I opened the green door to the centre tower and pulled the human inside with me. I had no idea what would greet me here after being gone for so long.

But by the stars, I was about to find out.

OceanofPDF.com

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER NINE Wylfrael

The door closed behind us with a soft thud. The entrance hall was just as I’d left it – a wide, tall space with dark green, shimmering walls. The floor, like the tunnels that connected the three towers to each other, was made of hundreds of shards of trees melded together. The colours had been chosen and placed carefully, creating a large pink, silver, and purple starburst in a deep green sky. I could see the floor’s design clearly – there was light. Firestones flickered along divots and shelves in the natural shape of the walls, casting a fractured orange glow over the interior.

So, someone is here, then.

Firestones only burned for a dozen days or so before they had to be replaced.

Ahead of us was a curving staircase that led upwards to the higher floors of this centre tower, called the Day Tower. White sotasha fur carpet spilled down the steps like a stream of foaming water. At the back of the hall, another door led into the kitchen and laundry areas, and a door back there led outside to the gardens and barns.

“You can stop that, now,” I muttered, casting my eyes sideways and down at the human. She was still fighting against my grip, her strange eyes darting back and forth, her breath coming fast and quick between red lips. I frowned, tugging her close and leaning down to inspect her face. Had her lips and skin not had a blue and grey tint earlier? When I’d first found her in the snow? I was sure of it, but now her skin was all pink and crimson, her cheeks flaming and her lips darkest of all.

Perhaps humans had colour-changing hide? I’d met other races with such a feature. I raised my free hand, drawing a fingertip along her cheek. Her pulling and struggling ceased instantly. Her eyes went wide – so wide I could see that the golden-brown part in the centre was actually a circle, with white all the way around. Strangely enough, the black of her eye also seemed much more pronounced than it had been outside. Swallowing up the warmth. Colour changing eyes as well? To what purpose?

“What is the meaning of this? Your shifting skin and eyes?” I asked, drawing my finger along the hollow of space below her left eye. Her skin shocked me with just how soft and delicate it was, plush and supple, blooming heat beneath my touch.

I knew asking her questions was pointless right now. But I couldn’t stop myself. I needed to understand her, and by extension, the humans who’d invaded my world. She did not answer with words. She merely trembled for a moment, staring at my face. Then, her lips flattening into a grim line, she raised her hand and knocked my finger away.

I let her do it, having found no answers in my exploration of her cheek. When my finger dropped, her hand flattened against the side of her face, pressing against the places I’d touched her. As if trying to shield herself from further touches. Or trying to press comfort upon a wound.

Had that simple touch hurt her? Stone of the sky, humans were even weaker than I’d thought.

I made a conscious effort to loosen my grip on her upper arm. Just in case.

I did not have more time to dwell upon the human’s physical fragility. A sudden clatter of movement upon the stairs drew the woman’s attention along with my own.

“Sionnach preserve me! Is that... Is that you, Lord Wylfrael?”

A young Sionnachan woman stood upon the stairs, her upper half in shadow, as she’d halted, presumably due to shock, partway down where the firestone light only reached her legs.

“Yes,” I replied in the Sionnachan tongue. “I’ve returned.” Far later than I meant to...

“Oh... Oh, my! Shoshen! Shoshen!”

The Sionnachan woman bounded back up the way she’d come, her bushy tail a furred orange flash, continuing to call for someone I assumed was named Shoshen. A muffled, questioning reply came from somewhere up above, to which she barked, “The lord’s returned, you great bumble wit! Get down here at once!”

The commotion we’d brought had now clearly extended to the upper floors, as I heard the distinct sound of something dropping and smashing, followed by a string of panicky curses. A back-and-forth conversation ensued before two sets of Sionnachan feet in slippers began making haste down the stairs. The two stopped before me, panting slightly.

“Forgive me, my lord,” said the young woman. She flattened her pointed orange ears – ears so similar in shape to my own – in a show of deference. A quick whack of her tail against the other Sionnachan’s bottom had him flattening his ears as well.

“Yes, forgive us, Lord Wylfrael,” said the other Sionnachan, a young male who looked like he’d just entered adulthood. He seemed slightly younger than the woman with him. “We were not... Ah. We were not expecting you.”

“Nor was I expecting you,” I replied.

“Of course,” the woman said, her ears returning to their upright position. “When you were last here, the Mistress of Affairs would have been...”

“Yllsha,” I supplied. The absence of Yllsha, and Notto, and every other Sionnachan I’d known in this castle, pressed down on me like a physical weight. I was immortal. I had watched Sionnachans with their mortal blink of a lifespan die before. I’d lost many loved ones during my life, including my own parents. But I’d been there for those deaths. I’d presided over the Sionnachan death ceremonies. I’d gotten my chance to say goodbye. But this? It did not feel like Yllsha and the others were dead. It felt as if they’d just... Vanished. And that if I waited long enough, they’d walk through the kitchen door into this very hall, Yllsha reprimanding Notto and Notto grinning his cavalier grin.

It disoriented me. Yllsha and Notto still felt very much a part of my current life. But to these two before me, they were faceless ghosts of history.

“I am Aiko, my lord. I am the current Mistress of Affairs. This is my younger brother, Shoshen, Master of the Grounds. Yllsha and Notto are our ancestors.”

“Both of them?” I asked, surprised. I wondered if the human registered the shock in my tone of voice, because I felt her gaze snap to me from the side.

“Yes, my lord,” answered Aiko.

“They were our great great great... Forgive me, Lord Wylfrael, I do not know how great they were,” Shoshen said. “But they were our very far-back, very great grandparents.”

A soft chuckle escaped from my lips. The human jerked in my grasp, as if the sound had burned her.

“So those two finally gave in and married, then,” I said, the shadow of a smile still playing about my lips. I sorely wished I had been there for the wedding, and to meet their children and grandchildren. But this helped – meeting Aiko and Shoshen. Now that I looked closely, I could see some of Yllsha’s sharp yet warm competence in Aiko’s firmly raised chin. And though he seemed more timid than I’d known his ancestor to be, Shoshen had an echo of Notto’s mirth in his eyes.

“Speaking of marriage... Forgive me if the question is impertinent, my lord, but is this your... your...” Aiko’s green gaze fell on the human, who tensed under this new observation.

I clenched my fangs, halting a groan of irritation. They think that, like my father, I’ve found my mate on Sionnach.

“No,” I said flatly. “She’s one of the invaders who arrived during my absence. The others are dead or gone. She is the last of them.”