Posey
I press another cool, wet rag against Aris’s battered face, sighing deeply at the gouge across his forehead, expertly stitched by his mother. A welt the size of Tarsian slashes from temple to jaw on the left side of his face, and he has a black eye, but I’m sure he’s looked worse at some point in his life. This is just the worst I’ve ever seen him, and my stomach curls into tight knots when he frowns and hisses in pain against the cold press of the rag.
“Don’t be a baby about it,” I scold, dunking the rag in ice water again and wringing it out to continue torturing him. “It was, wholeheartedly, your fault.”
He grunts in reply, unable to fully open his left eye, but the right one is fixed on my face, narrowed into a fox-like slit.
I reach for the small vial of healing draft on the bedside table, but he catches my wrist. “No. I did deserve this, after all. Might as well suffer for a few more hours.”
“You look like you’ve been through a meat-grinder.” I smile down at him. He presses my hand to his chest and closes his eyes with a deep, pained sigh.
“I attacked my grandfather, the most powerful and feared bastard in all of Eastonia. I knew better.”
“Why would you do that?”
Aris settles with another sigh. I press the rag to his mangled face with my free hand, easing up on the pressure this time. “He mentioned you going into the caves, asked if you’d been, and I just snapped.”
“What’s wrong with you exactly? You seem off.”
“Attacking my own grandfather makes you think I seem off? How so?” The sarcasm is impossible to miss.
“Aris.” I toss the rag in the bowl and lean over him, brushing a rogue wave behind his ear. “What is the matter?”
“You. You’re killing me.”
“I’ve been killing you for months, it seems.”
“That’s true. I suppose now you’ve moved onto slow torture.” He squints and rubs his thumb over the mark he left on my neck. His smile is beautiful. Just a flicker on the outer corners of his mouth, like just the feeling of the scar under his fingertip is enough to lighten his mood. “I’m a man, Posey. Me being absolutely out of my mind right now is a curse from the Goddess Herself.”
I cock my head to the side. “And why are you out of your mind?”
“Because of you. And this.” He smoothes his thumb over the mark again, slowly, tenderly, his good eye fixed on the silver scar forever branded on my skin. “I want to hurt anyone who even thinks about you. Which, apparently, includes everyone in my family.”
“It sounds like you need to sleep.”
“I’d like to fuck you first,” he deadpans, but his voice shifts, like it’s his wolf talking and not necessarily him. It does fill me with liquid heat, but I have to resist for now.
“You have twelve stitches in your forehead and can only see out of one eye.”
“Turn the lights off, and you won’t notice how ugly I am.”
“You need to go to bed.”
“So it’s only okay if you tell me what to do?” He grins, and it's foxlike, which confirms my suspicions. The Aris I know and love is barely here, hanging on by a thread, while his animalistic counterparts are feuding for control.
I lean forward and press a gentle kiss to his forehead where the skin is not broken. He winces, and maybe decides that I’m right, that his grandfather taking him to the floor in one punch probably means he does, in fact, need to just close his eyes and sleep it off, but he still wraps an arm around my back and holds me close, inhaling deeply against my neck and into my hair, and we stay like that until his grip loosens, and he drifts off. I spike his glass of water with the healing draft he’s so far refused, tidy up, and pull my arms through my apron before heading back upstairs to the spire.
I’m not alone in the room, however, when I follow my shadow over the threshold. I expected Kenna to be here. I spent a few minutes alone with her going over my health, her welcoming me joyously to the family, and a brief explanation as to what I plan to make for baby Ian.
But it’s not her.
The shadow staring at my already full shelves and tools hanging neatly from hooks along the wall belongs to the man who just put a gash on the side of my mate's face.
The King of Shadows turns around to face me, his arms crossed, towering over me. My stomach dips to my toes, and I bow my head, my heart thudding to a stop before skittering back to life at the speed of light, just like it did when he offered to show me his shadowsword while we were in Silverhide.
Being alone with him, however?
It feels like standing amongst Aris’s shadows, but heavier, like Ryatt has only grown more powerful with age.
Except that’s not true.
I felt it when I held his sword–the lackluster weight. The dimness in the gems. The age. Gods, the sword is thousands of years old. It has to be. Now, it’s lying on the granite surface of my worktable, right next to where I left the thin, lightweight chain necklace I’m making for Ian. He glances at the jewelry when he notices my gaze on the table and his prized possession.
“I hit my grandson in the face and knocked him on his ass because he lunged for me, and I knew he would do everything in his power to peel the flesh from my bones while I still breathed had I not stopped him–for his own safety, of course.”
“Of course.” My voice rattles as I approach. I tuck my hands in my apron. “It’s a mate thing. That’s what Kenna said.”
“She’s correct. Your kind–women–have it easier. It’s barely noticeable, from what I’ve been told. We male beasts, on the other hand, get a little… unhinged. You’ll meet Ella, my mate, during Solstice when we’re all in Maatua, and she’ll confirm that I was a raging lunatic once we finally accepted our mate bond, and I marked her.” He smiles softly at some memory before meeting my gaze. “Unless, of course, you’re planning on spending Solstice with your family?”
I haven’t thought that far ahead. “No, I don’t suppose I am.”
This is what he’s here for. Me. My connections in Sapphire Ridge. During Ryatt’s reign over Veiled Valley, things were different. My family wasn’t trusting of him when he returned to claim what was his. Kenna and Evander, however, needed us. Isaac, once the King of Crescent Falls, had created several prototypes for special armor that could shift with its owner from human to wolf form and back. Evander took over Ryatt’s special unit of warriors, the Ghost Army, and brought those prototypes to my pack to inquire if anything could be done to make them on a larger scale, and he was right to do so.
Every Ghost warrior wears specially crafted gloves that mold and meld into armor, finely woven, pillow-soft threads of metal–mostly iron and steel, with nickel alloy–that can change form and take an impressive beating.
Alchemists are to thank for those advances. My father is to thank.
But then there’s me.
“You did go into the caves alone, didn’t you?” His voice is soft and curious, almost amused. It’s unnerving, honestly, because his tone doesn’t match his stern face and heavily tattooed hands and neck.
I lick my lips and sink onto my usual stool, pulling Ian’s unfinished necklace toward me. “They called to me.”
“I thought so.”
I dip my fingers into a bowl of flaked silver shards, which turn to balls of liquid in the palm of my hand, which I’ll form into beads shortly, once it cools enough to take shape. Ryatt watches with interest, stepping closer to the table. “I’m plating the silver in iron with nickel alloy, like the Ghost gloves. Ian won’t feel the silver. It won’t hurt him at all, but the silver will prevent him from shifting into his wolf form. It should… snap him right out of it when they put it on him for the first time. And he won’t be able to take it off and choke on it, I swear.”
Ryatt’s mouth ticks into a wry smile. Charming. Handsome. For a moment, I see the resemblance between him and Aris, and then it fades, reminding me that Aris generally prefers his father’s side of the family looks-wise.
“Blake’s daughter, Skye… you’ll meet her at Solstice. She might be in the market for something like this, as well. She’s very girly, so something pretty. A necklace or a bracelet–”
“A charm bracelet?”
“Perhaps. I’m sure she’ll tell you exactly what she likes.” He leans on the counter to continue watching me work. “And Fallon… she’s Maeve’s daughter. She’s only one and hasn’t burned any houses down yet, but that’ll come in time.”
I lick my lips again, finding them dry. “My dad made Maeve’s necklace.” I toy with the nearly finished necklace and attach another piece, then another. “I can make Fallon something as well. I just need to… touch her. Her and Skye, and whoever else might be in need.”
“And that’s the difference between you and any other alchemist alive, Posey. It took your father months to figure out the best metals and gems to use for Maeve, and meanwhile, she burned down two rooms in the palace in Moonrise and spirited all over the Allied Kingdoms before her second birthday.”
I attach the final element to the necklace. It took me three hours to make from start to finish. That’s it. Problem solved.
I feel pale and flushed under his gaze when I rise and hand him the necklace. “It’ll work. Immediately. I can add more links as he grows, and when he’s older and able to control this a little better, he can stop wearing it all the time.” I drop the necklace into Ryatt’s palm.
I’m a freak. Some kind of witch or demon. My powers are so different–so precise and focused compared to my family members… and even if they knew, it wouldn’t have changed anything. I wouldn’t be Alpha. I wouldn’t have had my own alchemy room or access to my father’s tools. I would have been someone else's quiet wife. A dutiful, submissive, silent breeder.
Ryatt barely looks at the necklace before tucking it into his jacket pocket. His eyes catch on the shelf housing the diadem… and the skulls. I still have questions about them and also think they’re cool. Whatever. He can think I’m weird.
But he says, “We don’t know for sure what happened to the original owner of this sword. My father believed he was an ancestor of ours, possibly the son of the last true Alpha King of Veiled Valley.” He takes a deep breath and meets my eyes. “What I’ve always wondered, however, is who made this for that man.” His hand hovers over the sword like it embodies a specific spirit. “Who made him this, and the helmet, and the wealth of what I believe is a full suit of armor?” His eyes land on the diadem I haven’t repaired. Not yet. I’m waiting for Isolde to return from what I believe is a voluntary confinement, letting the male spirit handle the day-to-day tasks of running the castle, and he’s not nearly as good at it.
Ryatt doesn’t have to say it. He’s thinking what I am, what I’ve been wondering since I had those strange visions in the cave of the woman with raven black hair and silver eyes.
She was an alchemist like me.
And like me, she loved a Shadowsynger.
She made the shadowsword and the helmet for him, and he placed that iron diadem on her head and vowed forever.
And they’ve had forever, here, in this castle, guarding their ancient, sacred bloodline–for centuries.
“This belongs to Aris now. I believe you might be more convincing on that front given what happened,” he says under his breath, sliding the sword in my direction. His fingertips slip over the jagged, worn blade, but his eyes catch on the diadem again. “And I believe that means it also belongs to you.” He bows his head, and my gut instinct, surprisingly, is to tilt my chin in a proud, regal manner and accept this… ascension that was written in the stars for us.
Luna of Veiled Valley.
Willow is going to freak when I tell her.