Drothiker

Syrene’s throat seared with her raspy breaths, her hands bleeding.

The prince had led her to a forest beneath the long cliff to fortress, had her chopping wood after each five mistakes, and yet snarled if she was slow.

She swore at him, not regarding herself with how filthily. His only reply was a grin that had her seeing red. Prince Azryle was a raging pain in the ass, but Syrene knew how to conceal her rage. Had done it for five years in Jegvr. So, she just gave him a boring, uninterested look, always forgetting that he could scent each possible reek of her irritation.

Though his smugness had not been wholly to blame for her bad mood.

When she’d awoken today, Starflame had still been here, slumbering on Syrene’s shoulder. She hadn’t bothered waking the chatty devil up, knowing any debate with the Tiny Moon and urging her to leave would be vain. But when Azryle had come banging at her door, making a show in the crypt so early at dawn, the faerie had soared awake and obscured herself beneath the sheet after a minute of soundless, panicked shrieks.

Syrene had yet a siren to talk to, inveigle her to leave and return to her underwater city—Blueneath. To take Starflame with herself and get the Saqa away from this city, this country. From the Enchanted Queen.

Her jaw still faintly ached thanks to that merciless punch days ago from the ripper. Monster, she’d called him. Had deserved that punch. Not only for all that she had caused the Fallen Duce and Raocete’s tribe by trusting Deisn, or even that she’d wanted to fight him, but simply for calling him it, even as she had known what being called a monster did—the loathing it kernelled.

Syrene didn’t know whether the prince had concealed it too well, or the word indeed had had no repercussion on him.

Either way, she hadn’t been able to help that tinge of guilt it had sowed in her, remembering what the word did to her. Even conscious that she had indeed been a monster, the word churned her gut.

But any guilt was tossed away today, seeing that smug, taunting grin. She paid him no heed, and brewed whatever grounds to impart with Starflame and Levsenn to convince them to leave. They will both be slaughtered here if perceived by wrong eyes.

“You know,” started Azryle from where she knew he was perched against a tree behind her. “I’ve trained actual cubs, around the age of ten—fifteen, at most. And even they chopped faster.”

Her jaw clenched to the point of pain. But she breathed through it, willed herself to not give him the satisfaction. “I’ve been trained by better assholes. Yet here we are.”

“You mean to tell me you’ve been trained before?”

Bastard. “I don’t think the Lady of Wolves would be very pleased with you mocking her as a trainer.” Her throat tightened as she added, “Or Hexet Evreyan.”

He didn’t say anything for a long moment, and she frowned towards her bleeding hands as she swung the axe. But then His Highness asked, with less taunt in tone, “The Fallen Duce trained you?”

She didn’t reply. Couldn’t—the tightening in her throat forbade it. Syrene would rather be skinned alive than conform to Deisn as her duce.

No—never.

It was said that only the Evreyan bloodline was meant to have that position, blessed by the stars themselves, no one else. If Duce Hexet would have had an heir, even if Deisn had slain the Fallen, it would have been the Heir seizing the position. But as far as the world was aware, Duce Hexet had had no heir, no one to continue the legacy. Hexet Evreyan had spent forty years providing the tribes, sustaining peace, defusing the sparking rivalries, Syrene doubted her duce had focused on her own life for even a moment.

She had been a half-hemvae, so there had been no tribe of her own. There weren’t enough in the world to form a tribe. Hexet Evreyan had fallen alone, and yet the warrior had put up a fight worth remembering for centuries and centuries.

Hold your heart sturdy, your will unyielding, and you shall see the power in trembling the cores. Syrene swallowed hard at her mother’s ghostly whisper.

Deisn took the opportunity and slew Hexet before she could produce an heir. Before another weakling—a half-hemvae, apparently—could come in power to rule the stronger ones.

After the Fallen Duce, the Lady of Wolves was the next who deserved the position. But Deisn had known Roacete would never go against Hexet—even when the whole world had known the power of the Prime of Wolves. Even Hexet herself had known half a thought from Raocete would have had her crumpling beneath the prime’s canines and claws.

But Raocete’s and Hexet’s secret was known by none other but Syrene.

That the Lady of Wolves had been the Fallen Duce’s lover.

How Deisn was still alive, Syrene hadn’t the faintest idea. Though she knew Raocete was also ten kinds of wise, must have considered each odd to have remained silent—to not have slaughtered the sorceress on sight.

Syrene said finally, “Getting trained by two strongest women on Ianov just to get trained by an asshole in the end doesn’t exactly bellow good luck, does it?”

She heard the grin in his voice. “That jaw still hurts, doesn’t it?”

“Like I said: asshole.”

Groaning at the aching back, Syrene straightened, her spine in pure agony. The hatchet slumped off her hand, almost tasting her toes. She turned to Azryle, finding him sucking on an apple, that brutally tattooed jaw in a maneuver as he chewed; perched against a broad tree—sunset like flecks of flames in his silver eyes. His eyebrows lifted. “Did I tell you to stop?”

“I’m fairly certain chopping wood is not what I’ll be doing during the duel,” groaned Syrene, rubbing sweat off her brows.

Azryle returned to his apple. “Pick up the hatchet.”

What a prick. “But—”

Silver eyes lifted at her, a muscle in his jaw feathered, yet his expression remained bored rigid, and Syrene refused to shrink from him. “Pick up the hatchet.” His lashes were so long that they touched his cheeks, Syrene noticed.

She ignored the mounting stinging and pain in her hands. “Why not start with swords, or daggers—”

From the corner of her eye, a slight movement and silent rustling in trees behind her was all she perceived before something hurled for her head. Her heart slowing, it was an instinct to turn as she began ducking—

But Azryle was already there.

With ripper speed, the prince lunged for the wolf. Syrene’s heart began hammering in her chest, so loud that the growl of the beast sounded a whisper.

“Pick up the damn hatchet, cub,” Azryle snarled from where he rolled with the wolf on the twigs, unsheathing his daggers as he went.

The beast growled viciously, trying everything to get out of the prince’s grip.

And it did.

Azryle had his weapons gripped when the wolf lunged for him again, canines and fangs flashing, ready to bite the prince’s flesh off, who was grinning, welcoming the beast, riling it—taunting it.

He swept to side in an easy maneuver, grace like moving with winds, having the wolf taste twigs, paws shredding them.

Syrene’s gaze slid to the hatchet beside her, hand stretched for it and she uncoiled to her feet. But—

The prince was saying, “You’ve been following her for days now, waiting for her to be alone.” The paws swept for him, he barely moved to dodge it. “Got tired of waiting, did you?”

Words did not register over the roaring in her ears. But she damn well perceived the gait of the wolf, the familiar growl and the silver streaks in brown hair.

The hatchet hit the ground again. “Kessian?” The name a push of air from her lips.

The wolf paused and snarled hungrily in her direction, she ignored Azryle’s irritated look. Kessian began walking towards her, but slammed into something; the barrier unveiled by a ripple of light in the wolf’s wake. “I don’t think so.” Azryle smiled sweetly.

Kessian growled at the prince, not daring to dash for him again. So the man shifted.

Syrene’s eyes stung at the brown hair, at the forest eyes, golden-brown skin gleaming in the orange of the setting sun. Charming face now limned with filthy, pure rage. Towards her.

It was the face of Lucran, the friend she’d killed. His twin a reminder of her deeds, each moment she’d savored in killing Kessian’s brother in that monstrous form. But the tear that slithered down her cheek was not of the guilt, but at seeing a familiar face after three decades.

And even that was caked with hatred towards her. Lucran’s face. Her heart tightened to the point of pain. Killing, crucifying pain.

“You killed him,” was all Kessian spat, nothing warm in his voice. “You killed him!” His hand slammed against the barrier, as if impatient to break through and pierce his canines in her skin, earning a flash of light.

Syrene was too numb to move, to reply and confirm.

Lucran had been Kessian’s mentor, his only family and tutor and friend. Their parents had been assholes, so they’d both joined Wolf Tribe when they had been very young, to keep their parents from approaching them and hauling them back to that Saqaish Tribe—as they’d called their family.

Where Lucran had been a charming, cheerful—yet deadly—warrior, Kessian carried death and coldness in his eyes, those forest eyes had only softened around his twin brother. Lucran had been fully equipped to protect himself, yet Kessian deemed it significant that he be there around Lucran round the clock.

Lucran’s Tail, they’d teased Kessian. And never once had he let that trouble him.

Once, a woman in their pack had snagged Kessian’s attention, and he’d tried out flirting with Syrene. They’d built friendship after that, and Lucran had been more than thrilled to find that Kessian had discovered a friend at long last and had begun uncloaking warmth towards someone who had not been Lucran himself.

Syrene still remembered the joy and content in her lost friend’s eyes.

But long gone was that warmth, that building friendship from those forest eyes. Only the coldness—worse than before—and hatred had persisted towards her.

“Kessian …” Tears streamed down her face, not caring about the prince who glared, certainly not minding his own business.

The wolf spat at the twigs. “Again with those phony tears?” He sneered. “Those tears had been what had seized his attention, hadn’t they? That night when you’d into the forest.”

That night—when her family had been slayed. After she’d run for hours and hours, had her knees bleeding, Starflame had found Syrene and ushered her to the forest, where Raocete’s pack had been dining after day’s work. Lucran, who’d been just twelve himself, and new to the pack, had bandaged her that night, earning a warning look from Kessian to be vigilant.

“Deisn said you tore his flesh to bone, left his body to rot in some tower, didn’t even bother burying him.”

It was hard to breathe—so hard to take the air all the way to her lungs. Syrene hadn’t remembered that particular detail. But now … now …

From the haze of darkness, memories clawed at her mind, Lucran’s screams and pleas pierced in her ears, and Syrene felt as if she was being towed back to that day—back to that darkness and sorrow and thick, timeless void.

“So it’s true, then.” Kessian’s wrath was anything but that of a human. “You’re a coward. A selfish coward who has been running all her life from everything. You deceived him to get into the tribe, never acknowledged that he loved you—”

World crumpled down, and she stopped listening.

She just—stopped listening. There was a constant ringing in her ears. It was like being tugged underwater, and someone’s hand on her heart and claws grating—

She hadn’t known—never noticed. Too busy in trainings and endeavoring to amaze Raocete and Hexet Evreyan, to get accepted …

That was why Lucran had volunteered—to lift the curse. Ventured in that tower knowing what she had been, knowing the thin chances of getting out alive. He had … he had—

“Pathetic,” Kessian spat. “You’ve always been so pathetic, Syrene. You deserved whatever they did to you in Jegvr, you deserve the slavery ahead of you.”

The words lingered, rung in her bones and flesh. Rung through each crack in her soul. And she only rasped, “I know.” Syrene’s tears had dried on her cheeks.

Kessian saw it—the misery, the effect his words had on her, what seeing abhorrence on Lucran’s face did to her. And flashed a grin. Cold, vicious. “I came to kill you, have been waiting for weeks to get a chance.” A shrug. “I would love to see you die like this instead.”

Those words were from the man who’d once laughed with her, perched with her and teased Lucran to tears. Had once sunk down beside her all night and told her that she deserved happiness and friendship minutes after Syrene had been standing at the edge of a cliff, debating whether it would be painful to just … end it all in a fall, so tired of running from assassins, too much burden weighing her down.

She had been a step away from diving when Kessian had come rushing from behind, holding Windsong in his hand. She’d given the sword to Lucran, asking him to protect it at all costs before venturing to that cliff, and it had seemed to have had caused qualms to Kessian.

He’d planted himself there all night; maybe fearful that she might end everything if he left. And maybe she might have, had Kessian been absent for even a moment. Had he not hauled her back to Lucran and prompted that she had someone to live for.

The man whose life she butchered.

Kessian’s next words were like talons to her chest. But even those talons would have felt less slaughtering. “I wish you had jumped that night; so my brother would have been alive.”

And then she was deep underwater, drowning out everything. Kessian remained speaking, but there was nothing left in Syrene.

Nothing.

Azryle said something with still expression that had Kessian snarling, but the voices were drowned.

When she dug in, to the place where her monster lived, to tug it out, to help her swim out of this deep end, she found nothing but hollow ringing.

And Syrene willed herself to get lost in it.