The Shadow Princess (Chronicles of the Stone Veil 6)

“Bastien… are you listening to me?”

He blinked at Thalia where she stood beside King. The cloaking spell she’d just cast wasn’t nearly as beautiful as the one she’d spun all those years ago when he’d taken her virginity and sealed their fates.

But back then, she was weaving romance into the protection.

This cloak had no more substance than a faint waver of the air around them, but it still triggered that memory of their first time together.

And it only got better from that first coupling. So many times… secret rendezvous in the palace, Thalia staying overnight in his apartments, which he was sure her parents knew but looked the other way. She was more than of consensual age, and they were betrothed. Bastien had to go away for training, and for six long months they were apart. While Thalia longed for him to just bend distance back to her at night, Bastien took his duties seriously. His training was important because it would be the foundation for his future leadership.

Six months seemed like a brutally long time and when he returned, they were ravenous for each other.

They fell deeper and deeper in love and were planning the wedding of the century. All of Vyronas would celebrate, and their lives would be perfect.

Then Ferelith came, and nothing was right again.

“What’s wrong?” Thalia repeated, moving toward him with concern. “You look… ill.”

Bastien put his fingers to the bridge of his nose and rubbed. “Just a headache,” he muttered, pushing the assault of remembrance away. It hurt him to relive those scenes because they made him feel things that were supposed to have been long dead.

He didn’t like it at all.

* * *

The sun was setting as they approached Avery, a town roughly the size as Clairmont, although it had been established hundreds of years ago and was more settled. While Bastien and Thalia had pretty much stayed out of sight all day, they intended to stop at the town’s inn, owned by Laina Mercea’s brother, Lawrence. They would be safe here and able to get a good night’s sleep before venturing to find Hephastus.

After the horses were stabled, Bastien and Thalia were taken to a room with a bed, a small table that sat four, a wardrobe, and an attached bathroom shared with another room. However, Lawrence said that room was unoccupied and would remain so. Bastien asked for only one room, as he was observing the same safety measures he had in Clairmont… Thalia was not to be out of his line of sight.

Lawrence joined them for a simple meal of stew and bread wherein they discussed the state of affairs in the Rosethorn Valley.

“Ferelith doesn’t have a large presence here since towns are smaller and spread out, but lately, we’ve seen small groups of soldiers riding through.” He tipped his head Thalia’s way. “My guess is they’re looking for the heir to Kestevayne. Rumors have been floating around about your return.”

“We saw none on the way here,” Bastien said, a piece of bread poised in his hand. “But we were careful to stay off the roads.”

“Has she extracted blood oaths from the people in the valley?” Thalia asked.

“No,” Lawrence replied with a shake of his head. “She has everyone so terrified of her just by the horrors we’ve heard happening in Kestevayne and the other cities she’s conquering that no one here would think about rising up against her. I don’t think we’re worth her time right now, but if she’s not stopped, her plague will eventually reach us. For now, it’s enough that she’s put a barrier over the valley to impede travel by bending distance through to Kestevayne.”

Bastien had heard so many stories over the years about Ferelith’s atrocities. He’d seen many of them firsthand when the Kestevayne army, then under the control of his father, made a surging attempt to retake the city. Ferelith had used her blood oaths to control the people into fighting for her, making them no more than mindless creatures who would slit the throats of their own children if they were told to do so.

Just as bad as the blood oaths, Ferelith used blood magic to summon abominations from the Underworld to fight for her. The erchras she sent after Thalia in the First Dimension were but one of many species Kymaris had created in her dominion of Hell. Ferelith used them to cleanse cities of resistance fighters, and the most disturbing rumor was that every person who died after they gave their blood oath increased her power.

After seven years, there was no telling how dangerous she’d become, but Bastien had to grudgingly admit that Hephastus and his knowledge was probably their last hope. If they couldn’t defeat Ferelith, Bastien had to potentially consider relocating their people to another dimension.

Maybe he’d take Thalia back to the First Dimension to live. And yes, he’d be with her because while he didn’t think it possible to ever give her the love and devotion she wanted, he would live out his days protecting her.