You'll ask me to pray for rain, With ash in your mouth, You'll ask it to burn again
~)(~
For a long time, I thought the worst climate was the Winter Court, with all the snow and ice threatening to kill your body and the blinding of any light reflecting off the frozen liquid. But there was nothing quite as bad as trying to walk through a swamp in the Spring Court. Snow didn't stick like mud and didn't weigh every inch of clothing like tar.
The buzzing of fireflies and croaking of frogs filled the air with a frenzy of sound making it impossible to listen to the happenings of the building. With the empty sky and lack of moon, we had the advantage of darkness, but still—was it worth trudging through a marsh?
Kat went first, reaching the backside of the manor before the rest of us. The plan was simple. The four of us would get in and lock down a part of the house before signaling the rest of the soldiers inside.
After an uncomfortably long time standing in knee-deep mud and murky water, surrounded by dragonflies and the possibility of a water snake getting too close, Kat signaled the rest of us to the south window. To get on the dry hill was like stepping on a cloud, and though I would've loved to relish in the solid ground beneath my feet, I had a job to do.
Slowly, the four of us filed into the kitchen. One door was open and spilling candlelight from the tight hallway into the foyer, and another across the room opened into servant stairs. The hallway door was quickly shut and bolted with spells for good measure.
Kyra and Cassius searched through the room for any signs of lingering magic of traps, and when they gave the all-clear, I stepped up to the window and removed one of my gloves. It was easy to imagine the electric power surge through my palm, illuminating my skin like sunlight. In response, a small light waved from the edge of the forest.
Now, for step two of the plan.
I opened the thin door to the stairwell and the others followed behind, matching each careful step I took to avoid creaking. Once at the top, the real test began. The servants' corridors looked like a torture hallway.
Obviously, this house had been empty for a long time, as I had to brush away a few cobwebs blocking the path and nearly sneezed a cloud of dust. But that wasn't the problem. Nails stuck out of the walls, rusted and sharp.
Poking through every board of rotten wood, from head to foot. Some were small, others as long as my hand. It was a slow twist around lines of metal to get from one side to the other. Every breath had to be calculated, every movement of an arm or leg required a careful look around.
We were just reaching the end of the hallway when I heard, like a screech of glass, the tearing of fabric. I bit my lip at the sharp sting of pain as a nail dug into my thigh. Blood oozed into my pants and down my leg.
I bit down on my hand, the taste of leather filling my mouth, and tried to pull away from the wall, ripping more skin as the nail moved. But the metal caught the fabric of my pants. Fuck.
I tried again, this time harder, and the loud tear of fabric echoed as a slab of wood I was standing on creaked at the sudden weight and the nail made a springing sound. Everyone stopped moving. The house was still around us, not a peep of noise, not even from the swamp outside.
Seconds ticked by, and my heartbeat steadily subsided. It was fine—totally, perfectly fine.
The door was thankfully silent as it opened into the actual upstairs of the house, dark and empty. I looked down at my leg and saw the healing already clotting it—good. I didn't need a trail of red behind me tonight.
Though we expected it to be quiet this late at night—it was almost... too quiet. Empty, frozen. Waiting with bated breath. It made my stomach twist uncomfortably, my mouth dry and my skin cold. This wasn't normal.
Slowly, I unsheathed the dagger at my side and motioned for the others to stay close. According to the tip, they kept the cache of supplies upstairs. Perhaps that was why everything was silent—perhaps not.
I tried the first few doors to either get nothing inside or a spell-locked answer. At the end of the hallway, a thin light filtered under the door. Slowly, we made our way towards it, trying every door along the way.
The others stood against the wall while I pressed my back to the wood and turned the handle carefully, to not make it squeak. The door opened in a breath, and all four of us pounced on the entrance.
It was empty. The room was empty—save for a pile in the center covered in a white sheet. Yeah... not suspicious at all. The bright light of the chandelier made my eyes sting, but I forced myself to look.
It was empty—still—innocent. I took a tentative step inside, feeling the room for any magic. It was clean—strangely.
Cassius was just about to step through when I raised a hand and pushed him back out the door. It rippled. In the chandelier's light, the floor rippled like water.
Sitting atop the pile of things was a piece of paper. There was only one way to go now... unless I wanted to risk trying to step backward. This floor looked sensitive to anything, and I didn't want to test my luck with the consequences.
I walked across the strange floor, careful with every step not to cause too much disturbance. When it was within reach, I stretched over the space to avoid taking another step and grabbed the paper.
There were only two words scribbled in black ink: Got you.
The groaning of wood filled the silent air, and I barely had enough time to spin around before the floor fell out from under me. There was an explosion. White-hot flames rose from under me and consumed the room that collapsed.
My heart lifted to my throat as I fell forward. I braced for impact—for something. There wasn't time to prepare, to tense, to take a deep breath. Everything happened in a domino of chaos.
Fire and smoke filled my lungs as I gasped for breath, and I cried out as a wave of agony shot through my abdomen. I had fallen, but not landed. I grabbed beneath my hanging body for anything and found purchase against a piece of wood that burned my skin like acid.
Oh.
A wooden stake, stuck with magic into the ground, punctured through my stomach and held me a few feet above the ground. The constant and growing sting that sucked every ounce of magic wasn't acid—it was faebane.
I shrieked at the realization—like finding a paper cut I didn't know existed—the pain came so suddenly that I couldn't keep a breath long enough to not go dizzy. Flames erupted around me and roared against the dry wood, boiling a peeling away the wallpaper and melting the doorhandle.
I couldn't feel the flames, not when my own pulsated beneath my skin, reacting like a cornered animal hissing and thrashing for freedom. It burned through me, ripped a path through my blood, and burst through in bubbling crimson steam.
I fell to the ground with a heaving breath. Ash surrounded me, stuck to the blood spilling from my stomach. My magic... it incinerated the wooden spike. I looked down at my bloody and ash-covered hand. The ripple of magic shone beneath the surface, glowing with a desire to escape.
Right—I was bleeding out. My eyes fluttered and my knees trembled. I squinted against the fire around me and ran to the door. My body slammed against the wood, smearing red against it. Again, again, again.
The door gave out and a burst of trapped air flooded the hallway, taking my body with it. I landed on the ground and coughed, spitting blood. It felt like the leather on my body was melting into my skin, like my clothes became molten iron against me.
I stood with a shuddering breath and ripped off my other glove. With a hand on the front of my body and my other at the back, I scorched my hands in silver flame. My fingertips blistered and burned to black, the oozing blood from my stomach clotted and the skin sizzled and solidified. The only problem was I didn't know how to cauterize a wound.
But the bleeding stopped, so that was enough for me. My skin was alight, swirling with waves of flame. I could hardly see through the smoke, but my eyes couldn't close, I wouldn't let them. I wouldn't fall—wouldn't give up.
Every step was a stinging pain, limping with a bear trap and an iron fist pulling me down. There was shouting and screaming. The hiss of metal against metal. I threw open the door blocking my path and found the foyer of the house a bloody mess.
The staircase had collapsed and smoldered with billowing smoke. Splattered blood, scraps of fabric, and... skin covered the broken windows. There were bodies—I didn't recognize them.
A sudden rush of adrenaline hit me, and I ran through the house into the main living room, right in the middle of the building. It was the biggest room and the epicenter of the fighting, from the sounds I heard.
The room was void of furniture or supplies—just soldiers. And they all bore the crest that haunted my dreams.
My heart lept to my throat and I bit back a sob. Someone's gaze met mine. Perhaps he recognized me. Did I recognize him? Had he seen my picture, heard the story of my pathetic death? Why did he look so much like the man I almost killed to escape my wedding?
A body slammed against mine from behind, making me tumble forward. Hands caught and hoisted me up, and I was suddenly staring at a set of glittering hazel eyes. The echo of a voice reached my ringing ears, but I couldn't make out the sound through the muffled screaming in my head.
I knew those eyes. Like a dream, a distant memory. Familiar, kind—soft. I was cold, so freezing that the shivers were painfully coursing through me. But his hands, his arms—so warm.
Azriel caught me before I hit the ground, bloodied hands stinging with smoke against my molten skin. He didn't care if it scarred.
~)(~
At first, I felt the hard poke of a rock in my shoulder blade. Then, the tickle of grass on my cheek. The breeze stuck like ice to the wetness on my clothes and arms. I could smell the sweet dew soaking onto the tips of grass as the fog rolled over like a blanket. The earliest songs of birds just beginning to wake up, the distant evening farewells of owls disappearing in their hollows.
The echo of branches snapping under footsteps, the cries of those seeing into death's eyes. Shouting, screaming, sobbing. Spilling of liquid and ripping of fabric, popping of flame, and the subtle smell of cooked flesh.
The bluish rays of the early sun burned my eyes as I sat up with a groan. The pain in my side was downright life-ending. It ran deep into my stomach, like broken ribs healed wrong and pinched my spinal cord. I wanted to scream, to fall back asleep just so I could hopefully stop feeling this.
But I couldn't. I had to stand, however painful it was to even breathe. I had to walk, even if it was more excruciating than flaying my skin would be.
A wrapping of fabric kept my stomach from being able to fold, like a corset tied too tight. My hands looked covered in soot, charred and numb from my magic that skidded in my veins like a heartbeat. Rips in my clothes let the cool breeze hit my bare skin and cause me to shiver.
I could hardly see where I was going, just that there were voices I recognized, and the further I walked forward, the closer they got. I stumbled forward like a corpse, tripping over the makeshift beds of sleeping soldiers, splashing in puddles that kicked mud onto my bloody pants. It smelled like death, a metallic, smokey stench that attracted flies and ravens.
The tent flap swung open for me, and I growled a cough that sent aches down my spine. My eyes burned with a flame as I stared at the candles on the table dripping wax waterfalls. What was once a heated argument silenced, and I couldn't drown out the beating hearts that filled my ears as I took another step inside.
"Someone get Miryam," I heard the familiar gravel of a sleep-deprived Jurian say, and someone I hadn't noticed stepped out beside me, causing a gush of air to make my hair stick to my bottom lip.
"I'm going to kill one of you, so pick the worst offender," I growled out, "If you please." The coppery taste of blood filled my mouth, and I spat red onto the grass.
My vision cleared enough to see the blood splatter on Jurian's face, the smeared mud on Cassian's leathers, and the ash turning the shadowsinger's hair grey. None of them looked pleased to see me awake and standing, and that alone made me want to kill all of them.
Then hands were on my shoulders, and Jurian said in my ear, "Sit down before your insides fall out."
I begrudgingly let the mortal lead me to a chair, where I plopped down with a huff of pain. I bent forward and propped my head on an arm, looking up with a raised brow as Cassian passed a mug of alcohol toward me.
They all looked like they wanted to talk, but I lifted a finger and started slowly chugging the drink offered. A sudden unquenchable thirst hit me, and I finished the mug in record time before slamming the now-empty cup on the table.
"You have two minutes to explain what the fuck happened out there, then I'm gonna kill someone," I stated, voice still raw.
"Well, we were all just talking about that before you walked in," Cassian said, and I shot him a glare.
"The High Lord is a bastard," Jurian said, and when the shadowsinger opened his mouth to protest, he said, "Kiss his ass all you want, he's a dick."
"At least we can agree on that," I said, avoiding Cassians' worried glance. "So it was him, then?"
Jurian nodded, rubbing his forehead. "I shouldn't have listened to him—the fucker. He gave all of us different orders like he was... testing us or something."
"That's exactly what he was doing," the shadowsinger said. "And he got exactly what he wanted."
"Oh, was his goal to get Rowena killed? Was it to burn half of the fucking forest in the process? We didn't even catch all the bastards. Is that what he wanted?"
At Jurian's words, I stood so abruptly that the chair fell back. "What?"
"Hold on, can we back this up—what do you mean? Rowena—as in the princess?" Cassian looked increasingly more confused by the second.
Everyone else ignored him, though. Jurian stared daggers at the shadowsinger. "It was your job to make sure no one escaped, and yet someone did."
"I was a little busy trying to keep her insides from falling out," he protested, gesturing to me.
"Oh yes, it's not like you have literal shadows to help you out."
"Are you implying I let this happen?"
"You aren't denying it."
I slammed my fist so hard on the table that it snapped, a giant gash splitting the wood down the center. "Someone escaped? You're telling me... there is someone out there that saw me?"
"I'm confused—why are we so worried about—"
"Shut up, Cassian. I'll explain later," the shadowsinger said, only offering an apologetic glance to the Illyrian.
Jurian finally stopped glaring and turned to look at me. "Yes, someone escaped. We don't know if they saw you or—"
"Oh, they definitely did. Everyone saw me. Fucking hell," I grumbled and dropped my head into my hands.
Someone saw me. They saw me—looked me in the eye—recognized me. Someone knew I was alive, and they were going to tell the king. They're going to tell everyone. He's going to know—going to hunt me down like some exotic pet that escaped their golden cage, a peacock that got lost in the forest.
Everything I built, everything I worked for, was gone. Dust in the wind.
A hand landed on my shoulder, and an all-too-calm voice spoke, "Rowena—"
I shoved him so hard he nearly fell back. "Don't touch me!" I think I actually screamed.
My eyes burned with tears that I wouldn't let fall because they had no right to fall. This wasn't supposed to happen—none of this was supposed to happen.
"This is all your fault," I started with a growl, lunging forward to shove him again. "If you had just stayed with your perfect little High Lord like you were supposed to—none of this would've happened!"
Then I slapped him hard enough that Cassian winced and Jurian averted his eyes. And then I did it again with the back of my hand.
"I should've killed you when I had the chance. Why? Why can't you just leave me alone?"
I started slamming my fists into his chest, screaming the same words repeatedly until they muddled into sobs as I cried. Everything was holding on before, however fragile that peace was. And then he just... waltzed into my life like he had the right, and everything fell apart.
He grabbed my wrists to keep me from hitting him. His voice was a whisper, practically a breath in my ear as he said my name, repeated it like some mantra. His heartbeat was a shield to my sobs, his exhale an embrace.
I wanted to kill him for everything he put me through. And yet I wanted to crumble into pieces just hearing my name fall from his lips.
I stumbled away from him before I could do something utterly stupid. The once manageable pain now bordered on crippling, and I collapsed into Jurian's arms. He shouted for Miryam, and I curled inward from the pinch of the bandages that seemed to snap my skin apart.
I somehow sensed he had inched closer and turned to glare at him. Get away from me. I am in pain, and you put me here.
Miryam's face came into view as she knelt in front of me and shouted at Jurian about being in surgery when he yelled at her for being late. The warmth of her magic flowed through my head, and she pulled a bloodied hand from my abdomen, cursing as she did.
"Whichever one of you made her scream, hope that you don't have to deal with me when you're next injured." She scowled at the two Illyrians like they were disobedient children.
I held onto Jurian as he followed Miryam into a nearby tent, and then Anya held onto me as I reluctantly laid down on an uncomfortable cot. I smiled up at her horrified expression when she looked at my bandages.
"What happened?" she asked Jurian, who grabbed the scissors for Miryam.
"Azriel happened," he said, watching the half-fae cut open the bandages to expose bleeding scabs.
"Azriel? The shadowsinger? I thought they got along," she said, wiping away the blood so Miryam could see where she needed to heal.
"Quiet, I'm trying to focus," Miryam said, and the warm tickle of her magic flowed over me again. "It's not stopping."
"What isn't?" Jurian leaned over like he was looking at a map.
"The blood, the wound won't heal—hold on," she opened a bag and pulled out a pair of tweezers that made my eyes widen.
"That's not going anywhere near me," I said with a breathy laugh.
She glared at me. "So you want to die then? I'll let you—you idiot."
I dropped my head back down with a groan and waved a hand for her to just get on with it—which she did—quite painfully. Thankfully, Anya put a rolled-up cloth in my mouth for me to bite down on as my muffled cries of pain played soundtrack to Miryam poking around in my stomach.
She pulled something out and made an "ah-ha!" sound as she lifted it to the light. "Ash wood. Must've missed a little."
I rolled my eyes and let my head fall back down on the uncomfortable pillow. My heartbeat was in my ears, the blood pooled in my head, and all around I felt like shit. I wanted to die—figuratively. This entire day was horrible.
-Authors Note-
hello hello there!! I hope you enjoyed this chapter, it was very fun to write. though I think I prefer the second half a lot more than the first, let me know though. you guys have completely caught up with me so I'm gonna have to stop slacking and get writing on the next chapter!
OH, you'll like this, the title of this chapter is actually one of my favorite songs by Iron & Wine! I love their music so much and play them a lot when writing so I highly suggest giving them a listen!!
also, over 200 votes is CRAZY, THANK YOU SO MUCH I'M CRYING! you guys are amazing i love y'all and am so happy my weird little hobby is interesting enough, truly! anyway, time to return to my cave so I can write, I hope you had fun reading and please let me know your thoughts! I love comments! Have a great rest of your day/week!!!