress of his task was evident in his appearance. But we had to know. We had to stop her.
He leveled me with a tired look. “I know. I’m trying. I wish Raven could’ve traveled with me to fill you in. She’s been an incredible help. It was after discussing the prophecy with her that I was able to deduce the final ingredient.”
“Then where’s the confusion?” Leena went back to tangling her fingers in her bestiary.
“The prophecy speaks of a Charmer who will soothe Ocnolog by offering their heart. But there’s a line in the lyrics, something about ‘a hand that breaks,’ which is puzzling.” He ran his fingers along his jaw. Scowled. “I don’t know if that’s right. The spell itself that Yazmin left behind doesn’t mention anything about that prerequisite. Just a Charmer’s heart.”
“The prophecy is more of a children’s lullaby, right?” Oz asked. “Could just be language to make it easier to remember.”
“Maybe. Or it could be true,” Leena murmured. “Yazmin has broken things. She’s violated our way of life. Attacking Charmers, using blood magic… She’s already met that requirement.” Leena shook her head and dropped her gaze to the floor. “We’ve long believed that Celeste blesses those on the right path. Maybe she’s been blessed. Think about it. She tamed a Vrees. No one has ever done that before. And, she’s somehow managed to gather these near-impossible ingredients.”
“That can’t be true.” I kneeled before her and placed my hands on her knees. “Don’t lose faith now. Think of your beasts. Of Onyx’s blessing.”
Her smile was weak.
Calem stood and began to pace in what little room he had. “So, what do we do?”
“We have to get to her before the anniversary of Celeste’s death and stop her from completing her spell. The problem is Varek,” Kost said.
“But that’s why we’re visiting these ruins. So Noc can be recognized as king and sway his forces. If Varek is outnumbered, he’ll be less inclined to fight us,” Calem said.
Giving Leena’s knee another squeeze, I stood up. “He’d never willingly give up the throne. Even if the entire kingdom of Lendria depended on it. One way or another, we’re going to have to fight to get to Yazmin.”
“Precisely.” Kost ran his hands over his tunic, then moved to smoothing his hair. A glimmer of his old self. Nothing like a problem that needed solving to get some of my brother back. A flicker of hope ignited in my chest. “We need more soldiers,” he said.
“How many Charmers have agreed to fight?” Leena asked.
“More than anticipated. But even with Cruor, it’s still not enough to stand against the entirety of Wilheim.”
“Where do we find more forces?” Ozias asked.
“I have an idea,” Kost said as he tilted his chin my direction. “But you’re not going to like it.”
I let out a sigh. “I came around to the first idea I didn’t like.” Becoming the king of Wilheim didn’t exactly top my list of wants, but I’d agreed to it because it meant Leena would be queen. Together, we’d be mending a centuries-old rift that’d split our country into three factions: Cruor, Hireath, and Wilheim. Once Leena became queen, once our union was solidified, we’d be uniting all Lendrians. No more wars among ourselves. No more exiles in a land we all belonged to. So if there was something else I could do to make that future real, then my like or dislike of the matter was irrelevant.
“We ask Rhyne to be our allies. We need forces, and they have the numbers.”
Silence followed in the wake of his suggestion. My body froze, and a soft ringing started in my ears. We couldn’t go to Rhyne. Amira’s homeland had waged a war against Lendria because they thought I’d killed her. They only stopped attacking when I was presumed dead. To willingly walk back into their court… To show them that, after all these years I’d eluded their grasp… It’d be war all over again.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am.”
“When are you not?” Calem mumbled. I shot him a glare, and he shrugged.
Ozias cleared his throat. “I can’t see how that would go over well, given Noc’s history with them.”
Kost pursed his lips. “It’s Rhyne or Allamere, and we know how likely the mages are to help us.”
“Not likely at all,” Ozias groaned.
For a moment, we all sat in silence, sifting through Kost’s words. Unease brewed in my gut. We could risk venturing to Allamere, Land of the Mages, but they’d deserted Lendria after the First War and showed no interest in returning. Aside from the handful of rogues here and there—like Eryx, the mage we’d met about removing Cruor’s Oath from my wrist—they didn’t give a damn about our country. Or who ruled it. Rhyne, on the other hand, was once a treasured ally. Maybe enough decades had passed for them to at least entertain the notion of reestablishing that relationship once again.
“Well,” I finally said, carefully measuring my words, “if I were a member of Rhyne’s royal family and learned of my existence—not just my existence, but my goal to retake the throne—I wouldn’t be happy.” I folded my arms across my chest. “No warning. Just a sudden reemergence of the person they thought they’d killed. Not only would they feel robbed of justice, but now they’d feel like fools for being tricked all these years. They’d attack Lendria on principle.
“But if we go to Rhyne, if we have a discussion with them and make an alliance, we have a better chance of keeping the peace, both now and in the future.” As hard as it was for me to admit, I knew this was the right move. With so many threats in our own country, I hadn’t even thought about what being crowned king would mean to the rest of the realm. To Rhyne. A tendril of guilt threaded through my stomach, but I steadied it with a long breath. Personal history aside, this was the best path forward. For the sake of my people.
Leena nodded her agreement and then paused, fingers halting along her jaw. “How do we know they won’t attack us when we arrive?”
“I’ll head for Rhyne now while you visit the last ruin,” Kost said. “They don’t know who I am, so they’ll have no reason to harm me. It’ll give us a chance to understand what kind of environment we’ll be walking into.”
“Prior to our war with Rhyne, we had an amicable relationship with their country. Both of our economies benefited from trade, but that has since ceased. Varek never made attempts to reestablish that relationship. Maybe if we do…” Frowning, I slipped my hands into the pockets of my trousers. “We’ll try. Kost, dig up whatever information you can on their trade routes and how a relationship with Lendria would benefit them. They’ll need something out of this alliance.”
“And a reason not to execute you on the spot,” Calem said.
“Right.”
Kost nodded, a slight approving smile on his lips. “Rhyne’s capital city, Veles, is a bit foreign to me. But I have heard of a tavern called the Polished Goblet. I’ll meet you there.”
“Travel safely.” Leena stood and approached him, and even though her hands moved right through his wispy frame, she hugged him. Shadows licked her skin, but Kost didn’t move. After one achingly deep breath, he dropped his face to her shoulder and closed his eyes. Let his hands hover over her back where they would’ve met had he been solid.
“Thank you,” he whispered. And then he was gone. Back to Hireath. Back to problems he couldn’t fix and a world without us or Gaige. A fist gripped my heart tight, and I moved to Leena’s side. As many problems as we’d face in Rhyne, one thing was for certain: I was desperately eager to get there so I could see Kost again and embrace him myself.