The Puppeteer and The Poisoned Pawn (The Pawn and The Puppet series Book 3)

Skylenna

Even though streaks of blood cloud my vision, I can’t miss the flashes of gray, gangly beasts that gallop toward DaiSzek. Their spindly legs stepping over bodies makes my skin tingle in fear.

I look to Dessin, who is already looking at Warrose. “Help him!” he commands.

Warrose is the only one of us that has extensive experience with night dawpers.

I slam my fist across another soldier’s throat, watching a fountain of crimson liquid come spurting from the jagged wound I leave behind. The demon’s teeth gloves are more than useful. They’re fucking deadly.

I can’t help but look back at DaiSzek, watching the night dawpers close in like a parade of demons coming to smother the RottWeilen, the last of his kind. A pang of terror hits me right in the chest. The first night dawper launches itself through the air, stretching out its long arms to take DaiSzek down. Warrose throws his whip back, ready to take out the first one, and—

Something beats him to it. A streak of copper fur crashes into the creature, wrestling it to the ground. Noises I’ve never heard before. Ferocious. Rabid. Bizarre growls and snarls as this smaller, coppery beast goes straight for the heart. Chewing through dried gray flesh until it reaches the warm gooey center. The night dawper hangs limp, and even stranger, the smaller beast just tosses the stringy heart to the dirt and races to help DaiSzek once more.

Throwing another soldier off my back, I look closer at the animal. It looks like a wolf, only with short shimmery fur and tall, pointy ears. It has a stocky body, heavy with muscle, and a head that is disproportionately too big.

And with this new help comes more. A small army of people wearing sandals, beige pants, gold bracelets, and chokers. Their upper bodies are covered in beautifully designed tattoos. They wield long golden spears, throwing them into the Vexamen Breed with flawless precision as they ride the backs of horses. It’s enough that the Breed falls back, speaking a strange language as they turn to run.

I let out a whoosh of breath, watching several of our unexpected guests chase the enemy on horseback.

Dessin drops his weapon, stepping over bodies to get to me.

“You’re hurt,” he growls, pulling me closer to him. We’re both covered in blood and sweat. Hair disheveled, eyes blazing with violence, and hands still ready for another surprise attack. But he looks down at me, and suddenly we’re back in that meadow. I ache for his mouth.

“It’s a scratch.”

He examines it quickly, peeling away the wet fabric. It isn’t bad. But it does sting.

“You fought better than me, baby.” He tilts my chin up to look at him. I fall weak in his hickory-brown eyes. “You know how bad that makes me want to fuck you against a tree? Right here. In front of everyone.”

My eyes roll back into my head, and my toes curl. “Don’t tempt me.”

“Dessin,” Warrose calls out cautiously.

We both turn around to see Warrose slowly approaching the small copper wolf, going completely berserk on a dead night dawper. It shakes the detached arm like a dog would shake a toy. We all stare in mild amusement and a little disgust.

“What is it?” Ruth asks as she and Niles approach. Why the hell are they still here?

“She’s a Ginger Wrathbull. From the Endograves Jungle.” A woman slides off her horse, tucking a strand of her short black hair behind her ear. She’s stunning. Cream-colored skin. Straight posture. Elegant stance. And a face that shines with a rare beauty.

“You’re a member of the Faecrest colony.” Warrose nods his head in acknowledgment, wiping the blood from his face with a rag.

The woman nods, narrow eyes the color of charcoal. “We’ve been waiting for the chance to give her to you. Per the instructions of our prophecy—it told us the exact day we would need to be here, in this forest. I am Bellanne.”

I can hear Dessin’s eyes roll at the word prophecy.

“You’re giving us this… WrathBull?” I look down at the short-haired wolf the size of a goat. Her mouth is covered in blood and bits of entrails. And she kind of looks… mean.

“Why?” Niles asks, taking a step closer to get a better look at her. Her upper lip curls back, and she growls at him. I try to hide my smirk because, of course, she would growl at Niles.

“She’s destined to help you in the war to come.” Bellanne watches Dessin and me closely, as if she’s anticipating us arguing about it. But I shrug, look back down at the ginger bull thing, and sigh.

“She’s a good little fighter. I vote yes.”

Dessin nods. “What’s her name?”

“We were told to name her Knightingale.” The name sinks to the bottom of my soul, burning like a meteor shower.

Dessin and I look at each other at the same time. Raised eyebrows. Parted lips. Knightingale and DaiSzek. The fae and elf warriors from the last war.

“Shit, seriously? Knightingale? As in Knightingale and DaiSzek?” Warrose blows out a surprised laugh. “That can’t be a coincidence.”

“I don’t think it is. Whoever wrote this prophecy knew we’d name him DaiSzek,” I say quietly, gazing down at the dirty girl with pupils so large she actually looks kind of cute.

“Looks like you’ve got another member to your pack, Dai,” Dessin calls, nodding toward Knightingale. His smile is wide, and my stomach warms knowing this is one gift Dessin actually appreciates. He loves DaiSzek. I know he’ll love having another fearsome creature in his family.

DaiSzek leans in to sniff Knightingale’s butt, stretching out his neck in an attempt to do it quietly. But ironically enough, she lunges at him, snapping viciously without actually getting him with her teeth. DaiSzek jerks back in surprise, looking at her with curious eyes that wonder why a bee has just tried to sting him. She’s comically smaller than he is.

Her growling simmers to a low grumble before she walks off.

“Ginger WrathBulls can have bad tempers,” Bellanne warns with a crooked smile. “She’ll get used to you after a while.” She climbs back onto her horse.

“Thank you for helping us,” I say quickly.

“It won’t be the last time.”

We exchange looks as her group of warriors that came to our aid turn their horses around. But before she fades into the trees, her horse stops, and she pivots back to us.

“I forgot to mention, the one you seek is in the Red Oaks!”

The one we seek… The one we seek…

Dessin and I stare at each other absentmindedly until his eyes flare with understanding.

“Judas.”

It was hard leaving Ambrose Oasis, but this might be our only leg up over Aurick. And we need to do this our way.

Judas has always known something more than the rest of us. Maybe it’s nothing, but there’s a knot in my gut that tells me he’ll give us everything we need.

The seven of us—I’m sorry—the eight of us, including Knightingale, trek through the forest to get back to the Red Oaks. I keep my pace close to Niles while Dessin scopes out the area ahead with DaiSzek.

I’ve been waiting to tell him something, searching for the right moment, but this kind of news doesn’t have a right moment. It’s terrible and grim and a vortex created to suck him into a hellish place. The least I can do is be here to hold his hand while he processes it.

“Do you remember the first time you opened up to me in the asylum?”

Niles looks down in thought. “The time you got hosed down like a dog for me? I’ll never forget it.”

My heart stumbles in my chest. I’ll never forget it either.

“You said it was hard for you to live in a world that has the kind of love that Charles had for you.” I take a deep breath, trying my best to keep my voice even.

“We’re not in the asylum anymore.” Niles shoots me a glare. “We don’t have to dig this up again.”

I wish to God I could listen to him now, let this go, leave it in the dark cave of his mind to decay. But he deserves to know the truth, no matter how painful it may be.

“You know how Kane and I are a part of this vile experiment that only works on twins?”

He slows his pace. Nods.

“Aurick told me they’ve experimented on a child that wasn’t a twin before. Just once.” I keep my voice deathly low. With a tone so serious, so glib, Niles keeps his eyes firmly on me as if he knows. He knows. And he’s praying to God that he’s wrong.

“He told me it was you, Niles,” I whisper, the ache in my throat clamping down on my windpipe. “He told me it was you.”

His throat bobs, and he redirects his stare to the path ahead. “So what does that mean then?”

I wish I could stop here.

“It means… they abducted Charles like they did with my parents. To pump them full of Mind Phantoms, so they were compliant.”

I look over at his angelic face, the chiseled cheekbones, the beautifully coiffed honey hair, and that stoic lift of his chin. He’s preparing to protect his heart. He’s placing on his mask and hoping it blocks out any pain I’m about to deliver.

“Aurick said his father took Charles and filled him with more Mind Phantoms than any subject has ever been given. But—it wasn’t enough.” My voice breaks, and I have to look away to keep the tears in check. “Charles fought it. He never gave in.”

“What?” Niles stops his feet from moving another inch and turns to me with a look of pure shock.

“They had to take you instead. The Mind Phantoms made you believe that horrid reality of what you thought Charles did to you.”

“Let me go!” Niles’s younger voice shrieks through my mind, overwhelming my senses.

“It—it never happened?”

I shake my head. “It was a fabricated memory, Niles. It was given to see if your mind would work the way ours does now. It was a failed experiment.”

“You won’t remember this after we inject you, Niles. You’ll only remember what we want you to.”

I have to squeeze my eyes shut to block out the forgotten memories.

“Are you sure he wasn’t lying?”

“He knew the intimate details of your story. It has to be true.”

Niles stares at me. Soft lips parted. “What happened to Charles?”

I look away. It isn’t fair to give him this bit of relief only to rip it away.

“Skylenna, tell me.” His hands are on my shoulder, firm and unrelenting. I can feel Dessin’s gaze fixated on me from several yards ahead.

“He fought until the end. He died from being overdosed on the Mind Phantoms.” I pause, swallowing down the sadness building in my chest. “He never gave in.”

If I could remove any moment from my memory, it would be this one. Niles sinks to his knees, blinking rapidly with an open mouth and trembling hands. I drop to my knees in front of him, gripping his hands but careful not to touch his burns.

“I’m so sorry, Niles.”

But he isn’t here right now. He’s somewhere deep in his own mind, digging through memories until tears are freely dripping down his cheeks.

“He wasn’t a monster?” he asks in a teary-eyed daze.

I shake my head. “No. He was a good dad,” I say with a sad smile. “He was the best there is.”

Niles squeezes his eyes shut, pushing out more tears, and wrinkling his forehead. I pull him into me, angling his face into the crook of my neck where he can cry in peace.

And he does.

Niles sobs into my skin, making it warm and wet with his labored breaths. I run my fingers lovingly over his raised skin, praying away his pain the best I can. The heaviness of this moment gets me thinking about my Scarlett. Oh, how I wish I could go back and tell her about Violet. Tell her about the Mind Phantoms. She deserved to know that if things were different, we would have been loved and cherished by both parents.

I’ll never get the chance to hold her the way I’m holding Niles now.

After several long minutes of rocking back and forth until his sobs become heavy breaths and those heavy breaths become a steady heartbeat, we look to the path ahead and see that Chekiss was the one to stay behind and wait for us. He smiles, not in a way that’s happy, but in the way that a parent smiles at their children during a time of hardship.

“We should get back to the others,” Niles says with a long sigh.

We turn our heads to the side and gasp. Knightingale stands eye level with Niles, nose to nose, and grimacing like a human. Even her doe eyes are in small slits.

I burst into surprised laughter. “Thanks for the time, warden.”

Niles stands with me, keeping his eyes on her like he’s waiting to be bitten.

“Do I just repel animals or something?” Niles grumbles.

As if responding to his question, she growls at him, nudging the back of his knee with her nose as if to say get moving.

With a light jog, we catch up to the others, slowly being surrounded by the changing leaves. Dark green to candy-apple red. Dessin is standing still in front of the group, looking forward at something in the distance.

I canter up to him, giving his arm a little shove with my elbow.

“What is it?”

He nods once. “She was right. He’s here.”

I follow his stare to the edge of the cliff that hovers over the turquoise lagoon. A figure in all black, tall like an aspen tree, looking out at the water in silence.

Hello, Judas.