A Dream of Fate & Flesh (Courts of Malice #2)

43. Welcome Home

forty-three

Welcome Home

Alessia

T he landscape stretches out as far as the eye can see, and in every direction, it appears sickly and somber—shrouded in a dim, foggy haze. Each footstep in Shyga drags, as if the air is protesting our forward momentum. Exhaustion creeps in a lot quicker here, weighing down every step.

“ This is supposed to be a court?” I ask, finding it hard to believe.

“Used to be,” Rainer says.

“What a depressing place,” I murmur. “It’s like a graveyard.”

And it stinks like rotten eggs.

“The land didn’t look like this when the Lírshadows ruled.” He slides his arm down mine, gripping my hand and squeezing it. “So I’ve heard, at least. Kenisius saw it as a faeling.”

Guilt tickles my neck. “Is this because I haven’t been here?”

“This is not your fault.” Rainer’s response is quick and adamant. “It’s Yvanthia’s fault for sending away our kind in the first place.”

Our kind.

“You are admirably kind, selfless, brave.” Rainer loops his arm through mine to keep me upright as we slog through the swamp. “Always the girl—the woman who fights.”

Although I’m not quite a girl or a woman, am I ?

“Is this what will happen to the rest of the realm—if I fail to accept my magic?” I whisper. Do I need to embrace my horrid shadow-self to fix this truly?

Rainer’s silence is answer enough.

A wispy layer of fog rolls over the blackened ground, carrying the scent of rot. I gag. An eerie chill crawls up my spine. My feet stop moving, and I cling to Rainer, anxious about what’s to come.

“Can you distract me,” I murmur. “I—I’m nervous.”

His fingers trail up my spine and neck and tangle with my mess of curls. He pulls my head back gently and leans forward to skim his tongue along my throat. “As much as I’d rather enjoy distracting you, mo róisín, I can’t promise I’ll stop once we begin.”

His words heat my skin with promise and desire. I shudder, my body going lax and leaning into him on its own accord.

“This is not exactly what I mean,” I whisper. I turn my head, denying him access to my neck and planting my lips against his.

He groans, and when he pulls back, there’s a wicked gleam in his eyes and a smirk on his lips. “It worked though, did it not?”

My confusion must show on my face because his smirk morphs into a full smile, and his thumb traces my slick bottom lip. “The distraction? Your pulse no longer throbs with anxiety but with lust.”

I pull free, giving him a fake scowl. “You are a miscreant.”

“You are everything ,” he replies so quietly that even with the silence of the bog, I almost don’t hear him.

We continue at the same pace. It feels like we’re going in circles with no notable landmarks.

The mud beneath our feet gradually transitions from a thick, sticky consistency to a more compacted texture .

“Your arrival as a Lírshadow should quell the spirits. The land will heal if Spiritus Court rises again.” His voice grows thick, and he clears his throat as if forcing himself to go on. “You are here to bring the spirits release and peace.”

“I hope so.” I sigh. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“None of us do, but you’re not alone.”

The forest becomes denser, with many naked, charcoal-hued trees towering like a scorched woodland. Through the mist, faint outlines of buildings poke up, their shapes blending into the hazy background.

That previously unsettling sense of familiarity in the air grows thicker.

At first I can’t place it, but then it hits me.

“Your nightmares,” I whisper, tugging Rainer’s hand. “Why do you have nightmares about this place?”

“I don’t know,” he says earnestly. “No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t decipher it. It’s as if I had an instinctual fear for you, not yet understanding the extent to which you were tied to Shyga.”

I nod, somehow comprehending what he means. Similarly to how I am rooted in the land here, I feel an inexplicable connection to Rainer. We are irresistibly drawn toward one another like there's an invisible string tugging at our hearts and knotting them together.

“How did you and your brother end up in charge of Shyga?” I ask, glancing around nervously.

We continue for a few steps in quiet contemplation.

“My court is closest, and no one else was watching things.” He shakes his head. “It just felt wrong to abandon it. ”

It’s like what he did with the Gleam—assuming responsibility because no one else was doing it. For all his faults, it’s those decisions that tell me he is a remarkable leader.

“When I found Tynan… he was in a bad way.” Rainer goes quiet, squinting into the distance. “I wanted to help but was a coward not to want him in my court.”

We arrive at a dilapidated cottage between bony, towering trees. It leans to the side as the bog swallows its foundation. I inspect it until Rainer slides in front of me, blocking my view.

“Speaking of Tynan,” he mutters.

“Should I be concerned?” I swallow thickly, trying to look past him.

Rainer puts his hands on my shoulders, stepping back into my line of sight. “He won’t hurt you.”

“He’s here, though, right?”

“It’s not that.” His features harden into severe lines, a face of chiseled stone, and my gut tightens in warning. “Before we go further, there’s—”

The sound of a dying animal cuts through the air, its raspy moan echoing. It’s the first sound of life I’ve heard in the swamp. I strain, glancing over his shoulder, but he reaches for me, placing a finger under my chin and guiding my gaze back to him.

“Eyes on me, mo róisín,” he murmurs. “There are things ahead that cannot be unseen. If you want my protection, I will shield you from them in a heartbeat. However, you deserve the freedom of choice.”

My chest warms at his consideration. Though he’s always called me his little rose, I appreciate that he doesn’t treat me like a delicate flower, incapable of handling the hard or heavy .

“My roots are anchored deep enough to withstand the most violent of storms.” I square my shoulders and meet his gaze confidently. “Having you by my side only makes me stronger. I can handle it.”

The animal whimpers again, crying out into the night.

“Did you hear that?” I ask.

He frowns, running a hand nervously through his hair. “That’s what I’m trying to warn you about, Alessia.”

I step past him, drawing closer to the noise. Just beyond the shack, the deathly moans grow louder. My eyes track the sound upwards, and I freeze like a lake in an ice storm.

All the breath exits my lungs in a race.

Suddenly, I’m two inches tall. I’m taken back to places I’ve never wanted to be again.

“What is this?” I croak.

Lord Edvin and Lady Nilda are almost unrecognizable, their expressions marred by pain and smeared with muck. Their naked bodies hang, as pale and spindly as the branches they’re entwined with.

Behind the shock, anger erupts.

" You are not that weak little girl anymore, Alessia. You can handle this. They deserve this. "

I finally agree with that ominous voice inside me. When scrutinizing them, I notice dark dots on their necks, wrists, and thighs.

Vampyr bites.

Not from Rainer, either, because some are healing scabs while others are fresh enough to bleed.

The door to the shack slams open, and I flinch as the crack reverberates through the air. Rainer’s brother steps out. Their similarities are easy to spot now that I’m looking for them. They have the same onyx hair color and scowl.

But they possess more differences than similarities. Tynan’s sheared hair, overly muscular body, and rounded ears give him a look entirely his own. Differences are also found in their demeanors. Rainer carries himself with an understated power and quiet intensity, while Tynan stomps around carelessly, radiating a loud and energetic vibe even in silence. It’s as if the latter has something to prove.

His intense gaze fixates on me as an ill-fitting grin forms.

“I know you are not coming to withdraw my gift, brother.” Tynan crosses his bulging arms and plants his feet into a wide stance before us. “I’ve been a good vamp,” he mocks.

An angry noise comes from Rainer, but his expression remains detached. “We have business that doesn’t concern you.”

“Anything that happens on my land concerns me.” He laughs, but it doesn’t soften his harsh eyes. “I’m over a week sober. I’m fed. What did I possibly do to twist your knickers now?”

A low, pleading moan comes from Nilda. Quicker than a striking snake, Tynan reaches up to where her head dangles, slamming the butt of a dagger into her forehead, effectively knocking her unconscious and silencing her. I hadn’t even seen him pull it out. He slides it back into its holster at his waist and rejoins us.

Rainer sighs, rubbing his forehead.

“What?” Tynan says, amused. “You said no glamour. You didn’t say anything about knocking them out.”

“Always something with you,” Rainer mutters.

Tynan winks at me, then turns to Rainer. “Would you be my brother if you weren’t actively pissed at me? ”

Rainer strides closer to the trees, squinting at the lord and lady. He reaches up, fingering the rope holding them in the tree. After a few moments of quiet inspection, he turns back to his brother. His expression is unreadable.

“How long have you been stringing them up?” he asks.

At first, I think Rainer is talking about the lord and lady, but then Tynan’s laughter breaks through the air. He rubs a hand over his neatly trimmed beard.

“I didn’t think you noticed. Or cared.” He raises a scarred brow. “Mutually beneficial. Your damn fear magic got those trees in a chokehold, though. A pain in the arse to navigate. It’s a nice thrill, at least. Stirs up the mundane.”

With a furrowed brow, I stare at the males, confused. My gaze flickers from Rainer to Tynan, and then I back up the tree where the bodies hang. After a closer look, it hits me. Those old, decomposed bodies we saw in the Cursed Wood on the way here… that was Tynan’s handiwork.

Rainer looks almost like a tired parent scolding a child, with exhaustion etched beneath his eyes and his lips pressed tight.

“You lied," he says to Tynan. "You said the boy was your first recent kill.”

“Did I?” Tynan’s mouth stretches into a dramatic grin. "It wasn't a lie—those weren't recent."

The acknowledgment that Tynan murdered Felix jolts me awake, snapping me from my stupor.

“You killed my friend.” I step past Rainer to stare his brother in the face. “Felix.”

“Could’ve strung him up, too, but I didn’t.” He smiles. His perfectly straight teeth further enrage me—wasted on a smug face like his. “I suppose those apologies were for you, eh? Makes sense, considering.”

I whirl toward Rainer, my bravado deflating. “What apologies?”

A muscle tics in his cheek. “Felix’s message was an apology, he had wanted to make amends.”

Was he coming to Avylon to be with me?

I scrunch my nose at the flood of memories. Felix proved to be nothing more than an acquaintance masquerading as a friend. He didn’t deserve death, but it was the consequences of his own actions that brought him his fate, not mine. Like a relentless iron vise, the guilt tightens around my heart despite my logical understanding.

The same shelf inside me holds the weight of Char’s memory, as well as the guilt and grief I carry for her. Despite her being alive, she’s not the person I believed her to be, and my emotions of love and loss continue to haunt me.

“Felix didn’t say anything else?” I ask Tynan. “About the note… or me?”

To my surprise, Tynan’s smile melts, and he shrugs. “Nope.”

I guess there wasn’t anything more to the letter, then. His death wasn’t some crazy conspiracy, and no profound, important message was lost in translation.

It was simply a botched apology and a rogue vampyr.

I had expected a sense of closure, but instead, a numbness blooms inside me.

" The humans did this to themselves. " That haunting voice comes from within me again. I recognize it now for what it is—my shadow-self. " They deserve worse ."

Turning up toward the tree, I stare at Nilda and Edvin. The voice is right—it all started with them .

" End this so we can begin anew ."

I suck in a sharp breath, searching the bog for a sign of the familiar inky silhouette.

“What is it?” Rainer asks, shoulders rigid as he follows my line of sight.

I spot my shadow-self, wavering near a few trees just beyond the lord and lady.

“There.” I point, and the brothers turn.

“That’s just a shadow-spirit,” Tynan mutters. “It can’t harm you… usually.”

Shaking my head, I turn to Rainer. “That’s me . A piece of me.”

Rainer gazes at me softly before facing his brother. "This is her home—she’s a Lírshadow.”

“Lírshadow?” Tynan repeats, tone infused with confusion.

The dark shadow floats over to us.

“ Finally ,” it says with glee, “ you met me where I rest. ”

Around it, dozens of other shadowy beings begin to pop up, rising from the muck. Their voices overlap, chattering quietly, expressing variations of “ Welcome home , princess. ”

Despite it being the loudest it’s been in hours, my mind has never felt quieter.

“ Welcome home. ”