Page 23 of Revealing Fate

“You shouldn’t be here, Imogen. There is nothing good here.”

Furious tears welled. “It wasn’t my choice. Queen Serebine sent me back.” She bit off the words, bitter on her tongue. “Only now, I’m not a participant. Now, I get to watch.”

Karrick growled and pushed up from the floor. He began to pace, his chains clanking, wounds leaking to form a trail of bloody footprints. “You should have run, Gen. You should have gotten as far away from here as possible. Claimed a future in the sun, not one buried beneath stone.”

Another stab to her chest. “You say it like it would have been easy. To walk away and never look back. What of your future, Karrick? What of the future we wanted?”

Karrick lurched for the bars, restraints snapping taut. Imogen winced as his cuffs bit deep. “It was a fantasy, Gen,” he growled. “One wasted on me. I am bound by my promise to another.” He rattled his chains. “Bound.”

Imogen stood in a rush and scrubbed at her face. “This was a mistake.”

Karrick glowered in the dark, but when his eyes settled on her face a final time, something else passed over his features.

Imogen turned too abruptly to identify whatever it was. She left the torch and what little warmth it provided near the bars before hurrying toward the stairs. She felt the burn of two black eyes as she left the hall, but she could not bring herself to look back.

Chapter 8

MERESS

MERESS WAS NOT WHAT FELÍNE imagined the Cozened stronghold to be. She’d anticipated a fortress of brick and stone teeming with the brutal efficiency of a traitorous military presence. Not the quiet beauty of a city woven from the surrounding forest.

She and Kal had rejoined an enthusiastic Penn and passed several additional sentries hidden among the foliage. They traveled silently through a shallow glen entirely enclosed by the oppressive weald. Then, as though sprouted from the very earth upon which it stood, the city appeared before them, unfurling like a rare flower within the protected heart of Stillwater Wood.

Felíne gazed in awe as buildings crafted from every kind of lumber surrounded her. Rich walnut. Strong, towering oak. Lovely, pale ash. Rustic pine. So many colors and textures. Felíne wanted to trail her fingers over each unique surface, her senses hungry, ready to devour every detail.

Trees had not been cleared for the construction of the establishments; they’d been bent, twisted, and integrated into the very architecture. Monstrous, ancient sequoias had relinquished hollowed sections of their gargantuan trunks for the creation of grand homes. The tangled, reaching arms of great sycamores clutched larger dwellings in their embrace. Expansive willows draped their flowing cirrus strands over squat roofs and wide windows.

Felíne couldn’t fathom so many varied species of plant life growing in one place. Could never have dreamed of a city built with such consideration for cohesion. She’d walked among the holiest of temples and never witnessed such reverence.

“Something to behold, isn’t it?”

Kal’s quiet, rich timbre seemed to belong in the enchanting wood. His voice slid over her skin like the lazy caress of a falling velvet leaf.

“It’s…magical,” Felíne breathed. “How…Who built this?”

Kal surveyed the town. As in Cindamar, shurii displayed their first and second forms without reservation. However, where the trade center’s occupants had possessed a tangible buzz of excited energy, the people here appeared at ease, their activities less hurried, more settled in the permanence of their environment and the safe shelter of the trees.

“Traitors to the crown,” he said. Felíne’s eyes snapped up. The black tide in Kal’s gaze held her in its thrall. “The Cozened.”

Dumbstruck, Felíne returned her attention to Meress and its people. Her father would forfeit his greatest treasures to witness the Cozened stronghold crushed under his boot, cut down by his blade.

This?

They passed a whimsical cottage cloistered behind a web of wild vines with a flower garden hugging its foundation. This was what the King and Queen of Asteros abhorred so vehemently?

“Monsters, aren’t we?”

Kal’s tone was light, but there was an edge to his expression. He watched her closely, measuring.

An evil blight, she’d once heard her father say.

“No,” Felíne admitted, beginning to understand. “I do not believe evil holds the capacity to cultivate such peace, such wonder.”

The lines of tension near Kal’s eyes eased as though her response loosened some unspoken tether inside of him. He cared for this place. For these people. And he worried that she would not see past their disloyalty to Asteros. How could she not? Her perception had begun to shift the moment a terrifying, cloaked stranger dragged her from home and ripped away the veil through which she’d previously viewed the world.

That world was changed, and Felíne along with it.

A group of young shurii approached from their right, calling to Penn as they neared the stable. He bowed sheepishly to Felíne then bid them farewell, blue eyes laughing as he joined his friends. She watched his white-blond head disappear around the barn.