Wicked Crown (Shattered Kingdom Book 2) Read online

  “I will try my best,” he ground out, unsure if he meant the words. Too strong the itch to make someone pay for all the pain, the lost years.

  “We might need more than trying,” Josh retorted with a grin that reminded him of the hours and days they had spent as kids, practicing with wooden swords, playing at the heroic rescues of those farm villages in central Sives. Brax had always admired his big brother—still admired him.

  So he nodded. He would try his best. For there was another factor Josh hadn’t considered. It had cost Gandrett greatly to come to his rescue, and Brax didn’t want her efforts to have been in vain.

  The watery morning light greeted Gandrett for the seventh day in a row as she turned inside the shabby blankets of the inn in Alencourt—and so did Nehelon, the sound of Nehelon’s labored breathing. She knew that if she lifted her head, she would find him on the rough, wooden floor, doing push-ups or crunches. His morning routine before washing up and waking her for a plain breakfast of tea, bread, and cheese.

  The first morning, she had started from her bed, bolted upright, and reached for her sword, only to find Nehelon grinning at her from between the two beds, sweat covering his face and his bare chest. She hadn’t failed to notice the sculpted muscles directing the droplets of moisture, and her core was still tightening at the thought of it as she was still blushing at the memory of Nehelon catching her stare and commenting, “Better than those lanky boys at the priory. I already told you that first day.” He had winked, and his glamour had slipped just a bit, making those blue diamond eyes sparkle, making Gandrett swallow and dive back into her blankets in embarrassment.

  Gandrett waited for the movements to cease before she dared peek over the edge of her bed.

  “And here I thought you had gotten enough of that view,” he said by way of greeting.

  Before she could come up with something smart to say, heat had already flooded her cheeks.

  She kept her gaze strictly on his face. Just his face. Anything else would give him something to tease her about for the better part of the day—week if he so wished.

  After what had happened at her parents’ farm, after finding out her father had died years ago, she had hoped the Fae male would give her a break. But he seemed inclined to be even more annoying than usual. Only that first night had he expressed his condolences, had acknowledged her grief, how difficult it had been for her to even breathe. From there on, it had become an endless sequence of provoking her into any sort of talk—even if the only words she kept repeating were that she wanted to go looking for Andrew already. If they waited one day longer, they might never catch up with him… Wherever he had fled to.

  But Nehelon seemed determined to figure out what had caused the fire—not only in her own home but what had left those soot marks on the better part of the houses all over Alencourt. And since running from an immortal with the strength and power of what she imagined a god held was about as smart as stepping into the treacherous currents of the Penesor, she decided she’d go along with his plans and stick with reminding him hourly that Andrew may need them more than this village needed his nosy inquiries as she liked to call it.

  At least, Nehelon had agreed that delaying her journey back to Everrun could wait for a couple more days, which lifted one of her fears off her shoulders—for the moment. She could never be certain with the moody male.

  Sometimes, she could see that hint of compassion, of the male who had spoken to her in the forest, who had admitted that he was hoping to become a better man—male—so he could one day kiss her… Her stomach tightened. Neither of them had mentioned that conversation—or the implication of it for that matter—as Gandrett had stayed well away from the topic of that potentially imaginary kiss when Nehelon had contained the wolf.

  “I’ll never get enough of the glorious morning sun in Alencourt,” Gandrett countered and rolled out of bed, her acolyte uniform, which had become her nightclothes, still on. She stepped over his sweaty body, one foot on each side at his waist, and hesitated as her ankle brushed against his hip. He propped himself up on his elbows and grinned, eyes on the point where their skin had connected. Gandrett quickly shifted her weight and pretended she wasn’t inclined to peek down to where sweat was trickling down his abs as she aimed for the bathing room.

  A ghost of a chuckle followed her through the closing door, and she leaned against the door from inside, cursing in her mind. Andrew. Her brother was important. Not the fact that Nehelon was doing everything in his power—not magic—to take her mind off things. As if he wanted her to forget how dire her life was. How dull. How predestined her path.

  After she had headed out to lay down some poppy-flowers on her father’s grave the other day, he had not insisted on joining her to watch her hold back her tears, to struggle to take a steady breath at all. No, he had stayed behind and done whatever he did in order to obtain information from the villagers. And Gandrett never asked. Or talked to the villagers herself. Too painful, too fresh the incision into her heart. Dealing with compassionate faces, potentially some who would even remember her from ten years ago… She wasn’t ready for that. Her mind was too preoccupied with all of the worries for her brother—the only one she still had a chance of saving. As long as Nehelon got what he needed so they could finally leave…

  “Breakfast?” his voice bounced in through the closed door as Gandrett went about her own morning routine—which included ignoring him as much as possible and thinking up ways to avoid going back to Everrun at all. So far, nothing had come to mind. Just that if she could convince Lord Tyrem that she was still needed in Ackwood, he might be willing to take back those coins he had given her for her family—her chest throbbed once at the thought of that gold and how they would have needed it—and rewire it to the Meister to extend the purchase of her service.

  She didn’t dare mention it to Nehelon, for the fact alone that as long as she didn’t ask, he couldn’t say no… Which left her with a semblance of hope. Not the real kind, for that had been smothered the moment she had spotted her destroyed childhood home.

  When Gandrett returned to the bedroom, changed into her brown pants and tunic—she had traded the chic of dresses for the practicality of her new attire and spent half a copper on those basic clothes—Nehelon eyed her from under dark strands of hair, sweat running down the groove of his spine as he slowly rose and lowered his body above the floor.

  Gandrett blinked and strode to the window. She should be doing what he was doing. Should be keeping her body in shape so she wouldn’t lose her edge. But hard as she tried to motivate herself, she was grateful she made it out of bed each day. The thought of fighting was too—

  “You can stand on my back,” Nehelon suggested with a grin as he pushed up on his muscled arms. “It would be beneficial for my workout.” He gave her a look that was as much a challenge as it was a suggestion.

  Gandrett huffed.

  “I was going to get breakfast in a minute,” he continued even when Gandrett marched out of his field of vision just so she didn’t need to hold his gaze, “but since one of us has to keep in shape—“

  There was no need for him to finish the sentence. It was clear that he agreed with her thoughts—even if she hadn’t voiced them.

  But her physical shape wasn’t the only one that demanded attention. He had promised to help with her magic, and ever since her outburst in the caves when she had sent the ceiling tumbling down and the fire tearing through the crashing rocks, that power had been replenishing deep within her. And at some point, it would need release—even if for now, her grief seemed to have put a damper on it. It wouldn’t remain contained forever.

  Nehelon continued his push-ups, silent once more, leaving Gandrett to decide whether or not she wanted to speak.

  She didn’t. Not if she had a choice, but since it had been seven days…

  “When can we leave to find Andrew?” She schooled her tone into the professional one she had adopted at the order.

  Nehelon stopped, hal
f-risen, and seemed to make up his mind, before he flipped over in a movement too fast for the human he was appearing as, and sat on his haunches, arms relaxed at his sides and not one bit out of breath despite the workout he had been dedicating himself to all morning.

  “There is one more thing I need to figure out before we can leave.” His face was unreadable, but today, in contrast to all those other times she had pushed, he didn’t seem to be trying to appease her with his vague words. Today, it sounded like the truth.

  Chapter Six

  “What do you mean, he took the most direct path south?” Gandrett stared at Nehelon, who had asked her to meet him at the stables where the horses were staying and found him waiting with both Alvi and Lim saddled and readied for travel.

  “Andrew fled south,” Nehelon whispered before he gave the stable boy a violent stare, which sent the servant stumbling out of the powerfully built man’s path. “He is on his way to Everrun.”

  Gandrett’s realized she had stopped walking and jerked into motion again, catching up with the male in two quick strides. “What does he want in Everrun?”

  Nehelon glanced at her from the side, his expression indicating he was expecting her to figure that out herself.

  “He’s going to the priory,” she realized. The only place where he had family. Even if that family was standing in their village right now. But Andrew didn’t know.

  “Smart, Gandrett.” Nehelon stopped by the stalls and dropped one pack from his shoulder, handing it to Gandrett. “You’re packed,” was all he said as she took her own pack from his hands, wondering when he had found the time to gather their few belongings from the inn. She had returned to her father’s grave and then to the spot where they had buried her mother, spending a long time beseeching Vala to guide their souls into the world to come so they may find peace.

  She had considered meditation or prayer dances the way they did at the priory, but neither had felt right. Not when Vala had forsaken her. Besides, this was a more personal matter, and finding words to express how deeply that cut in her heart ran was almost as difficult as defying the cold in the caverns under Eedwood Castle.

  But she had braved those moments of silence until the prayer had slipped from her mouth—a rough and unelaborated prayer which wouldn’t have passed as dignified enough at the priory. But what goddess would Vala be if she didn’t hear her no matter how stumbled her words? What kind of goddess of life would forsake her because she couldn’t muster the courage to pray the way she had been taught to when words failed her?

  “Get on the horse,” Nehelon hissed, hoisting himself up onto Alvi’s back, and rode ahead, ducking under the stable as he emerged into the cloudy afternoon light.

  Gandrett followed suit, her mind already wondering how long it would take them to catch up with Andrew.

  “What’s the sudden rush?” Gandrett asked the moment she had caught up with him. Her grip on the reins was as firm as she could manage with the left-over scabs on her healing hands.

  Nehelon stared ahead, steering his horse through the groups of people streaming the other direction. Lim maneuvered beside Alvi—the two horses so in unison that it was hard to believe they spent a majority of their time with the brooding Fae male.

  As they progressed out of the village, screams were audible from the direction the people were headed. Gandrett’s head automatically turned to the source of the noise, and she found a cluster of villagers collecting around the part of the main square that Gandrett could make out from where they were riding.

  “Don’t look,” Nehelon said, his voice full of command, a tone that Gandrett hadn’t heard from him since those sparring hours in the training ring at Ackwood. It made her look even more closely.

  Beside her, Nehelon sighed through his nose, a sound that could have meant that he hadn’t expected otherwise.

  But Gandrett was only half-aware of him. For there, in the main square, at the center of the forming crowd, people were staring in horror at the impaled body of a familiar shape—

  The woman from that first morning at the inn.

  Gandrett sucked in a breath and halted her horse, about to steer back to check what was going on.

  “I said don’t look.” Nehelon’s tone was ice cold now. Lethal.

  “What happened?” Lim wasn’t reacting to her attempts to wheel him around, no matter how hard she pulled on the reins. He kept following Alvi like a sheep.

  Nehelon didn’t deign to even glance at her but continued along that dirt road out of Alencourt as if nothing was going on behind him. As if there wasn’t an entire village stirring, driven by the display of a kill.

  “What”—Gandrett nudged Lim’s flanks to at least be able to ride beside Nehelon, to be able to read his stone-cold face—“happened, Nehelon?”

  At the mention of his name, the male’s head whipped around. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to.”

  As her head kept bouncing from side to side, attempting to glimpse details from the distance with little success and, at the same time, trying to read Nehelon’s face—

  “You did this?” It wasn’t really a question.

  Nehelon’s features seemed frozen, incapable of any sort of emotion, as he nudged Alvi into a trot. “Keep riding,” he commanded. “No looking back. There is nothing you can do for her.”

  So she did, every part of the skilled fighter she was protesting as the power of Nehelon’s voice turned away from the danger. How did he do it? Was that another of his Fae powers? Flashes of that first moment she had realized what he was ran through her mind. How an invisible hand had held her in place, had locked everything but her head in the space… She wondered if this was similar, if his voice magically kept her from turning…

  But as they passed between the last houses of Alencourt, the thundering sound of an explosion made Gandrett spin in her saddle once more. She could make out little of the main square where the crowd was scattering from what seemed to be a ball of fire where the woman had been impaled a minute ago.

  Fire in a familiar turquoise-blue shade that made Gandrett’s blood ice over in her veins.

  And then the pounding in her chest began.

  Gandrett was only partly aware of Nehelon’s muttered curses as he lifted her off the horse what felt like minutes later.

  “Focus,” he demanded, and her body shook as he carried her a few steps before setting her down on the ground.

  Gandrett didn’t feel much of that, either. Too painful the living creature in her chest. At least she imagined it to be that. For it surely felt as if something was hammering her chest from inside. And it wasn’t her heart. For that was struggling to keep up with whatever that painful pounding was.

  “What’s happening?” Gandrett gritted out between clenched jaws. She wasn’t sure though whether the words actually left her mouth or if they had died on her lips.

  “Something set off your magic.” Nehelon’s voice, close to her ear, was steady as if her weight didn’t bother him at all.

  Something. Images of turquoise-blue fire sped through her mind. The woman from days ago going up in flames…

  “She burned,” Gandrett muttered, barely getting a sound to pass over her tongue. Her throat was so dry, so—burning. She was burning.

  Her limbs started thrashing in reaction to the sudden heat that was radiating from her chest into every distant part of her body. Fire. She was on fire.

  A scream escaped her, tearing through her lungs, her chest, her entire body like a knife.

  “Breathe, Gandrett,” Nehelon demanded. His tone hadn’t changed. There was no hint of compassion in it. Only cold, calculated focus. A soldier. A warrior. And her body, thrusting from side to side as if she was possessed by Shaelak himself … it was his battlefield.

  She gasped for air, inhaling flames—pure flames. They licked into her mouth, surged down her throat, and returned to their origin inside her chest, fueling the raging fire there anew.

  “Make it stop … make it stop … m
ake it—” She interrupted herself with another scream as the flames were singeing her skin, her flesh, her bones.

  And somewhere behind the pain, which drowned out all sounds but that frantic pounding of her heart, symbols floated into her mind. Turquoise like dragon fire. Not like but actual dragon fire. They didn’t have any meaning, but as they lit up, one by one, line after line, curve after curve igniting, her body started shaking against the rough surface Nehelon had placed her upon. Not shaking—twitching, seizing. And just like that, she was back in that cave—the temple of Shygon where Linniue had taken her own life, where Gandrett had moved earth and stone and loosed flames to bring down the woman who had been about to kill Addie.

  Gandrett tasted blood and ash, and she coughed and coughed, attempting to free herself, gasping for air, and one smell was sharper than any other that hovered under her nose—

  The scent of no name, of no memory, other than Nehelon’s presence.

  “Hold on—” His words were close—so close. He would burn alongside her if he didn’t save himself.

  Gandrett searched her body for control over her arms and found a tether to what felt like scorched hands somewhere too far away for her mind to reach… But she had to. Had to lift them. To shove Nehelon aside. Let her burn. What else was left for her?

  “Get away,” she gritted out, her voice less than a rasp, and she was almost certain that noise that followed was the gurgle of her own blood in her mouth. And as her focus went to her throat which was now filling up with liquid—

  She couldn’t tell if Nehelon was still there, couldn’t tell if he had heard her. Or if she had moved at all. All she felt was … an ocean of pain. Searing, hot, and unyielding. And those symbols in her head, dancing, blocking her view of the world, of anything she could hold onto to pull herself out the way she had been trained to do. Find something—anything—to grasp onto so she wouldn’t lose touch with reality. Wouldn’t be swallowed by illusions. The Meister had poisoned her in order to teach her how to pull through—not once but several times. Had shoved her into the dark pits under the citadel at Everrun. Had bound her arms and legs and left her to free herself or die. And every time, her steel will had pushed her to keep trying. Even when hallucinations had blurred with reality. She had won each time.