Page 81 of Wings of Snow
I clenched my jaw and gave a curt nod. “I’m not surprised. He’s vile. He always has been, and this is exactly the type of perverse thing my father would orchestrate.” Shaking my head, I added, “It makes sense. Everything is starting to make sense.”
“Care to fill me in?” the hunter asked. He’d remained silent while Ilara and I had talked, just as my guards had, but a shrewd expression was again covering the Fire Wolf’s face.
“We have reason to believe the king of the Solis continent is behind all of this,” I replied.
He arched a dark eyebrow. “I’d gathered that much.”
Raking a hand through my hair, I continued, telling him everything, knowing he needed to be aware if we were to work together. “Many lives have been lost to create what’s in this land.” I told him of the missing fae and how we believed the warlock was using them in sacrifices to fuel his magic. “And this all stems from my father who apparently hired this warlock to create the veil deep within this soil. My father was also selective in his victims. He chose fae that were causing dissent about the dying crops, then blamed their deaths on me. All of this was to make me look like the villain and him the savior. He had me purposefully punishing any fae who voiced concern about the crops, which allowed my father’s evil work to continue since it caused our fae to be fearful of speaking up. It’s all coming together, knowing what we know now.”
“Your father sounds as lovely as my mother.” The Fire Wolf smirked, causing a stirring of curiosity to billow through me.
Before I could ask, Ilara squeezed my arm again. “Norivun, I just thought of something else. Do you remember what happened right before we visited this field, on the day of my second test? The veil had felt so strong then, strong enough that I could feel it near the surface. And do you remember what happened the day prior to that? Three fae went missing.Three.”
“He was re-strengthening the veil and needed more lives to do so,” I said, nodding. “He needed to do it to suppress the life you’d created above his initial veil.”
“Yes!” Ilara replied. “If a warlock used three fae to fuel his dark magic and re-create the veil here, it would explain why the crops died overnight and why my affinity hadn’t saved them. The warlock had probably used those three lives to create a newer, stronger veil that suppressed everything I’d done to save this field.” Her words grew faster. “And if he’d just been here, it would explain why his dark magic was close to the surface before the second test and why it was so easy for me to feel, but when we returned, it’d begun to sink deep within the land, which was why I’d had to dive so far to find it again.”
She finally stopped, still panting. Her fingers felt like ice on my skin, her fire element non-existent in her frenzied state.
My insides turned cold. “You’re right. That, too, makes sense.”
I thought back to all of the fae who’d gone missing in the castle during the past full season. Those disappearances had been spaced out. Some had been supporters of the crop concerns, and others had simply gone missing for no apparent reason. My guess was those had been the first ones to disappear. Perhaps they’d been the initial lives needed to fuel the warlock’s dark magic, but the fact that they’d all been taken from the castle further strengthened support that the king was ultimately behind all of this.
My father had the power to allow a warlock to enter the palace, bypassing the wards entirely while allowing the warlock to take unsuspecting fae from within the castle’s walls to sacrifice.
It fed into my father’s twisted end game to create dissent, march upon the Nolus, enact the Olirum Accords to further strengthen our race so we could hold power over our southern neighbor, and all the while, he appeared completely innocent of any wrongdoing.
My throat rolled when I swallowed.
If the missing fae had been used in sacrifices, it explained why none of their bodies had been found and why none had ever returned.
They were all dead.
A sick feeling swept through me. We were literally standing on a field containing dark magic that was swimming in innocents’ blood.
Ilara’s jaw clenched. “Your father needs to be removed from power entirely. He’s not worthy of sitting on the throne.”
“I completely agree, but how are we going to prove that he’s behind it?” I narrowed my eyes as an inferno of Ilara’s determination strummed from her on the bond. “We have to expose him to the citizens of the Solis continent. We need to turn our fae against him, but nobody will believe us unless we can prove it.”
She pressed her lips together, but I was right. Our fae hated me. They loved my father. If it came down to my word against the king’s, I already knew who the victor would be.
“We’ll have to find a connection between your father and the warlock he hired.” Her brow furrowed as she continued. “Rulibs leave a trail. Perhaps we can trace it back through payment, then we can go to the council. If the entire council votes unanimously to remove the king, your father will be forced to abdicate.”
“If we want to avoid a civil war, that’s the only way to remove him. We need the council on our side.”
She nodded. “Let’s hope he didn’t find a way to hide his payments too.”
My grim expression strengthened, because if my father was anything, it was cunning. I highly doubted he would leave a trail like that open, which meant it was possible we’d never be able to prove his involvement, but we had to try.
Right now, though, we had bigger things to deal with. We needed to destroy whatever had been born in this field, and we needed to do itnow.
CHAPTER 24 - NORIVUN
“So how do we get rid of this warlock’s dark magic?” I bit out. Anger stirred in my gut, rising inside me like an inferno at just the thought of this malicious energy inmykingdom and knowing it was something my father had contrived.
The hunter frowned and cocked his head. “Not sure yet. I’ll have to consult an acquaintance who knows more about this stuff than me, then I’ll come back when I have a better idea of how to tackle this. Most likely it’ll be at least a week but probably longer.”
I inhaled his scent but didn’t detect any deceit. Who knew if my sensory affinity could be trusted with someone such as the Fire Wolf, though. But a bargain did seal us, and those could be trusted to work in any realm, so if the hunter left with my rulibs and didn’t return—the bargain’s wrath would follow him.