*Ryatt*
“She tells me how much she hates you every day during training,” Westfall says as we walk along one of the bridges at night, ten days after I tore Ella’s heart in half in the dining hall.
I’ve just arrived in Veiled Valley after a week-long journey to the Roguelands to check on my commanders and generals and to make sure Alpha Magnus of Granite Rise didn’t string Granger up by his neck in a tree for what he did to Princess Amanda.
“Everything she does is in spite of you,” he continues when I don’t reply.
“I can’t say I don’t deserve whatever she’s saying.”
“She has a rather colorful vocabulary.” He stops to look out over the city. From our vantage point, the twinkling lights send sprays of silver dancing over the levels of bridges, all the way down to the river.
I sigh heavily and go to stuff my hands in the pockets of my jacket before I remember I’m wearing a cloak and not my leather jacket, which I’d dropped off at a seamstress to be mended shortly after I arrived back in Veiled Valley. “I wrote her a letter explaining myself.”
“I know,” he says with a short laugh, resting his arms on the bridge railing. “She used it in place of the candles we’ve been using to train her powers.”
I grind my teeth and decide there’s nothing left to say about it, not to Westfall, at least. I could have sent those written words down the mind-link or our bond, but I sat my ass down in a warrior camp and wrote them out beside the most pathetic fire I’d ever seen. I thought it would be more… romantic. That’s what she wants me from, isn’t it?
It's full winter in the Roguelands, but the heat of Veiled Valley does nothing to soothe the numbness in my body as we walk to the temple carved into the side of the mountain, its exposed exterior an intricate tangle of glass and crystal.
“Did you bring it?” I ask Westfall as we walk through the entrance of the temple. Above us, carvings of all of the gods and goddesses fan out in a circle on the domed crystal ceiling, lit up by moonlight. The Moon Goddess rests at the center, her two beasts beside her. The sight sends a shiver down my spine.
“Yes,” Westfall says just as a stooped, gnarled old crone meets us in the foyer with a lantern swirling with my own magic.
“Your Highness,” she says in a withered voice as she bows her head. “Commander Westfall.”
“Good evening,” Westfall says.
“You’re right on time. Come, Arthur is waiting for you.”
Westfall and I glance at each other as we follow the priestess through the temple. She opens a door, and a large library looms before us stretching several stories high. Half of the room has walls of crystal and glass while the other is built into the mountain. Moonlight drifts over the massive shelves full of books and tomes as she closes us in the room with a very short old man wearing glasses so thick it makes his eyes look five times as big as they are.
“Arthur,” I smile, giving the ancient historian a bob of my head. Nearly deaf, and blind as a fucking bat, he doesn’t hear or see us approach his table. “ARTHUR–”
“High King!” he says with a little jump. “My Lord, I did not see you. My apologies.”
Westfall bites back his smile as he nods down at the little man. Arthur bows low to both of us.
We’ve come here to discuss Ella and her powers. Westfall has been training her extensively for the last ten days. The sparring ring and arena beneath my castle have been charred, the walls black and cracking with embers that may never die out, but according to Westfall, Ella can now light a single candle from across the room with a flick of her finger without igniting the entire room in her flames.
But we’re here to discuss another facet of her powers. Westfall reaches into his cloak and pulls out a vial. He sets it on the table.
Ella’s tears.
Arthur nods to himself as he takes the vial and examines the contents–a few drops of liquid silver that gleam in the moonlight. He beckons us to follow him into a side room. It’s small and crowded with books, but there’s a wooden table in the center. A wide, shallow bowl sits on the table in a ray of pure moonlight coming from a hole above our heads.
He dumps Ella’s tears into the bowl without ceremony and stands on his toes to look into the moonlit bowl, adjusting his glasses. I glance at Westfall before moving closer to the table to look inside.
Symbols cover the interior of the bowl broken up by thick lines running vertically. Several larger symbols run along the rim. I’ve seen something like this before at the coven. It reads the powers within one’s blood, categorizing them. I’d had my finger pricked at the coven as a child, and that blood had been dropped into a bowl just like this one, confirming what they already knew. I had the blood of a Firestone within me but something else as well. Something only me and one other person in the world possessed. My shadows had broken the bowl in half rather than letting its ancient magic be read and graded.
“Bizarre,” Arthur says as he watches Ella’s tears creep toward one symbol. The symbol is simple–a pair of fangs carved back to back. The tears fill it in, and it glows red. Arthur steps back in shock. “Goddess above. Where did they get these?”
Westfall shifts from foot to foot, his brow furrowed as he meets my gaze.
“What does it say? What kind of power is this?”
“Ancient, my Lord. Something lost long before the Great War of the Gods.” Arthur examines the bowl with interest as the tears sink deeper into the symbol. “This symbol is of something called the Creator, the very magic that built our world, but it doesn’t just mean creation, no. It’s also synonymous with death, but not in the way you may think.” He taps his fingers on the table. It’s obvious the man is now talking to himself as he continues, “Death as in the displacement of the soul. Whoever has this power would be able to move through planes of time.”
Arthur looks up at me, then at the hilt of the sword strapped across my back. “The Shadow Sword can break through the veil, can it not?”
“It can,” I reply. “But I have to use my full powers to charge it first.”
He motions for me to lay it on the table. I cast Westfall a reluctant glance before unsheathing the sword and setting it before the old man. He picks up the bowl and dumps out the contents–a few drops of the tears–onto the sword. The tears sink into the black metal and send a soft ripple of light down the length of the sword.
“Like calls to like,” Arthur says.
I find it hard to swallow as I nod. “Thank you, Arthur. I will be in touch.”
“Is that all, then, Your Majesty?”
“Yes.” I turn to Westfall, tilting my head toward the library door.
Moments later, we’re hurrying back to the castle through the winding, bridged city, the Shadow Sword like a crushing weight on my back. Everything I’ve thought about Ella’s powers have now been confirmed, and it’s tearing me apart.
“Alpha, stop,” Westfall says, placing a hand on my arm.
I yank my arm away and round on him, finding it hard to catch my breath. “What, Westfall?”
“Whatever your planning to do, stop, and rethink–”
“Do you realize what this means? Ella can cut through the veil with just her powers. Just her tears, Westfall. I’ve seen her mix it into her paint to create this black color… like my sword, and the mirror… She could open portals throughout the Roguelands and bypass the wards around Rifthold. We could send warriors directly into my father’s halls without–”
“She is your mate!” he says sharply. It’s a tone he hasn’t dared use on me since I was a child.
Fury rips through me as I edge toward him. “How dare you raise your voice to me–”
“You’re going to turn her into a weapon to wield against the king, and it’ll kill her in the end, Alpha. What the hell are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking this is the only way to protect the people of this kingdom. This is the only way to end this!”
He steps toward me, meeting me at the center of the bridge. All around us, the city is quiet in the dead of night. “You will lose her to this cause. There has to be another way.”
“She is capable of this–”
“She is heartbroken, Ryatt,” he snaps.
I’ve never heard him use my first name before. Never, not once. Even as a child, he referred to me only as boy then eventually Alpha.
It startles me enough that I bite down on whatever words I meant to say next.
“You’re using her like your father used your mother. I won’t allow it.”
“Have you forgotten who the fuck you’re talking to?”
“You’ve forgotten who you are,” he growls. “You’ve forgotten why you went to her the moment you felt the pull of the mate bond, haven’t you? Or do I need to remind you?” He gets in my face. We’re nearly nose to nose. “I made these same mistakes. I used the woman I loved to further my own cause and have paid the price for decades–”
“Love?” I laugh, shoving him away. “You’ve lost your mind, Commander. Watch what you fucking say to me–”
“She’s pregnant, Alpha.”
My world tilts on its axis.
He stares at me, his eyes sharp and unreadable.
“She couldn’t possibly know that so soon.”
“She doesn’t know. She won’t know for a while. But the house knows. It’s been finding ways to sabotage our training sessions for the past several days and doting on her. She is pregnant, Alpha. Are you the father?”
“How fucking dare you.”
“You’ll lose them both if you use her to kill your father.”
I stare at my commander, unable to form the words to express my rage.
“Go pick up my fucking jacket at the seamstress and be in my office first thing in the morning, Commander. That’s an order.”
His jaw flexes, his hands balled into fists.
“Get the fuck out of my sight,” I growl.
The corner of Westfall’s mouth ticks into what I can only describe as a cold smile, his eyes shining with disappointment. Then, he’s gone in a flurry of shadows.
I stand on the empty bridge, my eyes locked on the ancient cobblestone. I can’t form a rational thought. I feel… rage. Regret. Fear.
Joy, if I dig down deep enough.
But mostly fear.
I turn toward the castle in the distance as my mind spins. My body feels heavy as I let my shadows curl around my body and consume me until I’m in the in-between, that dark place only I can access.
In a few seconds, I find myself in front of the door to my bedroom door. It slowly opens for me, light spilling into the hallway.
Ella is in the studio I built for her shortly after I met her at the ball all those years ago. All those years pining over her, pining over the dream of living a normal fucking life with my mate one day.
Years spent loving her and grieving her simultaneously.
She turns, her hands smeared with paint.
“Something happened when I marked you, Ella,” I say, the first words I’ve said to her since our fight in the dining hall. “We need to talk.”
She stares at me as I edge deeper into the room, looking past her at the canvas. It’s a painting of her old studio, the image so detailed I can see individual flecks of dust hanging in sunbeams. Black shadows pool at the edges. Something like terror settles in my gut. “Did you use your tears for that color?”
“No,” she says softly.
I look down at my mate. I really look at her. I take in the soft curve of her jaw and her bright, sea-green eyes that shimmer in the muted light of the room. My mate. My other half. The woman who claimed my body and soul.
The woman I’ve kept at arm's length, refusing to let myself fall in love with her. The woman I have gotten pregnant by letting my lust take the lead. I should have been more careful. I shouldn’t have…
“We made a mistake,” I tell her. “I need to take you back to your family.”