CHAPTER 8
Shaia fluttered her eyes open, a sigh escaping her lips as she rose up from the dream and reluctantly left it behind. She lifted a hand and scrubbed her eyes, wiping away the tears that tracked down her temples and soaked into her dark hair and the pillow beneath her head.
She pushed back the covers, rose from the single bed and padded across the room. She glanced at the dark wooden wardrobe to the left of the door to the living room, and then away again, fixing her gaze on the masculine clothes she had draped over the back of a wooden chair in the right corner of her small bedroom. It was better to remain in disguise. She didn’t want anyone recognising her.
She dressed quickly, donned her black travelling cloak and headed through her cramped living room to the door of her home. It creaked as she pulled it open, and she stilled as she stopped on the doorstep.
Endless inky blue sky stretched above her but she saw a reflection of how it had been that bright summer’s day when she had met Fuery at the stream and had learned his name, and had discovered the need she had been experiencing had been running through him too, as unstoppable as that river.
Gods, she loved him.
She loved him with all of her heart, so deeply she ached whenever she thought about him, and cursed herself whenever she considered the assassin’s words and that Fuery’s condition might be her fault. If she had known more about bonds, could she have stopped him from becoming tainted?
Lost?
She gathered her heavy black cloak around her to keep the morning chill off. The fire in her bedroom had gone out in the night and her fingers were stiff, cold to the bone, her hands pale in the slim light. She fixed her gaze on the distance, waiting.
The sky lightened, the portal glowing bright orange and spilling pink across the vault of Hell, as close to a sunrise as she had ever witnessed. It bathed the elf kingdom in gold, gilding the pockets of trees that dotted the sweeping valley below her and the mountains in the distance across the plains. Her eyes tracked the light as it caught on a stream that snaked through the rolling hills, leading her gaze towards a small village nestled close to one of the forests, far below her. The village began to shine as the light streaked over the blades of the windmills and traced over the thatched and pitched roofs of the mixture of pale and dark stone buildings.
Home.
But not her home. Not anymore. Not for a long time.
Fuery had become her home, and when she had lost him, this small house had become her refuge, and had grown dear to her. The village was the place where she had grown up, but this was the place where she had grown into the female she wanted to be.
She wanted to avoid the village now, but it tugged at her, her connection to Fuery and her memories of their time there pulling her towards it. She needed that connection again, needed the comfort of her memories more than ever.
She wanted to head down to the river, to retrace their steps and find the tree near its banks where they had spent time together.
Where Fuery had carved their initials and had told her that their love would be eternal.
She stared at the distant village, her eyes lazily tracking the gently turning windmill blades as her thoughts began to weigh her down again.
Where had she gone wrong with Fuery?
The male she had met with, one she now remembered someone calling Hartt as he had forcibly evicted her from the guild, had mentioned he had a bond with Fuery, and that it meant more than hers with him ever had.
She knew what he had meant by that.
His bond had saved Fuery somehow.
Hers had damned him.
She shook her head, refusing to think that way, to allow Hartt to rattle her with his words. She had returned to the elf kingdom not to lick her wounds, or give up. She had returned to find out more about bonds between mates so she could go back to Hartt and tell him what he had demanded to know, and then she would make him let her see Fuery.
Shaia focused on her body and willed her portal to open, and stepped through the darkness to appear closer to the village, a short teleport that left her legs unsteady. She had almost collapsed after teleporting to her home from the assassin’s guild in the free realm, the distance of the leap taking its toll on her.
She needed to rest, but she couldn’t. Not yet. Not until she had seen Fuery.
She trudged down the grassy hill towards the village, her nerves rising with each step, and chanted in her head that no one in the small gathering of houses would recognise her with her disguise back in place, her hood obscuring her face.
Besides, she wasn’t heading into the village anyway.
She was heading for a windmill on the hill above it.
One where she hoped to find an answer to the question plaguing her.
Where had she gone wrong with Fuery and their bond?
It wasn’t something she could ask her family, and not only because they would be furious with her for disappearing without a word when she was meant to be marrying Eirwyn and would employ a be-spelled talisman to keep her locked in her room, unable to teleport.
No, she couldn’t ask them because no one in her family were fated mates.
Her parents’ marriage had been arranged.
She reached the windmill, and breathed a sigh of relief when she spotted Bleu’s mother in a field near it.
Ciana was as beautiful as Shaia remembered, graceful and elegant even though she wore working clothes of a dark brown pinafore over her deep blue dress and her long black hair had been tied back into a tight bun to keep it from her eyes as she tended her crop.
The female looked up and a warm smile reached her eyes as Shaia pushed the hood of her black cloak back, making their amethyst depths shine. Shaia’s nerves disappeared as she basked in that warm light, wishing her own mother was as kind and gentle, and accepting, as Bleu’s was. This was a female who had embraced her daughter’s desire for independence, and had defended her more than once, and worked the fields even though the village scowled at her for doing a male’s work. Gods, Shaia would have given anything to have such a female on her side.
“Is Bleu here?” Shaia said when she was close enough.
Ciana moved out of the wheat field and came to the pale grey stone wall that enclosed it. “He was here. He returned to the castle yesterday with his mate. My… she is wonderful. A little odd, but Bleu clearly loves her, and I am so happy to see him happy.”
She beamed at Shaia, that happiness shining in her eyes and making her positively glow.
Damn. Shaia had missed him.
Her nerves returned, the thought of having to travel to the royal palace terrifying her a little. She had never been there, only knew about it from stories people in the village had told her. Even her parents had never been invited there. It was a place reserved for either the elite of society or soldiers.
Soldiers like Fuery.
She swallowed hard and tried to stifle the ache that started behind her breastbone as she thought about him, pictured him in his uniform of a crisp black tunic and tight trousers, and black riding boots. He had looked so handsome, his face lit up with his smile and pride in his violet eyes, his hand resting on the blade that had hung at his side. One fit for a commander.
“Child, what is wrong?” Ciana asked, shaking her from the memory of seeing him that night thousands of years ago.
Gods, she had been so proud of him.
And she had hated how society had scorned him still, because he hadn’t been born into the echelons of it.
Because he had earned his position.
Just as Bleu had.
They had both worked hard to rise from little into a revered position within the legions.
Shaia shook her head. “It is nothing. I have been travelling too much and I am weary. I was hoping to catch Bleu here so I could speak with him.”
“You are free to go to the castle, Shaia. All are welcome there,” she said with another warm smile, and glanced at Shaia’s cloak. “This matter is obviously of great importance to you… enough that you have clearly travelled a long way.”
In disguise.
Ciana didn’t say it, but it was there in her gentle eyes.
The female reached over the wall, took Shaia’s hand and squeezed it.
“Do not let convention stand between you and that which you desire. If Bleu had done that, he would have been working these fields instead of me. If Iolanthe had done so, she would be here with me, complaining every hour of the day about how males were free to come and go as they pleased.” She chuckled, the sound rich and warm, and full of love. “Bleu was always a bad influence on her… go and let him be a bad influence on you too.”
Shaia nodded, her heart buoyed by his mother’s kind words, and the support that shone in them, telling Shaia that she knew her fear, and what she desired, and told her to go out there and not let convention stop her.
She released the female’s hand, pulled her hood up and focused on the furthest point she had been in the kingdom, and teleported. When she landed on the deep grass that reached up her calves, her eyes immediately settled on the palace in the distance. High walls surrounded it, made of the same mixture of pale and dark grey stone as the castle it protected. Beyond it, mountains rose, a fitting backdrop for the tall towers with their conical roofs that reached towards the sky from the sprawling main building.
Shaia drew down a deep breath to prepare herself for what came next. Even at this distance, she could sense the power that hummed around the castle in the air, and knew the tales she had heard were true. Teleporting into the proximity of the castle would see her pulled to one central portal in the courtyard, a precaution that was necessary to protect the prince from intruders.
She willed the teleport, felt the power shimmer over her skin beneath her clothing, and disappeared.
Her pulse quickened the moment she appeared in the courtyard, on a circle of flagstones in the middle of a beautiful orchard. Paths cut the grass beneath the trees into sections, leading off in different directions, the one before her heading towards the grand arched entrance of the castle.
Gods, it was far larger than she had anticipated.
Imposing.
A little terrifying.
A few of the guards positioned at the end of the avenues that led from the portal landing point glanced at her, some arching an eyebrow as they looked her over. She probably looked like a beggar in her cloak and worn trousers and top.
Or suspicious.
She pushed her hood back, not wanting the guards to get the wrong idea about her. She wasn’t here to hurt the prince they protected.
Where would Bleu be?
She looked around her. To her right, the path led towards an open gate that revealed the countryside beyond it. To her left, it cut through the orchard in the direction of an archway in the wall that intersected the castle grounds, one that gave her a peek at buildings and a congregation of soldiers.
Would Bleu be there, overseeing those males?
Her heart gave a hard, painful kick and she brought her hand up, pressed it to her chest, and rubbed it in an attempt to soothe the pain just the thought of seeing males of the legion, dressed in their finery, birthed in her.
Fuery.
She swallowed her fear, for his sake. He needed her, and she needed him, but Hartt would keep turning her away unless she could give him an answer. As little as she wanted to see soldiers of the legion, as much as it would hurt her to look upon them, she needed to go there and see if she could find Bleu in that place.
Shaia hesitated.
Someone hollered an order, and another joined it, and she froze as an entire legion of soldiers marched through the archway towards the castle, past a beautiful fountain, and banked around the orchard and out of the gate that led into the countryside.
Some of the males spoke of manoeuvres.
If the soldiers were training, it stood to reason that Bleu would be leading them as their commander.
Which meant he was busy.
While she knew Bleu, she couldn’t say that she was close to him, definitely wasn’t close enough that he would find time for her in his schedule if he was in charge of the soldiers heading out to practice their drills.
One of the guards turned her way and frowned at her.
Instinct pushed her to leave, to find another way to discover more about bonds, before the guards decided she was a threat and threw her in the cells. She would be no use to Fuery there.
She was too tired to teleport though, weary from her travels and unused to using that particular ability. It would be a while before she could teleport again, but she couldn’t stand here waiting for her strength to return. She ducked her head and took the path to her right, following the soldiers out into the countryside.
They had all banked left, heading up the hill.
Shaia hesitated, torn between still trying to find Bleu and finding another source of information about bonds.
When the two legions of soldiers gathered on the hill broke apart and formed ranks facing each other, she dragged herself away and headed down the hill to her right instead.
The sound of running water captured her focus and drew her towards it, making her lift her eyes in search of the source.
Gods, this end of her small world was beautiful.
Endless green stretched from the mountains on her right to the ones on her left, hills undulating between them, as far as her eyes could see. A brook followed the curves of some of the hills, snaking between them and catching the light from the portal. Along its bank, the grass was long, swaying in the breeze together with the rushes.
Shaia drifted towards the water, her mind filling with a vision of a different stream, one that was shallow and broad, with a pebbled bottom. One where she had passed stolen hours with the male who had captured her heart, and still held it in his hands, despite their years apart.
She would see Fuery again.
She would learn where she had gone wrong.
Somehow.
She removed her cloak, draped it over the grass on the bank of the brook, and sat on it.
The castle towered a short distance away, stunning in the warm light, seeming to sparkle. She had never seen it this close, so close she could pick out all the details and see the green vines that covered some of the balconies, their blue flowers filling her with an itch to see them closer. She had never seen such blooms before either.
She had never set foot in this end of the kingdom.
Had never left the kingdom.
Never travelled to the free realm.
She had done all those things now. It sank in fast and she needed a moment to take that in. She had broken with convention in so many ways. A smile touched her lips. Fuery always had had a way of making her go against society.
Her thoughts flitted between memories of him as she stared at the castle, not really seeing it. She saw Fuery as he had been four thousand years ago, a young male full of hope and love. A strong male who had moved Hell to be close to her, to be good enough for her.
Gods, he had always been good enough for her, even when he hadn’t seen it.
She didn’t need a male of status to make her happy.
She only needed Fuery.
“Are you unwell?” The deep baritone rolled over her, sweeping her thoughts away, and she looked up at its owner, her eyes widening a little when she realised it was getting dark.
How long had she been sitting here, daydreaming of Fuery?
She looked off to her right, to the hill where the soldiers had been. They were gone.
She had wasted hours, time in which she should have been seeking a way to see Fuery so she could help him.
“Did you come to the palace for something?” The elegant male pulled her focus back to him.
He had a kind face, with twinkling violet eyes that spoke of intelligence and maybe a keen wit, and held himself well with an almost regal bearing that made him look as if he had been born to wear such a fine tailored tunic. There were dragons and elves on the two long tabs at the front of it that reached down to his knees, stitched beautifully in hues of blue and green.
She wasn’t normally in the habit of speaking to strangers, but something about the male soothed her and had words bubbling up before she could stop them.
“I came to see someone, but changed my mind… and I meant to leave but it was so beautiful.” She looked around her at the green hills, the babbling stream, the castle and the mountains.
“And you needed the connection to nature to soothe you. Why?” The male crouched before her, resting his elbows on his knees.
He was astute too.
She hadn’t even realised that was the reason she had come out to the meadow and the stream.
But he was right.
She had needed nature to soothe her.
All elves had a connection to it, one that kept light burning in their souls and allowed them to temper the seed of darkness that lived within their hearts—darkness that elves tapped into whenever they needed a boost in strength. Fuery had told her once that the soldiers were trained in methods of harnessing the darkness, using it as a weapon to aid them in their battles. It had sounded dangerous to her.
Now that she knew what had happened to him, she wanted to blame his training. It had taught him to awaken the darkness, but it was a volatile thing, easily able to overpower even the strongest male. He had been playing with fire, and in the end it had not only burned him, but had consumed him, pushing out the light.
Gods, she wanted to help him find that light within himself again and pull him from the darkness.
The male beside her preened his short blue-black hair back as he waited for her to find her voice to answer him, and she spotted the black and silver bands around his wrists. Armour. She had seen Fuery’s a few times, and he had even shown her how it looked when he called upon it and the black scales rippled over his body like magic, flowing from the bands.
Was this male another commander?
Bleu had worn such fine clothing when she had met him in the village. Maybe this male could help her find him.
“The person I came to see… he told me that someone I believed I had lost was in fact alive.” She picked at the grass, her eyes on the blades, avoiding his keen gaze.
“You seem upset by this, and not relieved,” he said and moved to sit beside her. He planted the soles of his polished black riding boots to the grass and rested his forearms on his bent knees, leaning forwards slightly so he could keep his eyes on her face.
Shaia shrugged.
“I tried to find him, and was turned away by another male, one who is bound to him. He told me not to return until I understand where I went wrong.” She squeezed her eyes shut and hung her head. “I cannot feel him.”
“The male bound to him?” When those soft words left his lips, a note of confusion in them, she lifted her head and looked at him. His eyes were as soft as his voice, soothing and coaxing her into speaking and telling him more.
What was it about this male that made it so easy for her to speak with him?
She should have already made her excuses and left, or asked him to take her to see Bleu. Yet here she was, talking openly with a male she didn’t know, one who didn’t seem shocked that she was flouting society’s rules and not behaving at all as a female should.
Shaia shook her head.
A flicker of understanding dawned in his eyes.
“Ah.” He nodded, a smile teasing his lips, one that was somehow solemn. “The lost male is your mate.”
A trickle of cold went through her and she wanted to deny it, afraid that this male was a noble and word would get back to her family, but then she remembered that Fuery was her everything. He was all that mattered.
She would forsake her family just to be with him.
Had intended to do just that when he returned from his assignment.
Only he had never returned.
She nodded, plucked another blade of grass and studied it. “I believed him dead in the battle four-thousand-two-hundred years ago.”
The male beside her tensed, and her eyes leaped to his face in time to catch the way his expression shifted towards something akin to wariness for a heartbeat before it softened again.
Or pain.
Had she pained him?
She studied him, the blade of grass forgotten as she tried to judge his age, worried that he might be one of the survivors of the war she had mentioned. He appeared around the same age as Bleu, as her, but could easily be older by centuries or more. Elves aged so slowly after maturing that it was difficult to tell, but it was certainly possible he had been involved in the war. She made a mental note not to mention it again.
When he relaxed again, she did too, returning her gaze to the grass and then the stream. Her thoughts drifted back to Fuery.
“How could I believe him dead if I am bound to him?” she whispered to herself, seeking the answer from her heart because it seemed no one else would give it to her.
Her heart sounded decidedly masculine.
“The answer to that is simple. The bond between you became weak when the male you had formed it with became tainted.”
Tainted.
Shaia wanted to squeeze her eyes shut on hearing that word, but she forced herself to look at the male to her right instead. “I fear Fuery would be lost if not for the male who has bound himself to him.”
She swore the male tensed again, but he appeared as relaxed as ever, his expression gentle and soft still, and no trace of darkness in his eyes.
“I know a little about bonds,” he said, “and the tainted.”
She feared she had said too much. “Please don’t tell anyone at the castle. I’m afraid they will send soldiers after him. I know what the prince does to the tainted.”
“I will not tell a soul.” There was that flicker in his eyes again, as if she had hurt him. “I share a bond with a female myself, and a bond with a male, and both are complex things. It is easy for a bond to feel broken when the person at the other end draws away from the light. Our bonds are forged by nature, and nature does not like the darkness. It thrives in the light. So when darkness invades the heart of a bonded elf, it drives out the nature that forged the connection between that elf and another, and it is easy for that person to believe the bond broken.”
Was it really that simple?
Was her bond with Fuery still there, only muted by his darkness because nature feared it as strongly as the elves?
“There have been times when my bond with another became so weak I thought it broken.” He looked off into the distance, beyond the castle, his expression turning solemn, and then he looked at her, his gaze filled with a mixture of pain and hope. “If you focus on it, you should still be able to feel it is there, and it always has been.”
Shaia slowly blocked out the world around her, her focus turning inwards, towards the bond she shared with Fuery and that slender ribbon that connected them.
But no matter how hard she focused, she couldn’t feel Fuery.
She couldn’t feel their bond.
“Was Bleu lying?” she whispered to her knees and fought the tears that wanted to rise and burn her eyes, refusing to let them come. Refusing to lose hope even when it all seemed so impossible.
Hartt had made it clear that Fuery was alive. She clung to that, using it to hold together the tattered shreds of her hope.
The male beside her smiled. “Bleu is not in the habit of lying. He is often painfully truthful.”
Her eyes widened. “You know Bleu?”
It would stand to reason that he would if he were a commander of the legions, but it still surprised her, and had that hope growing stronger.
“I do.” He didn’t look as if he would expand on that, and before she could ask how he knew Bleu, he spoke again. “Close your eyes and focus on your bond, both with your mate and with nature.”
Shaia did as he had instructed, and tensed as his hand came down on the back of her neck, cool against her skin.
He palmed it. “Relax. I am only trying to assist you.”
Her connection with nature flooded open, stronger than she had ever felt it, sending a chill sweeping over her skin. Gods, it was magical. She felt one with it in a way she never had before, as if nature was the life that flowed through her veins, was each beat of her heart and breath of air in her lungs.
“You are doing well,” he murmured. “Your connection is naturally strong. Very strong for a female. Focus on your bond now.”
She tried.
But nothing happened.
“I am… I’m not sure how,” she whispered, ashamed to admit that and feeling like a fool as it hit her that she knew so little about bonds.
There was a smile in his voice as he spoke. “You simply have to focus on the one at the other end of it. Call him into your mind, and invite him into your heart.”
She could do that.
She conjured an image of Fuery, which wasn’t difficult. He sprang quickly into her mind, dressed in only his black trousers, his chest bare and glistening with water as it had been the day they had met at the river. His violet eyes sparkled at her, bright with his smile as he spoke with her.
Warmth flowed into her, light and life that had her feeling as if she was soaring, able to touch the sky. Her heartbeat slowed, falling into rhythm with his, and she reached for him.
Opened herself to him.
Darkness flooded her, oily and thick.
Choking her.
The male snatched his hand away from her neck on a muttered curse and the connection shattered.
Shaia breathed hard, tears stinging her eyes and her body awash with crippling pain that tore at her, felt as if it was ripping her apart molecule by molecule.
The male beside her panted too, struggling as fiercely as she was. She cracked her eyes open and looked at him as she clutched at the grass on either side of her hips, desperate to feel nature, cool and clean, surrounding her.
Anything but that vile darkness.
“I… I’m sorry,” she murmured, fighting for air to ease the pain still ricocheting around inside her. “I’m not sure what happened.”
He sucked down a deep shuddering breath. “It was not your doing, not your fault. I am responsible. I should have considered the consequences of using my powers to forge a stronger connection between you and a male who is not only tainted.”
Shaia swallowed as her heart plummeted.
“He is lost.” He stood and she grabbed his left hand, held on tightly and refused to let him go.
“Please… do not tell anyone. Please?” She clung to him, images of the legion tracking down Fuery and hurting him rushing through her mind, tormenting her.
The male looked down at her, his eyes colder now. “You believe you are capable of taming such a beast?”
She nodded. “I… I can. No… I am not sure, but I must try, because his sickness is my fault. If I had known how to feel the bond between us, he might not have fallen into the darkness.”
The male took a step back, slipping from her grasp, and she shot to her feet, her heart thundering as fear flooded her veins.
“Please, don’t tell the prince.” She reached for him but he evaded her, shifting his arm behind him and beyond her reach. Desperation lanced her, drove her to seize him again and not let him go until he swore he wouldn’t tell anyone what she had told him. She shook as she reached for him, fear at the helm, filling her mind with horrific images. “The prince will kill him.”
He stilled, his face going slack, all emotion draining from it. “You honestly believe that?”
She bent her head, fought the shame that swept through her again, born of the terrible thing she had said about their prince, and then lifted her chin and nodded. “I know what the prince does to the tainted and the lost.”
His eyes darkened again. “Do you honestly believe me capable of killing the tainted and the lost when my own flesh and blood is among them?”
Shaia’s knees almost gave out.
She stared at the male, growing painfully aware of who she was speaking to and increasingly horrified by the things she had said to him.
Prince Loren.
Gods.
She bowed her head, clutched the front of her trousers and cursed herself. “I am sorry. I only know what I hear.”
He huffed. “That is the crux of your problem, is it not? You know only what you are told, and do not seek the knowledge for yourself.”
She wanted to say that the crux of her problem was society in that case, and it was responsible for her mistake. It was hard for a female to educate herself, to rise above the position tradition wanted for her and go against everything it believed she should be, and should do. She had fought against it and her parents for centuries, had grown up stealing books from her father’s library and hiding them until she had finished reading them, learning all she could about the world.
Tradition wanted her restricted to knowledge suitable for a lady.
No tales of wars and great battles, or stories about the other species who also called Hell their home, and legends about the Devil and the terrible things he had done.
It wanted her to know about sewing and crafting, about tending to flowers and fruits and vegetables, and other ridiculous pastimes that she had grown to despise over the years because they represented everything that was wrong with elf society.
She wanted to say all that to him, to the prince who ruled this realm and had the power to make sweeping changes to their traditions, freeing females and allowing them to enjoy the same pursuits as the males of their kind.
Only she wasn’t brave enough.
Because she had already wounded him with her careless words.
She felt wretched when he touched her left cheek, slid his fingers down to under her jaw and lifted her chin, and she saw the hurt in his eyes.
“Do you believe I will punish you too?”
She quickly shook her head. It was the truth. He had been nothing but kind to her, had helped her immeasurably, because even now she could feel an echo of Fuery within her. The bond to him was frightening, because it was so dark, like staring into a cold vast abyss, but gods, it was a relief to feel it there again and know that he was really alive.
“I owe you everything,” she whispered to Prince Loren, and then pulled her courage up from her boots and found some strength to put into her voice. “I cannot thank you enough… and I feel terrible that I said those things about you… but I need to protect Fuery.”
He regarded her for a few seconds, and then nodded. “I understand, because I too feel such a need. I constantly lie to my council, telling them I do not know where Vail resides, because I cannot bring myself to surrender my brother to them. I would do anything to protect him.”
She could see in his soft violet eyes that he truly did understand her desire to protect Fuery from the legion responsible for hunting the tainted.
“If I wanted all the tainted and lost dead, I would have sent the legion after Fuery the second I met the male in the mortal realm four lunar cycles ago.”
It took Shaia a moment to take in those words. They swam in her head, shock making them ripple and distort, slow to come into order and sink in.
When they did, they knocked her hard, had her wobbling on her feet as she stared at Prince Loren.
“You… you have seen him?” Her voice shook as much as her legs.
He nodded.
Relief swept through her, powerful and potent, making the hope in her heart grow stronger because she was sure Prince Loren would never lie to anyone, and she believed him when he said he wouldn’t send anyone after Fuery.
She could save him.
Prince Loren shattered that relief and shook her hope when he spoke again.
“I saw enough to know that if you do not move swiftly, you will not save your mate from the darkness. He will be lost forever.”