The question was: Why had Tanvir thought he could possibly succeed at killing him?
After he retrieved the timber, Lorcan turned back but slowed his pace. The image of Evelayn lying on the ground, covered in gore, brought back the memories of the time he’d been the one to mar her luminous beauty with her own blood. Though that night it had been pristine white feathers stained crimson, rather than her skin.
I did what I had to do. The excuse he’d used over and over again to justify, to explain, to placate. Even to himself.
But it was true, wasn’t it? He couldn’t have killed his father himself or else he wouldn’t have been able to claim the power for his kingdom. And if he hadn’t made that oath with Máthair Damhán, Evelayn never would have succeeded in obtaining the silk and defeating his father. But the cost … oh, the cost of it all.
A cry of agony roused Lorcan from his thoughts.
She’d woken up.
Lorcan sprinted back to the trio. Darkness had nearly overtaken the forest entirely, but his Dark Draíolon sight allowed him to see them in stark detail—including Evelayn’s eyes wide open but glazed with pain as she thrashed on the ground, forcing Tanvir to hold her down while Letha hurried to finish the stitches.
Lorcan tossed the branches down and rushed to her, dropping to his knees on the mud.
“Help me hold her still!”
But he ignored Tanvir and reached out to gently stroke her lavender-streaked hair off her clammy forehead. “Evelayn, listen to me.” He spoke quietly but firmly. “You have to hold still.”
“You think I didn’t try that?” Tanvir growled.
“I know it hurts, but you must be still,” Lorcan continued without pausing, keeping his voice low and calm, even though his heart pounded fiercely against his rib cage. Her lips were bloodless and her skin sallow. She shivered violently beneath their hands when she wasn’t moaning and thrashing in pain. But as he spoke, her eyes rolled up to meet his. A shudder went through her body. “Find the strength so Letha can sew up this wound. If you lose too much blood, you could die, Evelayn. You can’t let that happen. Your Draíolon need you. They need their queen.”
She stared at him, her violet eyes two wells of pain and loss and grief, and that’s when he realized what was happening. He saw the willpower to fight leaving her. She’d been through so much. Largely because of him, which made him sick. But she wasn’t the only one who had suffered, who had bled and hurt and lost. And she couldn’t leave him now.
“Your Draíolon need you … and … and I need you,” he whispered hoarsely, letting his forehead drop to gently rest on hers. “Please. Please. Be still.”
And miraculously, she stiffened—and stilled.
“Go, Letha. Hurry,” Tanvir urged.
Lorcan didn’t have to look to sense the jealousy on Tanvir’s face. He could hear it in his voice and scent it on the cold night air. But none of that mattered at that moment. Only Evelayn did. When Letha punctured the skin, Evelayn cried out again, but other than going rigid, she managed to keep from moving.
“Keep … talking …” she rasped, taking Lorcan by surprise. But he quickly complied.
“The first time I saw you,” he whispered, his mouth close to her ear, “running through that forest, so determined to defeat my father, I thought I’d never seen any Draíolon more beautiful and fierce all at once.” Lorcan let his eyes close, picturing her as she’d been on that day. Lithe and powerful and so driven to succeed, despite all the odds against her. “And you were so fast. I’d never seen any female or male your equal.”
Evelayn lay still while he spoke, her breathing labored, flinching each time the needle went in and out.
His voice dropped even lower. “And I still feel that way. There is no Draíolon, Light or Dark, who is your equal.” Lorcan wasn’t sure she could even hear him, but she sighed softly.
“All finished,” Letha announced. “It’s the best I can do.”
Lorcan lifted his head to see a somewhat neat row of stitches running across Evelayn’s throat. The wound was barely even seeping blood anymore, but she was still covered in gore, and the cloak beneath her was destroyed, completely drenched.
“If you’ll get a fire started, I can collect some snow to melt and boil so we can clean her up a bit. But for now, we’ve got to get her warm,” Letha instructed as she reached for the tin and screwed it open. Inside was a pungent ointment of some sort that she began to slather over the wound.
“Do not presume to order me around. My patience is growing thin with both of you,” Lorcan warned coldly.
As Letha finished applying the cream, Evelayn’s eyes fluttered and her body softened into unconsciousness once more.
“If you wish for her to survive the night, Your Majesty, would you be so kind as to use your power to light a fire?” Letha’s sarcasm was thick enough to cut, but Lorcan let it slide. She was right, and they all knew it.
Ignoring the way Tanvir watched him, knowing the other male had likely heard most if not all of what he’d said to Evelayn, Lorcan stood and gathered the wood one final time, arranging it to start the fire. It took only a small blast of shadowflame and the timber caught. Within moments their little grouping was lit by the firelight, and the warmth spread to ward off some of the chill of the night. The tunic he’d been wearing was ruined, soaked with Evelayn’s blood. He spread his cloak on the ground beside the fire so they could lay Evelayn somewhere clean and hang her tunic up to dry.
“Let me help,” Tanvir offered when Lorcan bent to move her to the makeshift bed by the warmth of the flames.
“You’ve done enough, I think.” Lorcan’s voice was as frosty as the breeze that cut through the trees around them. He easily lifted Evelayn into his arms, careful not to jostle her head and pull at the stitches. She was so light—too light. Once she’d been strong, her body tautly muscular, a testament to the hours she had spent training and running every day. But now she was malnourished and weak. A shadow of her former glory. His gut burned with guilt as he gently laid her down next to the fire and brushed her hair back from her face. The scar on her breastbone was covered by the tunic she wore, but he knew exactly where it would be if the fabric was removed. When he’d ripped the conduit stone from her body, he’d taken more than just its light and power. He’d stolen an integral part of who she was—what had made her strong.
Why? Why force me to do that and yet still require so much from us? If only Máthair Damhán could hear his questions, feel his wrath. Soon, he vowed as he tucked the fur-lined cape over the top of her body. He would do what it took to keep his oath and return Evelayn’s stone to her. And then he would make Máthair Damhán pay.
Though it had grown bitterly cold, the night remained free of snow, for which Lothar was intensely grateful. He and Ceren dashed through the forest as quickly as possible, despite their exhaustion. Though it was easier to track the footprints left by the other Draíolon in the snow, it was also much more perilous to run on the slippery stuff in his weakened state. Luckily, he was an excellent tracker and was able to keep following their path without the snow. But neither of them was in the condition necessary to catch Tanvir and Letha. Regardless, they continued to tail them, hoping against hope that they would somehow close the gap and stop them before they reached Lorcan and the queen.
“We have to rest,” Ceren panted from beside him.
“We will soon,” he replied, the same answer he’d given her for hours. They were slowing, but he hoped that perhaps the other two would stop for the night, and if he and Ceren kept going, they’d finally catch up.
As he’d told her the previous day, his wounds were mostly healed, but there was still a lingering ache deep inside his body, and the skin itself felt taut where they’d sewn him back together, as if it had been pulled too tight. A peculiar weakness infiltrated his muscles, the effects of his power being drawn upon too heavily in order to heal him.
“Can we at least walk for a few minutes?” Ceren grabbed his arm and pulled him to a sto
p.
Lothar couldn’t explain his strange sense of urgency, the deep-rooted feeling that they needed to hurry as quickly as they were able. But when he glanced at her, the female was red-faced and practically gasping for air. “Just for a few minutes. I think we’re gaining on them.”
“Truly?” Hope lit her face, and he almost felt guilty for the lie. Almost. If it kept her going, then it was worth it. Their only chance of actually gaining on them was to press on.
Taking advantage of the slower pace, Lothar pulled out his waterskin and some food.
“Why did you insist on following them?” Ceren’s question took him off guard.
Lothar took a long draft of water to give him a moment to collect his thoughts and decide how to answer.
“You didn’t have to—in fact, you probably shouldn’t have. You have been gravely injured. And with Lorcan and Evelayn both gone, you are the last royal who could take their place if things … go badly.”
Lothar stared into the dark forest, his keen eyesight able to pick out the details of the hulking trees and the scraggly undergrowth. But hard as he tried, he couldn’t see far enough to make sure they weren’t too late. “He’s my brother,” he finally responded.
“But what kind of brother has he been to you?” Ceren pressed. “I’ve never really thought of you two as close.”
Lothar quickened their pace slightly, though he didn’t start running again—yet.
“It’s complicated,” he finally admitted. “We were close once. When we were younglings. Before …”
“Before your father began to train you?”
Lothar shot her a look but saw nothing except sympathy in her expression. “Yes.”
“I saw Lorcan’s scars … He told us it was from his training.”
Lothar took a deep breath, trying to calm the visceral reaction of fear that still ensnared him when he thought about the years of terror living under their father’s rule. “He mostly ignored us until he deemed us old enough to remove the block on our magic and made us begin to train. That’s when we were closer … when I wanted nothing more than to be like him.”
“Your father?” Ceren sounded shocked, but before he could respond, she corrected herself. “Oh, of course not. You mean Lorcan.”
Lothar shrugged, his gaze on the ground and the partially obscured prints of the Draíolon they were trailing.
“Why did it change?”
“Our father didn’t believe in love—not between brothers, not between parents and children. Love, connections, loyalty … he said they made us weak. If he witnessed any indication of such weakness between me and Lorcan, he did his best to beat it out of us. At first, Lorcan told me to just pretend, to put on a show for Father. That we could still be brothers in private. But he kept slipping up, kept trying to protect me.” Lothar couldn’t bring himself to continue, the memories he hadn’t let himself think of in decades rising to choke him. Memories of Lorcan being brutally beaten by their father over and over again. Of the day Lothar hadn’t been fast enough to please the king and he’d lost his temper. But Lorcan had jumped in front of him, saved him from the vicious lashing their father had been about to give him. It was the first time they’d ever seen their father that angry before. He’d been even more furious at Lorcan for risking himself to protect his brother, a sign of the weakness Bain had thought they’d overcome long before. Lothar had never seen him beat someone so viciously; he’d been truly afraid for Lorcan’s life. Bain only stopped when Lorcan collapsed on the ground, nearly unconscious, his torso ripped to shreds from the shadow-whip their father preferred to use.
A gentle touch on his arm jerked him back to awareness and made him realize he’d unknowingly halted, staring blindly into the inky blackness of the cloud-covered night.
“I’m very sorry for what you both went through.”
Lothar looked down at her, the fire-haired female who by all accounts should have loathed him entirely for what his family had done to her kingdom, and was shocked to see only concern in her eyes. He hadn’t seen anyone look at him like that in a long time, not even his own mother. Not until the attack two nights ago, when he’d gone to Lorcan for help.
“I wondered for so long if he truly had come to hate me, as our father wished. Or if he’d become so accustomed to pretending that he didn’t know how to break free of the unseen chains Bain had created. Even after he was gone, Lorcan didn’t change. Not really.” Lothar began to walk again, more slowly this time. “But I saw it the other night, in the moment before I lost consciousness, when he was afraid I was about to die. I saw fear in his eyes. And I knew, somewhere deep inside, my brother was still there.” Lothar hooked his waterskin back onto his waistband. “That’s why I insisted on going after them.”
Ceren was silent for a long moment. Finally, she merely said, “I’ve rested long enough. Let’s go. We have some ground to make up.”
Lothar glanced over at her and then nodded. “Yes, we do,” he agreed, and then took off at a sprint.
THEY’D BEEN RUNNING FOR THE BETTER PART OF AN hour when Lothar slowed slightly and then suddenly halted, throwing out his arm to stop Ceren as well—and to keep her from slipping and falling on the muddy earth.
“Did you hear that?” he asked.
Ceren cocked her head, straining to listen beyond the harsh sound of her labored breathing and the noises of nocturnal animals rustling through the woods. Then she heard it, simultaneous with a slight tremor beneath her feet. A distant boom—the sound of power exploding into a large target.
Her gaze flew to his in alarm.
They both turned and sprinted in the direction of the fight. Well, Lothar sprinted. Ceren did her best to keep up with him. But he had access to his power to strengthen his body and give him endurance; she didn’t. He kept glancing over his shoulder at her, frustration evident on his face.
“Go! I will follow as quickly as I can.”
Lothar nodded and increased his speed, but only for a few steps. Then he slowed slightly once more, allowing her to catch up.
“What are you doing?” Ceren panted. “Just go!”
“No,” Lothar said. “We’re too far away to get there in time, even if I run full speed. Whatever is going to happen will happen. We’re in this together, and I’m not going to leave you behind.”
“But … he’s your brother.” She could barely get the words out past the wild thudding of her heart and the burning in her lungs.
“And she’s your dearest friend. I’m not going to let you get lost out here.” Lothar glanced over at her, his gray eyes earnest. “It’s not like Tanvir and Letha really have a chance of hurting him.”
Ceren just nodded, no longer able to speak, surprised and grateful for his kindness. She was mostly certain she would have been able to follow his tracks. But it was very dark, and a storm was coming. She wasn’t sure how far away the others were. Close enough to barely hear the explosions, but with their acute hearing, that was still quite some distance away.
True to his word, Lothar stayed by her side, urging her along when her muscles felt like they were on fire and she got a cramp in her calf. They had to stop briefly so she could rub it out. Again she insisted he continue ahead, but he again argued that whatever had happened was done. The sounds of fighting had ended some time ago. But she felt guilty—and worried. True, Lorcan could easily defend himself, but Evelayn couldn’t. And she wasn’t entirely sure who Tanvir and Letha were going after.
Finally, they caught the scent of fire, and soon after saw its flickering light ahead, between the trees and bushes, a beacon in the darkness. Ceren pushed herself through the pain and exhaustion, half running, half limping beside Lothar.
Lothar said, “Someone’s lying on the ground. It looks like—”
But Ceren squinted and saw her lavender-streaked hair, stained with blood and spread out beneath her head, at the same moment. “Evelayn!” she cried out hoarsely, and somehow found one more burst of speed to sprint the last few lengths to reach her
friend.
Lorcan had been sitting beside her but jumped to his feet, spinning to face them as they burst into the makeshift camp.
“Lorcan, stop, it’s us!”
Ceren barely heard Lothar’s words past the pounding of her heart in her ears as her gaze immediately went first to her friend’s face, to her eyes that were half-open and shiny with pain, then to the wicked gash that bisected Evelayn’s throat. Uneven stitches held the inflamed skin together, but blood still seeped out.
“You hurt her!” Ceren went hot and cold all at once, a raging inferno of fury. She launched herself at Lorcan, but Lothar grabbed her and held her back. She struggled against him futilely. When she couldn’t break free, she spat, “I trusted you!”
“It wasn’t me.” Lorcan cut off her accusations. “They did this to your queen.” He gestured to Tanvir and Letha, who sat on the other side of the fire, watching them warily.
“Tanvir did this? You tried to kill Evelayn?” Lothar had to tighten his grip on Ceren again, this time keeping her from flying at Tanvir. “I thought you were going after the king! Oh, if only I had my power right now—”
“It was me.” Letha cut Ceren off this time. “And it was an accident.”
“How do you accidentally almost cut someone’s head off?” Ceren shrieked.
Lothar snorted from behind her, but she ignored him, too furious and upset to chastise him.
“It wasn’t that bad,” Evelayn rasped, but Ceren just shook her head, sudden tears filling her eyes. Lothar released Ceren when it was obvious she was no longer attempting to lunge at any of the other Draíolon.
“Look at you. You’re a … a …”
“Mess,” Evelayn supplied with a weak laugh. “I’m going to be all right. But what are you doing here? Your younglings …” The effort just to speak that much sent her into a coughing spasm. Lorcan immediately crouched down once more, carefully lifting her head off the ground with one hand and offering her a waterskin. She winced but took a sip, and he gently laid her back down again.