Page 185 of Wolf Caged
Her dull eyes brightened as they lifted to me.
The thought of her seeking vengeance upset the balance of something within me, igniting a war between a need to shelter her and a need to teach her. I knew the price you paid for treading that path, and I did not want Saphira to lose the woman she was—her warmth and her kindness—by bloodying her hands.
I wanted to help her.
I wanted to be her sword and her shield, if she would let me, even as I recalled how angry she had been when I had stepped in last time, acting as her weapon against the fae female who had hurt her.
“I’d like that,” she murmured and surveyed the glittering sands stretching around us. “It’s strangely pretty here.”
“It was more beautiful once.” I looked at the ashy land punctured by spiny shards of lifeless trees—a barren land where only the strongest and most violent creatures could survive now.
Saphira’s gaze landed on me, curiosity shining in it, no trace of her pain or her doubts now as she waited for me to tell her more.
I obeyed her silent command.
“It was once a verdant, green kingdom, ruled by beasts and nature. A land no fae had a right to and one that was greatly sought after. Fae courts do so enjoy expanding their lands, equating the size of them with their power and wealth.”
She frowned. “But you don’t?”
I shook my head. “My court is among the smaller, and yet there are few fae as feared or as powerful as I am.”
“Or so modest.” She smiled slightly.
I chuckled. “I speak only the truth. That truth is that a court is only as powerful as its king.”
“And that means the Shadow Court is ranked number one.”
It was my turn to shake my head. “There are others more powerful than I in this world, but I am one of the strongest.”
“What happened to this place then? Was it war?” She looked at the lands that stretched as far as the eye could see and the magic thickening the air faded again, allowing me to teleport us another mile or two deeper into the Wastes.
“It happened long before I was born.” I flexed my fingers against her hand, enjoying the feel of it in mine. “It was a magical cataclysm, but not like the one that caused the Wrathborn Scar in the south lands.”
“Wrathborn Scar. That sounds delightfully ominous. What happened there?” She looked south, as if she might spy it, but it was hundreds of miles away.
“A war that went too far.”
“What were they fighting over?” Her eyebrows rose high on her forehead.
She was going to love the answer to that question, I knew it before it left my lips.
“A female.”
“I’m beginning to think fae males are worse than shifters. So ready to destroy everything for a female.” Her little smile warmed the space in my chest that had grown cold the moment Morden had shown up in that storm and for the first time since he had arrived, I felt she would not leave the Shadow Court.
Or at least, she would come back.
If I asked it of her.
“I need to know more about that. When we’re back at Falkyr, I’m going straight to the library to look it up.” She was partly teasing, but it pleased me that she placed learning more about my world above running to Morden. “But you were telling me about this place and what happened here. A magical cataclysm doesn’t sound like a good thing. Is that why the air reeks of it?”
I nodded. “It is in the sand… the remains of everything that was here when the explosion happened and obliterated it all.”
She shivered and cast a nervous glance at the sands. “And we’re safe here? It’s not going to go kaboom again?”
“You are safe, little wolf.” I would never take her anywhere I felt she was in real danger, where I felt I could not handle whatever came at us. “The residual magic in the sand simply dampens my abilities at times.”
“Hence the short teleports.”
