Chapter Seventeen
Daphne
Idoze on the shoulders of each of my knights as they swap me from horse to horse. We ride through So Far Away and into the land that exists on no map and holds no name.
The trees thin first, then the air changes. The birds grow quieter, as if they don’t want to commit to flying over whatever lies ahead. By the time the sun tilts toward the horizon, the ground is no longer kind.
We crest the final ridge, and the world opens into a breathtaking vista of mountains.
Not the soft, rolling kind that swell into the sky, but jagged, punctuated landmarks.
The wind howls between their peaks in long, low notes that feel less like a weather phenomenon and more like a warning.
No one sane would wander into their unforgiving heights.
But there’s nowhere I wouldn’t go for those I love.
Nash’s chest presses against my back as he takes in the unfathomable quest ahead of us.
Malachi dismounts first and pulls me off the horse with Nash’s help. My legs wobble, and my thighs ache, but my back isn’t as stiff. I think I’m getting the hang of riding.
The tug in my chest makes me suck in a breath. “He’s here,” I whisper as my eyes flutter closed.
Hart shifts next to me. I don’t need to see them to know which knight is where. I can feel them as resolute as my existence.
“Beyond the pass,” he confirms. “We’ve only ventured here once before.”
I nod in agreement. This is where Theo goes when he isn’t safe for anyone else.
He takes himself out of the equation before he hurts anyone.
The whispers in So Far Away of his presence are true, but the farther we press toward him, the more he retreats as if he’s terrified of what we’re offering. Me. He’s frightened I’m not real.
The others spread out, scanning. But he won’t show himself until he’s ready.
Malachi studies the ridgeline as if he expects it to move.
Nash says nothing. He hasn’t for the last turn.
I glance at him. His jaw is tight, and his eyes are darker than usual.
“You’re brooding,” I tease.
“I’m assessing.”
“That’s brooding with vocabulary.”
He doesn’t smile. That unsettles me more than the vast mountains. Something’s going on with my dark knight. One rescue at a time. Theo is more urgent. Then, if I have to pin Nash down until he confesses all his secrets, I’m sure his brothers will help me.
I look back out across the peaks. We are past the land of So Far Away. Past the forests that know our names. This place is raw. Untamed. Untapped. Ripe with possibility.
And scorched in places. Like the rock nearest to me, which is charred along one side. I step toward it and press my palm against the blackened stone. It’s warm.
“Now,” Hart says, in a quiet yet forceful demand. “Now you reach.”
I swallow, unsure of the power he believes exists inside me. I close my eyes and tilt my head back, the wind clawing at my hair. With the part of me that’s always known him, I pull. Theo. My dragon. My knight who stole a piece of my hair and my heart from the moment we met. My last unclaimed piece.
At first, there is nothing but a cold and vast distance. A yawning void stares back at me, daring me to step into it. I hesitate and then push forward.
Fire licks through the darkness against my soul.
Not physical. Not visible. But alive. Angry, hurt, lost. It hits me like a body slamming into a wall, and heat explodes behind my eyes.
A roar tears through my skull in an all-consuming grief, as strong as a storm and as deep as the ocean.
It crashes into me, and my breath leaves my body in a broken gasp. He’s alone. Furious. Burning in guilt.
Stop, Theo. None of this is your fault.
He’s grieving me and the moment I died, the silence that followed, the helplessness of it, the certainty that he was not fast enough, not strong enough, not there. The weight of that belief drags at me, pulling me downward into him and into the fire he has built from it.
I see flashes of wings beating against a storm, claws tearing into the earth, mountains cracking beneath the rage of his breaking heart as snow hisses into steam around him.
I see him circling endlessly, searching and searching and searching for a body that no longer breathed.
The grief becomes flame, the flame becomes wall, and when I crash into it again, it burns.
I cry out as the heat sears through me, and I drop to my knees.
The connection snaps like a severed cord, abrupt and brutal, and the world rushes back in all at once.
Hands are on me immediately—Hart’s first, steady and sure; Malachi’s second, firm and grounding; Nash’s slower, hesitant, as though he’s unsure if he’s allowed to touch me.
I cannot have that. He cannot pull away.
Not now. Not when everything else is burning.
“What happened?” Hart demands.
I can’t speak for a tempo as I drag clean air into my lungs and force out the smoke that isn’t real.
“There’s a wall,” I manage at last. “He’s built a wall of fire.” Around himself. Around me. Around the memory of what happened.
“He doesn’t know you’re back?” Malachi asks.
“He knows,” I whisper. That’s the problem. He knows, but he’s afraid to look.
I press my palm to my chest, as if I can physically steady it. His grief is still there, clinging to me like ash, heavy and suffocating.
“You can’t force this,” Hart says.
“I know.”
It feels like drowning in something that used to love you.
I drag in a breath.
The mountains press closer.
“We’ll make camp and try again in the morning,” Nash says. His voice is too steady, as if he’s going through the motions of what he knows he should do without paying attention to it.
No one argues.
“No tent,” I whisper as Malachi drags the pack from his horse. “I need all of you near me tonight.” What I mean is, Nash is freaking me out and I need all eyes on him while I go get my dragon.
They shift around me, finding the things needed to build a fire and make the area around as comfy as possible.
I fold my arms and stare out at the sinking sun. There, in the distance, is the shadow I’m looking for. Huge, undeniable, mine.
The temperature drops with the last rays of daylight. The fire crackles, drawing us all closer. We sit in a loose circle and share the few bits of food we have left, but I barely taste it.
Nash has positioned himself across from me, the darkness in his eyes dancing with the embers flicking into the night. I stare back, daring him to act on whatever is happening. He doesn’t. The ever-dependable and restrained Nash Stirling doesn’t lose control.
We’ll see about that. I can’t have these walls between us as I fight the Idols.
Build them as high and deep as you like. Nothing will stop me from loving you.
He glances away as if my love burns him. My jaw tics as I lean back to stare at the open sky and stars beginning to pierce the dark. The stars he claimed me from. How soon he forgets he’s the reason I breathe.
The flames dance higher, but they are nothing like Theo’s. These are tame. Obedient. Containable. And utterly wrong.
A yawn sneaks up on me. I try to swallow it and fail. My jaw stretches wide. Hart yawns. Then Malachi. Nash resists for a full five seconds before it drags him under, too.
“Why do we catch yawns?” I wonder.
“Contagion,” Hart says.
“That is not an explanation.”
“It’s instinctive,” Malachi offers.
“No,” I say, frowning at the fire. “It’s a secret plot.”
“To what end?” Nash asks dryly.
“To measure vulnerability,” I reply without hesitation. “When you yawn, you expose your teeth. Your throat. Your lungs. It’s clearly a surveillance tactic to see who is the weakest in the pack.”
Hart blinks. “That is—”
“Also,” I continue, warming to my assertion, “it could be ancient dragon magic. Dragons breathe fire. Humans breathe yawns. We’re mimicking them subconsciously to prove we’re not a threat.”
Malachi rubs his temples. “You’re spiraling.”
“I’m theorizing.”
Nash’s mouth twitches. Finally, he cracks. “There is a study,” he says, “that suggests it’s empathy.”
“That’s worse,” I decide. “You mean to tell me my body just volunteered to feel someone else’s exhaustion without consent?”
“Yes.”
“Rude.”
Hart laughs softly, the sound steadying something in me.
I glance at Nash again. He’s staring into the fire, but not seeing it. “Which Idols are in the library?”
The question hangs. We never clarified. Four of them in the Hallows. Doing what? There are narratives with higher stakes, like the Hansel and Gretel one, and then those with a softer tone, like Beauty and the Beast.
“Does it matter?” Malachi asks.
“Yes,” I say. “Knowing which narrative they’re dealing with will help us to best them. Their motives are already out in the realm for all to see. We just have to bend it to our will.”
“Now you’re speaking like a leader,” Nash rumbles with a smirk of approval.
The fire pops. Sparks leap and vanish.
“I should have asked,” I mutter.
“We will tomorrow,” Hart says, waving the pocket mirror in the air. “Tonight, center yourself on Theo. The Idols are distractions that can wait.”
“I feel like I’m running out of time.”
I think I have PTSD from the white rabbit. Or maybe it’s my actual death that I still feel like I’m trying to outrun.
“We have time, Daphne. Just breathe. Everything’s okay,” Malachi declares.
The mountains loom around us, dark shapes carved against an even darker sky.
Theo is up there somewhere, burning himself hollow.
One by one, the knights settle. Malachi first, lowering himself to the ground with a stretch of his limbs, one hand still resting on Excalibur as sleep claims him.
Hart follows, curling onto his side near the fire, his breathing evening out within moments as though he can will himself into rest. I envy that.
Nash remains upright the longest, unmoving, his gaze fixed on the flames as if they might confess something to him that the rest of us cannot hear.
“You’re angry,” I whisper.
“I’m focused.”
“On?”
“Everything.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He exhales slowly and raises his dark gaze to meet mine. Gone is the green, the darkness is now in charge. I don’t flinch away like he expects. “I watched you die.”
The words land heavy.
“I know.”
“And now you’re walking into fire again.”
“As is my destiny.”
“I know.”
There it is. The fracture. We’re linked through a wish he made, and the stars answered.
We’re bound by an inescapable fate, and all we can do is hold tight to each other as the pain tries to drag us under.
It won’t win. There’s nothing we can’t face together.
Can’t he see that in his moment of weakness, he created something unbreakable?
“I don’t like that he gets this part of you,” Nash says.
My breath catches. “He doesn’t get it,” I reply. “He is it. But can’t you see you have another part of me? All of you.”
Silence stretches. He nods once before lying down. He rolls, facing away from the fire, creating a distance I won’t allow. Not now, not ever.
I jump to my feet and sink to my knees in front of him. He blinks up at me and opens his mouth to argue and push me away. I cover it with my own in a soul-stealing kiss. If my words can’t explain how I feel, then let him taste it on my lips.
He growls into my mouth before flipping me beneath him, his body settling over mine, possessing me in a way that makes my head spin. My legs wrap around his hips, and I rock myself against him in demand.
He works his hand between us, finding my panties damp with need. He tears my underwear free from my body and pushes his fingers inside me, rubbing against a spot that makes my eyes cross and my body tighten in anticipation.
I tear my mouth free. “Nash, please.” I need him to claim me. This distance is not something I will survive.
His mouth trails over my jaw, and his teeth graze my thundering pulse before he nips my ear. “Come for me, Daphne,” he growls.
I’m helpless to resist as his words throw me over the cliff. I cry out his name. This time, he doesn’t swallow the sound; he lets it out for the realm and anyone who’s listening.
My hands thread through his hair, and I guide his mouth back to mine, ready to push this feeling higher. But he clamps a hand on my hip, stilling my body as his kiss turns soft.
“I think I’ve demonstrated I’m not the delicate lay me on rose petals and rock me slowly type of maiden,” I mutter.
He chuckles, rolls off me, tilts me onto my side, and slides his body against mine. This could work. I wiggle against his hard length. Yes, this will work very well.
“I can’t. Stop, Daphne, please. I want to hold you while we sleep.”
I squeeze my eyes closed, and the burn in my cheeks almost brings tears to my eyes. It’s not the first time he’s rejected me.
“Don’t do that. I need someone strong enough to stop me if I go too far. Go get your dragon, then I promise you no rose petals in sight.”
I stop and let my body relax. “Can I have my panties back?”
I feel him grin against my cheek. “Not a chance.”
I huff and settle in for a night of pantieless and funless torment. I’ll never sleep.
His breathing slows, even and deep as sleep claims him, and I’m the only pulse left awake beside the dying fire.
The flames shrink to embers, casting a fragile glow over stone and steel, and somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbles low and insistent, demanding my surrender.
I hear you, Theo.
Now hear me.