Lorcan wasn’t sure he wanted to find out what, but they had no choice. He looked northeast, to where, far beyond his sight, the White Peak stood a stark sentinel—and where, deep within its bowels, Máthair Damhán waited for them.
“Where are they going—and in this storm?” Ceren pulled her wrap more tightly around her face as they trudged forward into the blowing snow, but it couldn’t block the biting cold from stinging her cheeks and nose. It even hurt to talk because her lips were frozen.
Lothar paused, staring down at the ground, and then pointed. “They’re still tracking Lorcan and the queen.”
Ceren squinted to see through the blizzard, but then she saw it. Multiple footprints, nearly obscured by the falling snow but still discernible when one looked closely.
“You were right, then: They’re not stopping, even in this weather.” A heavy pit of dread lodged in her belly, like she’d swallowed a stone. There was no good reason why Tanvir would set off into the woods in a blizzard with his sister, both of them armed to the extreme, chasing after the newly Bound king and queen.
“And they’re in a hurry. We’re going to have to move much faster if we want to catch them.” Lothar had moved forward, following the trail of footprints, which were spread far enough apart to indicate that all four Draíolon were running full speed despite the storm. “Can you run?”
“Can you?” Ceren retorted testily. “I’m not the one who was on my deathbed half a day ago.”
Lothar scowled at her. “I’ll take the lead.”
“Why shouldn’t I? I’m more capable than you seem to think.”
“Because I am a Dark Draíolon—I’m comfortable in the snow and darkness. I can see better than you in these conditions.”
Ceren couldn’t argue those points, but it didn’t keep irritation from unfurling in her chest, making her breathe faster. “Fine. Take the lead.”
Lothar nodded and took off at a sprint.
“For now,” she added in a low mutter, then hurried to follow him.
EVELAYN TRIED TO CONCEAL HOW HARD SHE WAS BREATHING, but she knew Lorcan was aware of her struggle. Another surge of warmth, accompanied by a fresh wave of energy, rose up her arm from the hand he clutched as they ran through the forest and the melting snow.
“You’re going … to wear … yourself out,” she panted between strides.
“I’m fine,” he replied without glancing at her.
But she could see the sweat dampening his hairline and creating a V down his back, causing his tunic to stick to his skin. The clouds had parted early in the day and now the sun was shining brightly down on them as they rushed toward the border, and to Máthair Damhán’s distant lair beyond that.
“You didn’t … even rest …” she pointed out, but this time he didn’t respond, just increased his speed so much that she couldn’t catch her breath to speak anymore.
When she’d woken, the sun had already risen, and Lorcan had claimed he’d dozed while she slept. He’d insisted they leave right away, and the scathing look he’d given her when she’d accused him of lying had been enough to make her snap her mouth shut and climb to her feet.
Evelayn panted as they raced through the forest toward Ristra. She wasn’t used to being the one who couldn’t keep up—and she didn’t like the feeling one bit. It took all of her concentration and strength just to follow where Lorcan led, tugging her this way and that to avoid branches and boulders in their path.
Finally, when the sun slipped below the western horizon, Lorcan slowed and halted, letting go of her hand to grasp his knees. Evelayn leaned against a tree, her lungs burning and her side cramped. She couldn’t imagine what it had cost him to sustain her for so long. He bent over to catch his breath; she’d never seen him so physically vulnerable. If she’d wished to try and attack him, now was her chance. Beyond the fact that she didn’t have a weapon and was even more exhausted than he, the realization that she didn’t want to hurt him anymore hit her like a blast of the icy wind that had kicked up again in the past hour, erasing the warmth of the sunny day.
Evelayn didn’t want to let herself think too much about what that meant.
After a moment, Lorcan straightened and glanced over at her. “I’ll go find some dry kindling and get a fire started. It’s going to be a cold night again. We can rest for a few hours and then keep going.”
“I’m not helpless, you know,” she said. “I can go look for kindling. You stay here and set up the shelter.”
He paused in removing his cloak from where he’d stowed it in his pack to shoot her a patronizing look. “I just siphoned my power into you for the better part of an entire day so you could keep up with me. The only thing you need to do right now is eat and rest so you can hopefully run without my help for as long as possible later tonight.”
Evelayn glared at him. “If it’s such a burden, then keep your power to yourself,” she snapped.
“It has been a while since you lived in your Draíolon form, it’s true, but surely you can’t think you’re going to regain all your former strength and speed after only one day of running?”
“And whose fault is that?” Her neck and cheeks grew warm with her rising temper. “I don’t recall choosing to tear my own stone out of my chest and to go hide as a swan for a decade.”
Lorcan’s expression darkened. He tossed his pack on the ground beside her. “We don’t have time to argue about this—again. We agreed that there is limited time to make it to the White Peak. I left my kingdom without a king the day after a major attack to help you get your stone back. And the only way we’re going to make it before Athrúfar ends is with my help. Those are the facts, no matter how angry they make you.”
“We left my kingdom without a king,” she muttered as she grudgingly sat down on a semidry boulder to pull out some of the food she’d brought. “But I daresay they’ll survive, considering they’ve been without their queen far longer than just a few days.”
A muscle ticked in Lorcan’s jaw, but instead of responding, he turned on his heel and strode away from her into the forest, ostensibly to gather the kindling. At least she hoped that’s all he was doing. Angering the king of Dorjhalon when they were alone in the woods with yet another blizzard approaching probably wasn’t one of her better ideas.
Without his presence to fill her senses, everything else took greater shape and form around her. The sounds of the forest swelled up in place of the cadence of his stride and the timbre of his voice, and the musk of decayed leaves and wet soil replaced the crisp balsam, ice, and velvet night scent that she’d become so attuned to in the past couple of days. Why was she so aware of him? She tried to convince herself it was a defense mechanism—staying on her guard in case he turned on her. Just because she was physically attracted to him didn’t mean anything—she’d always felt something around him, even when she was in love with Tanvir. He was, after all, incredibly handsome and powerful. And true, she’d seen some very different sides to him, facets to his personality that enticed her to want to believe him—to want to trust him. But that didn’t mean she should.
Evelayn hadn’t been completely alone since she’d returned to the castle, and the sudden solitude gave rise to thoughts and worries she hadn’t let herself consider until that moment. The night before had brought up the grief she’d never fully been able to work through after her mother’s death. Lying there on the hard, cold ground in the darkness, alone with Lorcan—the male she’d abhorred for so long and was suddenly Bound to—she’d missed her parents so terribly, the ache had been as sharp as a blade driving into the hollowed cavity of her chest. She’d wondered what they must think of her, watching from the Final Light, so beaten down, so useless as the queen for their Draíolon. Bound to a male they’d long considered their enemy. Were they disgusted with the turn their only daughter’s life had taken?
Evelayn took a bite of the day-old bread she’d packed, forcing herself to chew and swallow, even though her mouth was even drier than the roll and her stomach had c
lenched into a tight ball of anxiety once more. As much as she hated to admit it, Lorcan was right. She wasn’t going to regain her former strength and speed tomorrow, or even the next day. It would take weeks of conditioning, if not more, to be able to run the way she had years ago. And for some reason, that fact, the indignation of having him drag her through the forest, of the many things that had happened to her in the past few days, was the one that made her eyes sting and her lungs constrict, as if the air had suddenly grown thin. She clenched her teeth on the lingering bits of stale bread in her mouth and inhaled deeply through her nose, determined not to add to her humiliation by letting Lorcan return to find her crying.
A loud shout from the direction he’d stormed off in made her jump to her feet and spin toward it. Before she could charge after him, though, she scented another Draíolon rushing toward her from the other direction.
There was no time to find a weapon, and without her power, she was completely helpless. Rather than try to hide, Evelayn squared her shoulders, prepared to meet her attacker with dignity, if nothing else.
A female Draíolon burst out of the trees, a sword drawn and a Scíath in her other hand. Though she’d never met her before, Evelayn instantly knew who it was.
“Letha?”
Tanvir’s sister drew up short, surprised, perhaps, to hear her name. But Evelayn couldn’t have mistaken her—she looked so much like her brother. Their scents were even similar, except there was freesia mixed in with the honey, and Letha’s hair was a lighter brown with streaks of burnt orange, just like the flower in her scent.
“Don’t move,” Letha commanded, leveling the sword at her.
There was another shout, followed by a cry of pain from somewhere behind them.
“That was Tanvir … wasn’t it?”
Letha just stared at her coldly, deadly intent evident in every tense line of her body.
“He isn’t stupid enough to attack Lorcan … is he?” Evelayn glanced over her shoulder, adrenaline racing through her body, when the sound of an explosion boomed through the trees.
“I said don’t move!” Letha shouted, but her voice trembled slightly this time.
“He could kill him, Letha. You have to let me try to stop him!”
“Why would I believe that you care?” Letha stepped closer, so that the tip of the sword brushed the base of Evelayn’s throat, an unmistakable threat.
Evelayn slowly lifted her hands in supplication, keeping every other part of her body still. “I don’t know what he told you, but regardless of how he hurt and manipulated me, I have no desire for him to die.”
Another boom shook the ground beneath their feet, much closer this time. Honestly, Evelayn couldn’t believe Tanvir was still alive and fighting. He was powerless—what had he been thinking? Regardless, they were running out of time to save him, of that she was certain.
Evelayn summoned every last bit of training she’d endured as a youngling and stared the other female down. “Letha, I am your queen, and I command you to step back.”
The sword wavered slightly, but then she stiffened her hold once more. “You Bound yourself to that … that demon.” Letha’s lip curled in disgust.
“I did what I had to do,” Evelayn echoed what Lorcan himself had said to her many times over the past couple of days.
She caught the sound of a Draíolon sprinting toward them moments before a tree suddenly exploded so close that Evelayn instinctively ducked, just as Letha stumbled forward. The sword sliced through the side of Evelayn’s neck in a blinding burst of agony. Hot blood rushed down her throat and onto her tunic as she collapsed to her knees.
“Evelayn!”
She dimly heard a male’s shout but couldn’t recognize the voice over the pounding of her pulse in her ears as her vision tunneled to black.
LORCAN LEAPT OVER THE BURNING TREE, HIS HEART IN his throat as Evelayn crumpled to the ground. Tanvir, who had barely managed to avoid him by using trees to block his blasts, made it to her first and dropped to his knees at her side, leaving himself unprotected.
“What did you do?” he cried out at his sister. It was that complete disregard for his own safety in the face of Evelayn’s injury that disarmed Lorcan and stayed his hand. Tanvir was many things, and he’d done much to deceive Evelayn, but it had been for his sister’s sake. And his love for the female who now lay in a puddle of her own blood because of that selfsame sister was undeniable.
Rather than finishing what Tanvir had started when he burst out from behind Lorcan in the woods, slicing a vicious blade through the air toward his exposed back, Lorcan rushed over and knelt across from Tanvir to assess Evelayn’s wound. The fur-lined cloak he’d given her was already soaked—ruined.
“There’s too much blood. We need to put pressure on it with something clean.” He looked up at Tanvir, and Letha, who hovered behind him, her crimson-stained sword hanging by her side.
“Get me one of your clean tops.” Tanvir shot a look over his shoulder at his sister.
“You’re going to follow his orders? I thought you came here to—”
“Now!” Tanvir cut her off impatiently.
Lorcan didn’t waste time watching to see what she did or didn’t do. Instead, he yanked his own tunic over his head and balled it up to press against Evelayn’s throat. Her pale skin, as white as swan feathers, was stained scarlet. Twice now he’d had to do this. Twice in two days he’d been on his knees desperately pressing a piece of fabric against a grisly wound for someone he—
“Do something other than sitting there watching me,” Lorcan snapped angrily, cutting off the dangerous turn of his thoughts.
“How deep is it?” Tanvir hesitantly bent closer. “May I look?” His hand trembled a bit as he reached toward the ruined tunic. Lorcan would have mocked him for the show of weakness, except a matching tremor had begun deep within him at the sight of Evelayn motionless on the snowy, cold earth.
Tanvir lifted one corner of the tunic and gently prodded at the skin, trying to gauge the severity of the wound despite the blood that continued to flow so freely. Too freely.
“Well?” Lorcan pressed.
“It’s deep. But not life-threatening—if we can get it closed off and the bleeding to stop fast enough,” Tanvir continued before Lorcan could sigh in relief. “If she had her power, it wouldn’t be more than a few hours of healing. But as it is …” He trailed off, the unsaid accusation heavy in the air.
Anger rose in Lorcan’s body, icy hot and dangerous. Or perhaps it was guilt. “Do either of you have anything we can use to help her? Or did you only bring those useless weapons with you on your quest?”
Tanvir turned to his sister, and when Lorcan looked up at her as well, she glared back at both of them. “Luckily for you, I planned ahead in case things didn’t go well.” She cut her gaze at Tanvir, but then she swung her pack off her back and yanked it open to withdraw a small leather pouch. She tossed it to Tanvir, who hurriedly undid the leather string and dumped the contents out on Evelayn’s chest. It was barely rising and falling with her labored breathing.
There were rolled-up strips of fabric, a small tin, a needle and thread, and a few other items. Tanvir picked up the needle and began to thread it, a process that seemed painstakingly slow.
“Would you hurry up?” Lorcan snarled. “She’s going to die before you get that Light-cursed thread through there.”
“You think I’m not trying to hurry?” Tanvir snapped back, just as he finally pulled the thread through the eye of the needle.
“Both of you stop it,” Letha cut in. “You’re like two cocks circling a hen. She’s not some animal, nor is she going to survive this if you don’t stop pecking at each other and start working together.” The female moved to kneel by her brother. “You hold the cloth while I sew,” she said to Tanvir. “And you go start a fire—we’re going to need to warm her up when I’m finished. Your Majesty,” she added, and then held out one hand toward Tanvir, presumably for the needle and thread.
??
?You did this to her. You think I would trust you to sew her up?” Lorcan lifted his free hand, ready to bind her with shadow chains if necessary to keep her from harming Evelayn further.
“By accident.” Letha’s expression was fierce, a hint of the pride and courage he’d seen when she’d first been captured rising above the meek creature she’d become under his father’s torture—before he’d intervened. “And why should I trust that you wish to help her live? You, who ripped her stone from her breast and left us all powerless these many years.”
Lorcan’s lip curled with a low growl of warning. “My life is tied to hers. If she dies, I die.”
“Is that the only reason?” Tanvir glanced up at him, his expression shuttered. But Lorcan could see in the other male’s eyes the burning need to know if that was all—if it was only his oath driving him.
Lorcan cursed loudly. “Of course not, you fool. Now do something!”
Before Tanvir could respond, Letha reached out and took the needle from him. “I will help her. I promise,” Letha asserted. “And I will do a much better job than my brother.”
Lorcan didn’t want to put his trust in her, but there was little choice in the matter. He had no training in binding and sewing wounds. He’d never needed it. It was difficult to tell beneath the coppery tang of Evelayn’s blood in the air, but he was fairly certain he scented only honesty on Letha.
“Fine.”
Tanvir immediately moved to take his place, holding the cloth over the majority of the wound, leaving just the top exposed for Letha to begin working with the needle and thread.
“It’s a mercy she’s unconscious,” Letha commented as she pierced the soft flesh with the needle, pulling the two grisly edges together.
No longer needed at her side, Lorcan couldn’t bear to merely stand and watch. He turned his back to them and paced away, toward the darkened forest, until he remembered the need for a fire. He’d dropped the kindling to defend himself from Tanvir’s ridiculous attempt to attack him. What had the powerless male been thinking? he wondered as he quickly retraced his steps, passing the smoking remains of the trees he’d obliterated in his halfhearted attempt to frighten Tanvir into submission. If he’d wanted the male dead, he would have been dead.