Chapter 42 Lena #3
And then they were outside, the starlit sky above them.
Lena sucked in a deep breath, letting the fresh air fill her lungs.
Just a little farther. They’d come out on the east side of the church, close to the palace’s main entrance.
If they cut around and through the royal gardens, they’d reach the tunnels where Casimir had left Finaen and Maia unconscious, and then—
“Lena!”
The ground beneath her spun as she whirled, dagger raised. But the figures stumbling across the palace grounds weren’t cultists.
It was Maia and Yana.
The guard’s face was ashen, but it was the devastation in Maia’s eyes that worried Lena the most. Her friend’s cheeks were tearstained, and there was a gash on her forehead that had Lena hurrying toward her. “Maia, what—”
“The Haesta, they have Finaen.” Her words hit her like a hammer, slamming against the last of her resolve with sickening force.
“I heard Novitiate Maia screaming on patrol,” Yana explained. “When I found her, the Haesta were already there. There were too many of them, and Finaen was unconscious …” Yana’s hands moved in a helpless gesture, her face tight with guilt. “There was only time to flee with the girl.”
“Lena,” Maia said, her eyes bright with tears, “Iska was with them.”
Dimas’s jaw clenched, but the emperor remained sullenly silent.
“That’s not all,” Yana continued. “They spotted us fleeing and shouted a warning after us—said they would be awaiting the Fateweaver at the mountains east of the city, and that if Lena doesn’t turn herself in by sunset tomorrow, they’d kill Finaen … and the High Priest.”
“They have Brother Dunstan, too?” Dimas asked, breathless from the effort of holding Ioseph.
Guilt twisted Lena’s stomach. This was all her fault. She’d let Venysa manipulate her, and now two innocent lives were at risk.
“If they have Finaen, then I’m going.”
There were no guards to stop her, but if what Roston had said about Milos was true, then there would be soon. If she was going to go, it had to be now.
“Wait!” Dimas stepped in front of her.
Lena glared, her newly freed magic surging. “If you want to stop me, you’re going to have to kill me.”
“I don’t want to stop you,” said Dimas, adjusting his hold on Ioseph.
“I want to help you. Fate dammit, all I’ve ever wanted to do was help you, but you were so consumed by your anger that you couldn’t see that!
You attacked my friend, drugged the church priests, and severed our bond.
You’ve left Wyrecia vulnerable, not just to the Haesta, but to Verlond and any other nation that decides it might like to invade us with an absent throne.
” He was breathing hard, his face flushed as he added, “I should kill you. It’s what my father would do. ”
Casimir bristled beside her, his own hands clenching tightly around his blades.
But then Dimas added, his voice broken, “But I am not my father.” He took a breath, his head tilting to the dark sky above, and when he looked back down, Lena didn’t think she’d ever seen anyone look so …
defeated. “I’ve lost everything because of you.
The court will never accept me as their ruler now, and the church will condemn me right alongside you.
They’ve always seen me as weak, and I … I thought they were right.
But my uncle …” Dimas trailed off, his jaw hardening.
“The Haesta have to be stopped. And if the only way to do that is to work with you, then that’s what I’ll do. ”
Lena didn’t know what to say. His words should have made her angry, and yet as Lena held the emperor’s accusatory stare, she found she didn’t have it in her to defend herself.
Because he was right.
“I know we all have a lot of feelings right now,” Casimir drawled, and Lena could have hugged him for taking the attention off her, “but if we want a chance to keep having those feelings, we really need to get out of this damned palace.”
Dimas clenched his jaw, gave Lena one more long, accusatory stare, and said, “There’s a servant’s entrance not far from here, but it’ll lead us out into the main gardens, where our only escape route will be through the palace gates. And if what my uncle said about Milos is true …”
“Then he’ll have hunters watching them. It’s too risky, but …
there’s another way.” There was an instinctive part of Lena that told her to keep the courtyard off the prayer chamber a secret.
That the iron grate hidden in the wall there was her only escape to the outside, should Dimas try to imprison her once this was all over.
But … they were in this mess because she’d kept secrets.
Because she’d been too afraid to trust others.
And as much as she hated to admit it, Dimas was right: if they had any chance of saving Finaen and the Zvaerna Order’s High Priest, then they’d need to work together.
And so, as the presence of a dozen webs of threads brushed against her awareness, their energy growing closer at an alarming rate, Lena lifted her chin and said, “Follow me.”