I smile. “You are perfect, brother.”
He gives me a matching grin.
“And if anyone tries to oppose us in claiming Sixth or with having our hand in naming a Fifth heir?” Keon questions worriedly.
My smile grows sharp, twisted with ruthlessness. “Any voice that speaks up against me, won’t have a voice to use after that.”
And if Lady Auren thinks she can take what I’ve worked for, she’s going to realize soon that she’s not the only one who knows how to steal what she wants.
I may not have gold-touch, and I may not have rot, but words are the most powerful weapon of all, and I will wield them.
CHAPTER 2
SLADE
There’s a tempest dredging the sky, while I hold a lifeless body in my arms.
The impending storm is coming in with bared, frozen teeth to scrape the air with malice, its sharp frigidity beating at my face as it roars.
In my head, I’m counting the seconds. It took sixty for my timberwing to get to me, called from the whistle bursting between clenched teeth. Another forty to get on Argo’s back, for Lu to strap me in as I held Auren in my arms.
Another sixty seconds has taken us here, into the clutches of the clouds that are closing in. The night’s weather has decided to turn on me, the signs of an impending storm clogging the horizon like tufts of cotton in a drain.
Ice scrapes against my cheeks like jagged fingernails as my timberwing rushes on. I hold Auren closer, keeping my cloak over her, angling her face against my chest as my arms tuck her tightly to my body.
She’s too cold, too exposed, too still.
Her heart doesn’t beat, her chest doesn’t rise, her skin has gone sallow. All because of me. Because of what I did.
With a quick glance over my shoulder, I see Ranhold Castle below, lit up with torches. The face of it has now been marred with a splash of angry, solidified gold, erupting through the mouth of the doors and staining the gray stonework like insipid gilt magma that went inert before it could do any further damage.
It looks like the gold was trying to eat its way through the whole damn castle. To inhale it from an unforgiving mouth and devour it with wrath. Like a dam giving way, this is what happens when power is suppressed for too long, left to collect, to rise, to beat against its containment until the cracks form and it can finally break free.
I turn back around and hold Auren a little bit tighter.
I’ve got to get away from the castle—from the gold—but how much further is the question. Because every second I wait puts her in even more danger.
There’s a double-edged sword, and Auren’s life is balancing at the tip of it.
I have to get her as far away as I can, but I can’t risk leaving her in this rotted stasis for too long. Without knowing how far her power can reach, it’s a guessing game as to how far we need to go.
All I want to do is get the rot out of her. Her body can’t take more depletion. I need to have her on land too, settled and secure, because when I remove my power, there’s a chance she can still call on hers, and I can’t have that happen in the air.
Her aura is nothing but a pale wisp, like dying mist in the light. If I wait too long, my power that’s infested her will do more damage than I can reverse, and I can’t let that happen either. I can’t let either of those things happen. So this will be down to the very last second.
Time and distance are my enemy and my ally.
With anxious worry, my heels come up to nudge my timberwing. He lets out a call, either to show his displeasure or to signal to the rest of the flock. I know the others are following.
“Faster, Argo,” I urge the feathered beast, though my voice gets ripped away like hands snatching stolen trinkets.
Although the wind beats at us, Argo pushes on in a burst of speed, and I keep the reins loose to give him his head as his giant wings stretch out and cut through the night sky, lit up only by a veiled moon. I get jerked back, and if it weren’t for the leather strap from the saddle hooked to the buckled belt around my waist, there’s a good chance I would’ve fallen right off.
Wouldn’t be the first time.
Yet right now, I’m not riding for sport or for scouting. This is life and death.
Her life.
We fly as fast as possible away from Ranhold, and Fifth Kingdom’s skies seem to punish us for it. Perhaps the deceased King Fulke and Prince Niven want someone to blame for their demise.
Some of Auren’s hair slips out from beneath the hood of my cloak, its golden strands whipping around in the wind. With one hand, I pull the cloak tighter around her ear, trying to keep the cold from touching her even though I know she can’t feel it.