Chapter 14 14
RONAN'S POV
The heart of the wildlands had four kings and a score or more of guards, plus so much tension you could choke on it.
Draven was already seated in one of the stone benches, a bit too pale for Sam’s liking. The black blood had ceased after what he guessed was an hour of misery, but the harm had been done. He was broken, but not in the physical sense of the word.
He'd been checked by healers of all four realms. All seem to have concluded the same thing. There was nothing physically wrong. It was the curse, reacting to the imminent return of the Fifth King.
“This is fucking insane,” I growled, pacing. We can’t just say, okay, one of us has to die. There has to be another way."
“If there is, we have not found it,” Kael said. "We've consulted every text. The pattern is clear. Three of four shall remain. One must fall."
“Then we finish him off before that blood moon comes up.”
“You can’t kill what never really lived,” Lucien told him. "The Fifth King is raw power. You would be just as likely to attempt to kill darkness."
"So we just accept this?" I demanded. “Who wants to volunteer?”
Silence fell, heavy and uncomfortable.
“I’ll take it,” Draven said, his voice low.
We all stared at him.
"You're weakened," Kael protested. "You're not thinking clearly."
"I'm thinking perfectly clearly. I have already been cursed. I'm the logical choice."
"No," I growled, more surprised by the vehemence than anything else. "We're not sacrificing anyone."
"Then what do you suggest?" Draven asked.
"I should hoist Aria and make a run for it. Conceal her in my forests, that not one of you may discover her.”
"That's your solution?" Kael's voice dripped with disdain. "Run and hide like cowards? That's very lycan of you."
At the far side of the clearing in a rush, without even thinking, I held him by his throat. "Say that again, pretty boy."
“Enough,” Lucien’s voice was the sound of a cracking whip. Shadows pulled us apart. "Fighting each other solves nothing. Ronan, hiding Aria won't work. The mark binds him to the Fifth King. He'll find her anywhere."
I knew he was right, but that didn’t make it better.
“We have to keep training her some more,” I finally said. “That’s the only thing we can control right now.”
"Agreed," Draven said. “I had a good session with her. She learns fast, when she needs to.”
"Then it's my turn," I said. I will lead her to the dense woods tomorrow. Teach her to fight like a lycan, how to let her instincts win.
The following morning the Night Palace turned Aria's charm over to me. Her eyes were dark circled and she looked tired.
"Ready for your next lesson?" I asked.
"Do I have a choice?"
"Not really. Now, come on, we have a ways to walk.”
I took her down into Lyra's deepest forest, deeper than any human dare wander. These were old woods and some presence of them entered into people.
"It's beautiful," she said softly. "Dangerous, but beautiful."
“That’s Lyra in a nutshell,” I concurred. “Either everything here wants to kill you, or will end up being your best friend.”
We entered a clearing with immense ancient oaks all around it. Private, defensible, perfect for training.
“Draven trained you to feel with something other than your eyes,” I reminded him. ” And now you have to learn how to fight for real. Not avoid — strike, and crush them.”
"I don't know how to fight."
"Then it's time you learned. You have to be evil, fight filthy, do whatever you have to do to live.”
I began to take off my shirt. "Shifting. You have to see how wolves travel. Can't do that in human form."
"What are you doing?" Aria asked, her cheeks flushing.
"Can't fight nature, sweetheart. "Wolf doesn't follow human ideas of modesty."
“At least could you turn away from me?” she muttered.
I laughed and did it. In an instant, I was on all fours and the size of a bear with my fur as dark as night and golden eyes.
It was clear, and I crawled close and dropped my head. Touch me. Don't be afraid.
She hesitantly draped her hand over my head. I could feel what she felt through the bond. Connection, recognition, rightness.
“Your wolf is so pretty,” she murmured.
For the next hour I would illustrate how wolves moved, hunted, fought. I was dressing when I returned and she had a concerned look on her face.
“You fight with your entire body,” she observed. “Each one ripples into the next.”
"Exactly. That’s what I want to show you.”
We spent the afternoon sparring. Her morale would plummet when she failed to land a hit, but she would always try again.
Finally, she managed it. She faked left, I bit, and she popped me for my legs. I fell heavily, and before I could brace myself, she was on top of me, one forearm against my windpipe.
"Yield?" she asked, breathless and grinning.
"Yeah, sweetheart. I yield."
She rolled off, squealing with glee. "I did it!"
I took her to a hot spring in the woods as the sun set.
“You deserve to be left alone,” I said. "The water has healing properties."
I left her alone, facing the spring with my back to her.
"Ronan?" she said a couple of minutes later.
"Yeah?"
"Can I ask you something? About the mate bond? Is it real? What you feel for me?"
I wondered how to be honest in my response. "The mate bond is the most real thing there is from a lycan point of view. It's recognition. My wolf spotted you and that was it, immediately and irrevocably knew that you were ours."
“But you don’t even know me.”
I said, turning and avoiding eye contact with her face. “Because when I see you, I’m not simply seeing what you are. I see who you could become. I see your fortitude, your stubbornness, your refusal to surrender. That's not the mark talking. That’s me looking you in the eye and saying: That there, that’s not looking away.”
“The others know it, too,” I went on. "Different from how I do. But real. The mate bond is not what makes love, Aria. It only knows what is already in place.”
“That’s the thing that frightens me,” she acknowledged.
“I liked it,” I said.“Even when Draven kissed me last night, I was wanting it. But was that me, or was it the mark?”
I felt a flare of jealousy in my chest, and I pushed it down. "Does it matter? If it feels true, if that’s what you wanted in the moment, does the source matter?”
"Yes. I must trust myself to make my own decisions and not someone else’s, you see.
“The bond could bring it to your notice and make the draw stronger. “But it can’t make you feel things that aren’t there already.”
"And you? What am I drawn to with you?"
"Freedom. You can drop the charade with me about your purported action.” You can be messy and emotional and human.”
She smiled. "I like that. The honesty."
Howls in the distance cut our conversation short. Alarms.
I ran, Aria raced beside me. When we stumbled into the glade, we discovered lycan warriors standing over a stranger.
She was female and yet not a woman. There was something uncanny about the way her dark hair appeared to come alive. Her eyes oscillated between human brown and something ancient, starlit.
The other three kings were already there, armed.
"Who are you?" I hissed, stepping in front of her and Aria defensively.
“Mira,” the woman said. "I come on behalf of the Veil - I have been sent with a warning.
"What warning?" Kael asked.
“The Fifth King is not waiting for the blood moon,” Mira commented. “He slipped between the cracks early. Within three days, possibly less, he will be out. And when he finds her, he will take care of her first.”
She pointed directly at Aria.
"There's more," Mira continued. “She had a child in one of her past lives, as Celeste. His child, begotten before she divided her will to bring about the four realms."
The clearing went absolutely silent.
"What?" Aria whispered, her face pale.
“Before the curse was unleashed, the child was secreted away, guarded by magic transcending even realms. It has been in stasis, not alive but not dead — waiting. And if the Fifth King discovers it first, then he will also use it against you! He will manipulate you with your maternal instinct to destroy you."
Mira's form began to fade. "You have three days to find the child and keep it safe. Three days before the Sunrise King. Three days before the end of all you know.”
She vanished, and then nothing was left but the echoes of her last words in the grove.
I glanced at Aria and saw shock, terror and a desperate sense of wanting to protect something she didn’t even remember existed.
"I've got to kid," she whispered. "Out there I have a child and the Fifth King is going to use it against me."
And we had three days to find it before they did.