63. Tale of the wolf

The night was at its darkest hour. Ada withdrew into the alcove, the city below soon smothered in a black so consuming that dawn seemed a lifetime away. Behind Ada was the clock, twice her height but simply fashioned from copper and stone. Its hands moved slowly yet decidedly, powered by a hundred cogs that each promised sunrise would surely come.

"I don't want to go back down there," Ada said, thinking of the Stone Circle's endless tunnels that had never been warmed by sunlight. "If I stay in the city, we can find Solen together. Find the name of the Saltsworn, and then..."

Raeph still sat on the alcove's edge. He didn't turn around, but his face was tilted to one side so that Ada could see the outline of his long nose and tensed jaw. He stared across the city like a sentry of the night.

"You can't stay with me," he finally replied.

Ada realised what he was looking at; the tower of Wysthaven, the only building taller than their perch, its windows climbing towards the sight of stars. A wind whistled between the stones, and Ada felt the cold pass through her.

"Is she the reason?" she asked. "This Lady of Wysthaven?"

"She's the reason I'm alive," Raeph said, and his voice was low, as if speaking of a god.

Ada's heart stuttered a beat. The Lady of Wysthaven. The Saltsworn. No matter what she had been called, Ada had never heard the city's sovereign spoken of with anything but distaste. Apart from by the Hounds. The very thing Raeph had been accused of time and again.

Raeph turned towards her, but without the moon to illuminate his face, his eyes were lost in shadows. "I have hurt you in the past, Ada, and for that, I can only beg for your forgiveness. But I know your name, and you have shown me your family." There was a moment of silence, as if the city below had been swallowed or suffocated. "Now, I will tell you of my family."

No. Ada didn't want to hear it. After everything that she had been through with the bandits, and sweet Min, all of them working against Wysthaven's tyranny, Ada couldn't hear Raeph talk about the Lady in such a way. She didn't think her heart could handle any more cracks unless she wished it to shatter right there. But before she could speak, Raeph went on.

"My family—my blood family—were fae of the free folk. Myself, my brother, father, and mother, we roamed the hills and lived far from Wysthaven's shadow. We could practice magic as we wished, without rulings and without fear of punishment. I was never any good at it, but my brother, he was the most gifted Caster I have ever seen. We both trained under my mother's tutelage, but whilst I was still prodding plants around in puddles, Samael could draw gold from mountains with only a touch of a finger.

"We kept abreast with word from Wysthaven, and heard about the cruelty enacted on those who still used magic within the city by its Lady. My mother was most struck by the stories, and upon receiving whispers of the Stone Circle, she decided to seek them out and provide them with what she could from outside of the city. She left on a night clearer than any I've seen before or since, promising to return by the following sunset, even though my father begged her not to go. We watched all day from the edge of the Wystwood, so we saw the moment her dead body was dragged to the edge of Wysthaven's tower and strung up by the iron necklace."

Ada was shivering, unsure whether the cold or Raeph's tale was the source.

"After that, my father refused to sleep or eat, growing sicker by the day. But Samael was worse by far. He spent all his time Casting, or gathering plants and wood that he could Cast on later. It became an obsession, and without my mother there to guide him, and my father too ill to stop him, he began to walk a path that would have no return. First, he made an iron dagger, and a wystwood sheath to keep it from burning him. It was the cruellest weapon I had ever seen, and he meant to use it to kill the Lady of Wysthaven.

"I could not let him fall into such darkness, so I smuggled it away to the Seer Sisters' cave, trading it for information I thought would save my father's life. I expected Samael to be angry at my return, but he was merely silent for days, watching my father slowly die. I buried him alone, and with my father gone, I could hardly stand to be around my brother. Though also I could not leave him to perish. I still loved him—loved my whole family—despite everything. It was only when I returned to Samael after a number of weeks that I found him Casting in the dead of night over my father's rotting corpse. It sickened me, perhaps would have driven me mad, had Samael not turned to greet me with the happiest smile I had seen in months.

"He had created a new knife, not from iron, but from an ebony wood so dark it looked like Death's own blade. Casting had always been my brother's greatest gift, but when I saw that dagger, I knew it was instead the vilest curse. Samael had taught himself Sanguinary magic, and had used blood to make a blade that could cut out the heart of a creature, leaving them in a half-life whilst their body died and decayed. I begged him not to use it, tried to remind him of what had happened to our mother, but that only swept him further down his path to punish the Lady of Wysthaven.

"Like a fool, I followed him on the day he set out to destroy her. I could not let my whole family die, but I also could not stop Samael from the revenge that kept him living. He walked straight through the city towards the tower, and having Cast with iron before, climbed up to the Lady with little difficulty. I followed behind, far slower as the iron in the walls drained all strength and power from my body. But still, I followed, some small sliver of hope telling me perhaps after Samael had found his revenge, he would return to the brother I loved. When I reached the top of the tower I found Samael before the Lady's throne, his dagger in one of her hands, and his heart in her other. She seemed amused to see me there, let me crawl over to his body and sob until his blood stopped seeping across the stones.

"I remember little of that night, or the many nights that followed. The Lady had me taken to a prison room lower in the tower, and she kept me there for months. At first she seemed interested to know about free life beyond the city, and the magic practiced there. But after that, I was more of a pet than a person to her. I have never known how the Hounds can bare it between those walls built from stone and iron, but for me, it was torture of the purest kind. I scarcely slept from the pain of it. At night, all I could do was press my face to my slit of a window, stare out at the valley where once my family had been free, and cry and howl for all that I had lost to magic and madness.

"The only thing that stopped me from ending my life was Samael's heart, which the Lady still keeps alive and beating. She even threw his dagger back to me the day she released me from the tower, knowing I cannot betray her whilst she holds my brother's life, and that I now loathe to use magic in any case. I have been trapped in this city ever since, doing her bidding like the pet she trained me to be. Little more than a damned half-life."

From behind a bank of clouds, the moon finally emerged, silvery and full. Its light spilt into the alcove, drenching Ada and Raeph, his wet cheeks shining. Raeph's shoulders gave a great shudder, though he didn't make a sound, as if refusing to howl as he had done as a child trapped in the tower. Ada couldn't stand to think of him like that, helpless and hopeless, entirely alone. Like a wolf, howling at the moon.

"Oh, Raeph," she cried, and her arms were around him, holding him tightly, just as he had done for her outside of the ruins of the lyceum.

"I'm going to help you get home, Ada," Raeph said, voice cracked but vehement. "You have my word."

"Yes," whispered Ada, running her fingers through his hair as Raeph clasped her to his chest. "Yes, I know."

They stayed pressed together for a long time, cool starlight soothing their skin until their breathing became even and the slow strokes of Ada's hands gradually softened. When she drew her head back, she found her cheeks were damp, though whether they were from Raeph's tears or her own, she wasn't certain. Still, she turned her neck, and traced her lips down Raeph's face, following the trails of tears until she reached the sharp line of his jaw.

Ada could feel Raeph's heartbeat hammering beneath the delicate skin of his neck. She tilted her head to see a whole universe shimmering above them, yet Raeph looked only at her. In the night's pale light she could now see his eyes, glittering like two stars stolen out from the sky. His hair had fallen across his forehead, making him appear younger, and both of his hands gripped her waist as though worried she may wisp away into the darkness.

In the realm of stars and wishes, Ada drew Raeph close, and kissed him.