Fall of Ruin and Wrath (Awakening, #1)

Hymel jerked his hand free, backing up as he stared at me. “What did you see?” The skin above his beard paled. “What did you see?” He took a step toward me—

The door behind him opened then, stopping him. My gaze lifted, and my laugh died on my lips. The sight of the cloaked Rae waiting in the hall sent my heart racing, but what came into the chamber behind Hymel caused me to take a step back.

The too-shallow breath I took felt heavier, thicker, and tasted of . . . of something I hadn’t thought about in years— mints the Prioress used to keep in the pockets of her robes. Power suddenly drenched the air, seeping along the walls and across the floor, soaking every nook and cranny of the space. My skin danced with static.

Cloaked shoulders almost too wide to fit filled the entrance; the male was so tall he had to dip his head to step through the door-frame. He straightened, revealing sculpted, sharp features, and hair a light, silvery blond.

I recognized him.

It was the Hyhborn I’d seen in the Great Chamber, earlier this evening. He’d looked at me and had smiled. The one I thought looked so much like Lord Samriel, and he did. His hair was shorter, though, reaching his shoulders, and his face even thinner, crescent-shaped.

“Lord Arion.” Hymel bowed quickly.

I would swear the lunea blade heated in its sheath as I took another step back.

“So this is her?” Lord Arion asked, his appraisal cooler than Lord Samriel’s.

“Yes, my lord.”

His head tilted in a distinctively serpentlike manner. “For your sake,” he said to me, “I hope he is correct. My brother seems to think so, but we shall see.”

Lord Arion was so quick, and there was no place for me to go. He was standing before me in a heartbeat, one hand at my throat, his eyes identical to Lord Samriel’s. “Well, let’s not delay this, shall we?”

“What— ?” I gasped.

His other hand flattened against my temple. His lips moved. He spoke low and quick in a language that sounded like Enochian—

A sudden sharp pain darted across the back of my skull, then over the front of my face. Pressure built inside me. I cried out, squeezing my eyes shut as the pain traveled there. Bright white lights exploded behind my closed lids. The agony, it felt like a fire. My legs shook, and I thought I would fall. That I’d fall and be burned from the inside—

Then the pain eased off as quickly as it had started, leaving only a dull ache behind, in my temples and below my brow.

“Open your eyes,” Lord Arion demanded.

I blinked them open, half afraid to discover that I was now blind, but I wasn’t. My eyes locked with the Lord’s.

“My brother tells me you were given to the Priory as a babe.” Lord Arion stared down at me, his lips parted. “He was right. They tried to hide you, but you’re no longer hidden. I see you for what you are.” The grip on my throat vanished. “Our liege will be very pleased that we’ve found him an unbound ny’seraph.”

I stumbled back, hitting the settee but keeping my balance.

Lord Arion smiled, turning away. He spoke to the Rae in Enochian. Half of them departed quietly, leaving two remaining.

“Where are they going?” Hymel asked.

The Lord turned his head to him. “They are going to share the good news.”

“All right.” Hymel nodded, a tentative smile appearing. “Then I should go to them, to close out our deal.”

Slowly, my gaze shifted to Hymel, and I knew when I read him moments earlier that whatever deal Hymel had struck with the Hyhborn, it hadn’t been a wise one. He hadn’t laid out whatever terms he’d agreed to clearly. He was a fool.

“You did well.” Lord Arion faced Hymel, his cloak fluttering over the floor as he approached him. “Our king will be forever appreciative of your service.” He cupped the man’s cheeks, pressing his lips to Hymel’s forehead. He lifted his head. “It will not be forgotten.”

Hymel’s tentative smile faded.

There was a quiet moment.

Just a heartbeat.

The crack of Hymel’s neck snapping shattered the silence.

I watched as Hymel . . . as he crumpled, just as I’d seen, dead before he hit the floor.





CHAPTER 38


“I think we’re being followed,” Grady whispered in the darkness of the unfamiliar chamber of the Bell’s Inn, somewhere in the Midlands.

We lay facing one another on a narrow, stiff-as-a-board bed, but at least it was an actual bed indoors. We’d spent a few hours the night before camped alongside the Bone Road while coyotes howled and whined as if they could sense the Hyhborn’s presence and were unsettled.

The only reason we were together was because the Bell’s Inn didn’t have a lot of rooms, and the Hyhborn, well, they might have curled their lips at the accommodations, but they weren’t all displeased when they discovered that the owner offered more than food and drink to his patrons. The owner, a thin man who went by the name Buck and didn’t seem all that concerned when he spotted me barefoot and Grady bloodied, also had flesh on the menu.

Just then, a cry of pleasure came from the floor above, momentarily overshadowing the steady thump of a headboard hitting the wall.

The Hyhborn were clearly enjoying themselves.

My gaze flicked up, where thin slivers of moonlight crawled across the ceiling. We were supposed to be sleeping. That was Prince Rohan’s order, but the thin walls did nothing to block sound. We could hear every grunt and moan.

“Gods,” Grady muttered wearily. “Do they ever stop fucking? They’ve been at it for hours.”

“I hope not.” I pulled my gaze from the ceiling. “They may separate us.”

“Yeah.” Grady sighed, and he shifted slightly, trying to get comfortable, but he couldn’t move very much with his arms bound above his head with chain secured to the headboard.

I wasn’t bound.

Because according to the Prince, I wasn’t being held captive. I was being rescued, and I thought they really believed that. But I also knew they had no reason to fear me attempting to make an escape. They were partly correct there. The first thing I did the moment they left was try to free Grady. I even used the lunea blade they’d yet to discover on me, but the chain . . . it was constructed of the same material, and I learned then that lunea could not pierce, crack, or shatter itself. But again, they were partly correct. Thanks to Hymel, they knew I wouldn’t leave Grady behind. I glanced at him, hating that he was in this situation because of me.

“Your eyes,” he said, voice thick. “I can’t get used to them.”

My eyes . . .

I’d finally seen them when we were placed in here and I was able to use the bathing chamber. There was a dirty mirror above the vanity and the light in there had been dim, but I’d seen them. The incandescent blue rings circled my pupils, just like they briefly had before. Whatever glamour the Prioress supposedly used had hidden them all these years, and I didn’t know if the glimpse of them before had been the glamour weakening or something.

“Are they . . . weird?” I asked.

“Kind of,” he admitted. “They’re also kind of pretty.”

I shook my head. “You were saying you think we’re being followed?”

“I heard Lord Arion talking to one of their knights this evening, before we stopped here. I didn’t hear why he thought this, but that’s why they wanted off the Bone Road for the night,” he said.

I swallowed, throat dry. There hadn’t been much in the way of food and water. Just a glass for each of us and something that was supposed to be a beef stew that we’d been given on our arrival. But if we were being followed? A tiny bit of hope sprang alive. Was it . . . was it Thorne? And if it was, what would happen then? “Do you think it could be . . . Thorne and his knights?”

Grady didn’t answer immediately. “I don’t know.”