Chapter 49
QUINN
Breath knifed my throat. My lungs scraped raw. Stone and shadow blurred as we ran. My spell thinned with each heartbeat. The court would soon discover their monarch slain.
“Faster,” Branrir barked.
We turned a corner too sharply, boots sliding, and nearly collided with a cluster of figures waiting in the shadow of an archway. Mav drew his blade.
“Stop!” I threw out an arm as my eyes adjusted to the dark. “Devronica?”
The head seamstress stood with two of her attendants, their arms laden with bundles and satchels. The silver coil of her hair had come half undone.
“We can’t afford to slow,” Branrir hissed. “Are these ladies on our side or not?”
Thistle’s Hedge magic sprang to life as her palms glowed green.
“Your side—hers!” Devronica yelped. “At the ceremony, I saw how you looked at…” Her eyes flicked to Mav, then back again. “I thought that if you managed to get out, you’d need provisions to make your escape.”
She stepped forward, pressing a satchel into my hands. “We have food, some water, and spare clothing. There are tents and bandages. It’s not much, but it should be enough to keep you until you can get somewhere safe.”
I stared at her, throat tightening. “Why are you helping us? I will not be able to keep my promises to you, to stop the branding and taxes.”
Devronica’s lined face softened. “You told me earlier that we deserved to be free.” Her hand clasped my arm. “So do you.”
Emotion surged so fiercely I could hardly speak. “I-I do not know how to thank you—”
“Thank me later when you’re all still alive,” Devronica said. “Now follow me, quickly!”
The seamstress and her attendants handed their bundles and satchels off to Thistle, Mav, and Branrir. We followed them into a shadowed gallery.
“Down here,” Devronica urged, gesturing toward a narrow servants’ staircase.
We descended fast. Somewhere above, a door slammed open and shouts cracked like whips.
The court was waking.
We spilled into a lower corridor. Devronica drove us onward until we burst through a set of doors. A draft of hay, leather, and animal musk rose to meet us.
The stables.
Pushing hair back from her face, Devronica said, “The main gate should be open for another quarter hour. Ride hard until dawn.” She gave a half smile. “This is where we part ways, milady. May fortune favor us both.”
The lump in my throat broke loose. In another life, perhaps we could have been friends. I could envision afternoons of gossip over alterations, and heart-to-hearts amid hemming. Before I knew what came over me, I wrapped her in an embrace.
“Thank you, thank you so much,” I murmured into her hair.
She returned the embrace, a soft chuckle rumbling from her throat. “Thank you for reminding me that I’m more than a mark.”
Devronica drew back first, her hands lingering on my shoulders before turning away. She and her attendants retreated up the staircase.
Thistle, Branrir, and Mav strode down the line of stalls, examining the horses and tack.
The external door swung open. Cold night air rushed in, along with a half-dozen guards leading sweat-lathered horses. They froze mid-step as their eyes landed upon us.
“You there, halt!”
Thistle’s hands snapped up, moss green light swirling around her fingers.
A cyclone of hay surged to life. It slammed into the shouting guard, wrapping him in a suffocating spiral and pinning him against the wall.
He roared in fury, spitting straw, his boots kicking uselessly a foot above the ground.
Another guard bolted for Mav, sword arcing down.
Mav pivoted, his own blade leaping free of its sheath with a hiss of steel.
He drove the man backward with a savage series of strikes.
On the far side of the stable, Branrir let out a guttural roar and seized the closest weapon to hand: a pitchfork.
He wielded it like a war spear, lunging at a third guard.
The tines struck the man’s breastplate with a hollow clang, driving him into a pile of hay bales.
Vesper launched from the rafters—a trebuchet of fur and fury. “For glory!”
The guard barely had time to look up before a snarling blur of claws and teeth struck his face. The man screamed as Vesper’s claws raked deep lines across his cheek.
I spun, searching for an exit. Another guard charged straight for me. I tried to call forth my Twilight but could summon no more than a puff of clouds, my magic depleted.
The guard lunged.
Steel flashed.
And then Mav was there.
His sword plunged through the man’s side with a wet, awful sound. The guard gasped, a strangled noise, then crumpled.
“Time to go!” Mav yelled, pulling me toward the line of patrol horses.
Branrir climbed into the saddle of a massive black horse. Thistle sprinted for a walnut one, Vesper vaulting to the steed with her. I stumbled, skirts catching on splintered wood. Mav spun, caught me around the waist.
“Up you go.” My body landed flush against his chest for one breathless heartbeat before he boosted me onto a tan gelding.
He swung up in front of me in a single, practiced motion. “Hold onto me, princess.” My arms locked around his waist, the solid press of him anchoring me as my pulse thundered in my ears.
The stable door slammed open.
Torches flared, slicing the darkness with jagged light. A flood of guards barreled in, swords raised, faces twisted in fury.
“There they are!” one roared. “Stop them!”
“Go!” Mav shouted, heels slamming into the horse’s flanks.
The horse bolted forward, nearly unseating me. I clung to Mav, breath tearing loose as the world surged into motion. Branrir and Thistle rode ahead, cutting a path through the chaos.
We burst into the moonlit courtyard. Cold night air slapped my cheeks as we wove down cobbled streets at breakneck speed. Aurillion’s portcullis loomed ahead—iron teeth glinting in the moonlight.
The gears creaked into motion.
The gate was closing.
Thistle shot her hand out, Hedge magic curling. Vines exploded from the ground, tangling with the mechanism and slowing the descent. We barreled through as the plants gave way. The portcullis slammed shut. Cries of pursuit rose at our heels.
“Hold tight,” Mav shouted over the pounding hooves.
I clung to him, skirts snapping like banners behind me.
Arrows hissed through the dark.
One splintered into a tree beside my head.
Another nicked a lock of my hair, near enough, the heat of its passage burned.
The road beyond the gate wound into the Elderhollow.
Branches lashed at my bare arms, leaving stinging welts.
Behind us, the forest glowed with the erratic light of torches. The guards were closing in.
“Left!” Branrir shouted. He veered sharply, leading us off the main path.
The trail broke into a steep slope, sending us hurtling downhill. My stomach flipped as the horse’s hooves barely found purchase, skidding through mud and leaves.
Thistle thrust a hand outward. Green light bled from her palm, and the forest answered with a guttural moan.
Trees bent toward one another, their branches weaving together in a living net.
Brambles surged into walls of green and black, tangling into an impenetrable barrier.
The riders slammed into the wall of thorns.
Horses screamed. Men cursed and shouted, hacking uselessly at the dense, writhing mass.
We burst into an open glade, moonlight silvering the clearing.
Thistle slumped in her saddle, panting, sweat streaking her temples. “That’ll hold them,” she panted, “but not forever.”
We pushed the horses to walk for another while, putting as much distance as we could between us and the capital. We paused in a thicket near a stream.
Mav dismounted and raised his arms. “Come here.”
My joints ached. My legs half-forgot how to function. He lifted me down, and the moment my feet touched earth, something inside me gave way. I pressed my face to his chest, soaking his shirt with sudden tears—not fully knowing why I cried.
He wrapped me in the fortress of his embrace. “I’m so sorry,” Mav whispered. “Saints, Quinn, I should’ve gotten there sooner. I should’ve—”
“No,” I said, shaking against him. “Do not dare take that weight.”
His hold tightened. I tipped my face up. His eyes shone.
“You came back,” I said, brushing my thumb along his cheekbone.
“I’ll always come back to you,” he said hoarsely.
I rose onto my toes and kissed him. A promise sealed where words would fail.
The fire cast restless shadows over bark and branch.
I stood on the perimeter of the circle of warmth.
Branrir, Thistle, and Vesper had all long since retired to tents on the other side of the camp, exhausted from the day’s events.
The shredded ruins of the wedding gown clung to me like a stubborn ghost.
“You’ll freeze out here.”
I turned to find Mav holding out a blanket—dark and worn, smelling of the unnamable scent of him.
“Will you help me?” I asked, my voice a thread of sound. “With this?”
His gaze flicked to the ruined dress, then back to me. For a heartbeat, something unreadable passed through his eyes—hunger, reverence, rage at what that gown symbolized.
“Of course.”
He wrapped the blanket around my shoulders as we walked to the small tent he had pitched. The flap whispered shut behind us. I turned my back to him, dropped the blanket, and gathered my tangled hair over one shoulder.
“The buttons, please.”
His fingers found the first fastening.
Each button slipped free beneath his touch, the motion feathering my spine. By the third button, my breath had shortened. By the fifth, my heartbeat was erratic. When he reached the last, his hands stilled at the small of my back. The heat of his palms seared through the fabric.
The bodice sagged loose at my shoulders. I caught it with one hand and faced him. Our eyes met. The air thickened, heavy with longing and question. I let the dress fall. The ruined silk sighed as it pooled at my feet.
Mav’s eyes traced over me, memorizing every scar, every shadow, every line of my body. His hands rose to cradle my face. His thumbs traced reverent paths along my cheekbones, my lips, the fragile edge of my jaw.
I closed the space between us and pressed my lips to his. The kiss began soft, hesitant, then deepened into a kind of desperation that left no room for thought. A groan rumbled low in his chest, a raw note of longing that shivered through me. We sank together onto the bedrolls.
Mav kissed me as though the world were ending and he intended to claim every heartbeat this night offered. I kissed him back with equal devotion. We moved with intention. Each motion a word, each sigh a sentence; our bodies writing letters to one another while there was still ink to spill.
His tongue stroked against mine, and I gasped into his mouth, a soft, startled breath that unraveled whatever fragile restraint remained between us.
His hands hesitated as he reached to peel away the remaining fabric of my chemise.
He met my eyes, waiting for my permission; a silent vow that no part of me would ever again be touched without my choosing.
I nodded and smiled. He removed the last of the clothing keeping us apart.
His hands charted me with adoration, tracing the line of my collarbone, the subtle curves of my ribs, the narrow sweep of my waist. My fingers mapped him in return, following the hard planes of his back, the powerful hinge of his shoulder, the familiar scar at his ribs.
The taste of him flooded my senses until there was only the raw, aching certainty of us.
When his mouth closed over the peak of my breast, I arched into him with a cry I could not swallow, my hands tangling in his hair.
He moved down my body with a series of kisses toward the mounting ache between my legs.
His stubble rasped against the delicate flesh, leaving a trail of sparks in its wake.
He worshipped me with lips and tongue until my pulse became a wild, ungoverned drum.
He paused, forehead to mine, before kissing me softly.
When he entered me at last, the world stopped.
A sharp gasp tore from my lips as he filled me, stretching me to the brink of pain and then beyond, into something vast and consuming.
We moved together, tide to moon, as though an ancient gravity had waited centuries to draw us into alignment.
I arched beneath him, and he spoke my name against the hollow of my throat.
I breathed his name back, trembling, as though speaking it aloud might keep him with me forever.
The pace quickened. His hips drove deeper, harder, until my back bowed and my body sang with sensation.
I clung to him, lost in the symphony we created: the syncopated rhythm of motion, the rush of breath, the soft moans of pleasure.
When the pleasure crested, it was not a single sharp note but a chord so rich and full it reverberated through every nerve and bone.
My fingers dug into his shoulders as stars burst behind my eyes.
Mav followed me into the breaking, his release shuddering through him as though his very soul poured into mine.
He pressed a gentle kiss to my lips. We lay together in the aftermath, skin slick with sweat and the fading echoes of heat.
After we dressed in borrowed clothing to stave off the chill, I curled into his chest, and he stroked my hair.
Then, with the smirk that had unmade me from the first hour, “You’re not allowed in my dreams tonight.”
“I do not understand your meaning.”
“I’m serious,” he said, mock stern. “You always mess with my head when you’re in them.”
“Mav, I swore I would never use magic on you. It remains so.”
He tilted to look at me. “Then why have I dreamed about you every night since the day we met?”
I kissed the place over his heart. “Perhaps you ought to ask yourself the question.”
His laugh was quiet. His arms gathered me closer, tucking my back to his chest. Within minutes, his breathing slowed to a restful pace.
Sleep tugged at the corners of my sight, heavy and warm. Before I let it take me, I spoke the words I had hoarded far too long.
“I love you, Mav. I always will.”
I wished to ink the truth of it into his skin—so he could never forget me.
I was out of time.