Page 3 of Crown of Wrath

It all seems so hopeless. Something has to change because even though we’re making progress against the Nothing, it’s not fast enough. Cole and I can’t do it on our own, but who will help us? Darian and Lee aren’t strong enough, and I won’t risk them. A single touch of that mist could have someone permanently maimed if it’s anything like my revulsion shadows.

“We’re going to get Casimir out of there, but we’re not rescuing him. We’re taking him from one prison and putting him into another.”

Cole, Darian, and Lee all look at me, confused. The wind blows a soft scent of pine resin through the tent, and I smile. “He won’t know that he’s being rescued. This way, we’ll be able to interrogate him rather than the House of Steel.”

Darian looks at Lee, and their eyes light up like they used to. Since we left Draenyth, they haven’t had a single bit of trickery. This may be just as serious as any battle, but it’s a battle they’re built for.

At the same time, Cole’s ice-blue eyes darken at the mention of his father. “My father isn’t an idiot. He’ll see through most tricks.”

I shrug. “Maybe. Or maybe he’s like you. Maybe he doesn’t know how to escape his sadness, and he thinks everything is lost right now. We’ll just let him continue to think that.”

Cole says nothing as he stares at me. The anger and sadness in his eyes would be enough to break me if I still looked at him the same way I had three months ago. Now, it’s just another thing to catalog. It’s another piece of information that I needto remember when I wield my sharpest sword, just like when I noted the squirrels chittering outside Blackgrove.

I sigh and say, “We need to go to Stormhaven first to begin negotiations. Stormhaven is the only place I can think of being safe enough to house Casimir, and they’ll want our protection since Gethin’s forces have been on the move. Let’s try very hard not to let them know that Gethin’s actually looking for us.”

Darian nods. “It feels good to even think about doing something different. It’s felt like we were beating our heads against rocks for the last three months.”

Cole’s head whips toward his friend, and I can see the hard look on his face. A warning not to question me.

“It’s fine, Cole. I know how he feels, but it doesn’t matter anymore. You need to get some rest. Darian and Lee, fly to Stormhaven. Make an appointment to speak with the King, and don’t hesitate to be pushy. We’ll be there in a week after both of us have rested some.”

They all nod to me, and I walk out of the tent and into the forest where I spend most of my time these days.

Chapter 2

My dearest Vesta, you cannot care for her as you would any other child. She will become the Queen of Earth, and she must learn to embrace her own strength. Not yours.

~ Brenna Morvyn, letters to Vesta

Maeve

Our meeting was a little after midday today, and I’ve been in the forest since then. No different from when I was a child, the forest is the only place I feel comfortable anymore. In my tent, I’m compelled to think like a Queen, but in the forest, all of that goes away. I can simply exist.

The trees move just as they did outside of Blackgrove even though we’re hundreds of miles away. There are more rolling hills here, and the soil is rockier, but it’s still a forest.

I lift my hand and try to call shadows to me as I have so often in the past three months. Not revulsion shadows. Those come unbidden any time I let my control slip even the slightest. No, the ones I had to fight to keep hidden for those weeks in Draenyth.

I try to imagine the feelings of them crawling over my body, slowly twisting like an oily mist around my arms and legs. I think of how they’d felt when the Shade had taught me about desire.

The nightly wind whispers through the branches around me. The scents of the forest are stronger than they ever were when I was a Wyrdling. I can smell the rabbits and squirrels that I’d hunted when I was younger. I can find them without trying now, and maybe I always could. I hadn’t understood my bloodlines back then. I’d thought it was skill and experience that had given me the ability to track and hunt like I could.

Instead, it was the House of Earth bloodline that runs through my veins. Granted, the effects were so much less than they are now. The only thing I’d prided myself on had come from a secret rather than skill and training.

Darian had been right when we’d tracked the gryphon. It had been more than skill. It had been a power that everyone thought was lost. Well, everyone except my mother.

I swing from a branch, my fingers sliding gracefully across the birch bark, unworried about the twenty-foot fall. It all feels slow compared to when I was young. My muscles react instinctively, moving into a spring form to let the impact roll through me. First, the balls of my feet hit the ground. Then my heels. My knees bend. Then my hips roll. A human would have broken something by landing like that, but I barely notice any discomfort.

Yet, I feel like everything is wrong. My body is fine, but something inside me is collapsing. A hand brushes a nearby tree as I walk soundlessly, and I yearn for the peace I would havefelt before. My fingers move over the rough oak bark, the fibrous bands of armor that protect it from the world, and nothing changes. The darkness that looms heavy inside me doesn’t part or even fray.

My heart aches as it does so often for the ones I’ve lost. Hazel. My father. The little boy the Nothing tried to trap me with.

A crescent moon shines down on me in my sorrow, but it speaks no more than the trees do. It doesn’t bring solace or peace. It’s as much a watcher as the wind.

The ones the Nothing took from me are just a tiny number compared to the unnamed people who are hurting because of Gethin. How many people are being collared? How many are being broken or killed or thrown into cells simply because there is no one to fight back?

This burden I bear, the weight of all these lives, most of whom I don’t know, has become heavier than I ever imagined.

I close my eyes and try to lose myself in images of a former life. It’s the last time I can remember being completely happy. The Firelight Café. The memory comes to me instinctively, as visages of the Shade used to. Laughter echoes in my mind as my friends told stories and made jokes.

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