Page 134 of An Empress of Air & Chaos

Emara felt something cold press into the back of her neck. She tried to call out for Gideon, but she instantly fell into darkness.

Two days ago, Gideon Blacksteel had walked through a portal to his mother’s cottage in the Fairlands. He had laid Emara on the small bed his mother always had made up in case her boys would visit. He had sat with her in the spare room of his second home, her body not moving, just keeping a close eye on her chest to see if she kept breathing.

An hour later, his mother and brothers had arrived together, also by portal. His mother had closed off the portal by herself when the boys had given her the all clear to.

Emara had slept through the full night and the following day before awakening, thrashing and screaming on the bed. Gideon had moved to aidor comfort her, but Torin had shifted quicker. A tightening had pulled in Gideon’s heart as he watched them together, but Naya had removed Torin from the space and comforted Emara herself, gesturing for all of her boys to leave.

The cottage was small enough for them to hear her sobs for three hours before she fell asleep again. He knew his mother would not heal her broken heart with magic. She had refused when Gideon had begged. She had warned that it was not natural to tamper with emotional pain. His mother had once been a talented Witch, bearing the powers of earth and water—predominately earth—healing Hunters from all around the kingdom. But she would not heal what was not physically broken.

Kellen had volunteered himself and Gideon to run around the perimeter of the grounds to make sure nothing had come through the portal or tracked them here. They had found nothing but a deer and a few rabbits.

When getting back from the sweep, Torin was still awake, making all efforts to avoid any conversation by collecting firewood or hunting for food. But as sure as the sunrise, all three brothers fell asleep on the two sofas in the living area and awoke at dusk to their mother’s cooking.

Kellen had made sure he was the first to run a hot bath for himself to soak in and Gideon wished he could feel the warmth of the tub water. Perhaps a roasting bath would wash away the cold, hard guilt that was currently eating him alive.

“She is still asleep,” Gideon’s mothers soft voice startled him as he sat in the chair in front of the fireplace. “I have sent Torin for a run to burn off whatever warrior energy he had left after what happened. Maybe you should do the same.” Although his mother’s voice was soothing and gentle, it was lined with authority. “I know how you boys get when you need to burn off some steam. I don’t want any broken noses. Not here, not under my roof.”

Not in her sanctuary of peace, is what Gideon knew she meant. The one thing that she could control in her life was her home, her beautiful cottage filled with flowers, crystals, and books of her choice.

Gideon watched the flames dance amongst the logs as the events of the uplift plagued his mind like a spinning wheel. The first time he took in Emara as she appeared, stunning, in her black satin gown. The fact that he had wanted to kiss her there and then but couldn’t. When he saw Torin dancing with her, the rage that doubled over jealousy as she laughed with him, as he touched her. When he had found her in the corridor, lost. And she had kissed him. She had kissed him hard and desperately, only for that to be short-lived as the massacre took place at the hands of a human who had gotten himself mixed up in darkness.

Darkness he didn’t understand.

And Cally.

Poor Callyn Greymore.

He shook his head as his jaw locked. It wasn’t only the Witching covens that had lost people that night, it was Fae, Shifters, and Hunters too. Even the humans. He hadn’t spoken to Torin, or Kellen, or anyone.

About any of it.

He knew Torin would be livid about his confidential mission to gauge if Emara did, indeed, have the resurrection stone—whispers that had come from the Huntswood markets. And the fact that his father had undermined Torin, his second-in-command, and gone to Gideon for the mission—he would be outraged.

But Torin had known about Emara being in possession of the resurrection stone and hadn’t informed Viktir. There would be serious consequences for that.

“My love,” Naya’s voice sounded again, “staring at the flames wishing for an answer to all this madness isn’t going to happen tonight.” She folded a blanket that had fallen onto the ground and draped it around his shoulders. “If you are not going to run, maybe you should try some sleep.”

“I am okay,” Gideon’s voice came out rougher than he expected.

“You did what you thought was the right thing to do for your father, your Commander.” She patted the blanket like he was a babe. “What’s done is done.”

“I could have asked her, I could—” Gideon couldn’t look up from the flames as they thrived together. “She would have probably given me the stone had I asked her for it. But I didn’t. I snuck, like a thief in the night, into her room whilst she slept beside me, and I betrayed her. She won’t forgive me; it wasn’t mine to take.” He tried to gather himself before emotion poured from him like a fountain. “Mother, I have fallen in love with her and now I am not sure she will never look at me again.” He scratched his thumb over his forehand. “The stone has ties to her family, a family she is just beginning to understand, and I took it from her.”

“Gideon, son, look at me.”

He looked up at her immediately.

Her nose wrinkled as she tried hard not to frown. “I don’t know what the Gods hold for Emara Clearwater and her heart, but I do know that they hold greatness and love for you. However, certain greatness comes with integrity and responsibility, so if you care for her, be honest with her. If you keep her out of the biggest part of your life, she will never fully be in your life.”

Gideon knew his mother spoke of his fate, about being a Hunter and how she feared it would consume him, like it had with Viktir. If being a Hunter was all he was, and that’s all he did, it was all he would ever be. He would be nothing more. Feel nothing more. Live for nothing more.

Naya gently combed a hand through his hair and placed another hand on his shoulder. “I do not know what your father would want with the resurrection stone, but I am sure it is to make sure it stays out of the hands of evil. We both know that Emara Clearwater could never protect that stone. Your father can. You did the right thing.”

His mother was right; Emara would never have been able to protect the stone on her own, but that didn’t make what he had done right. He didn’t need to lie and scheme about it. He could have been open and honest. He could have done things differently.

“If it was the right thing to do, tell me why it felt so wrong to look into her eyes when I told her I took it?”

His mother slid onto the arm of the chair. “Because you feel, Gideon. It’s okay to feel. I am tired of reminding you boys that. And I am sure it was another test of your father’s, to prove your loyalty to him. Which terrifies me—”

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