Chapter 45 #2
“Lady Nyleeria,” he whispered in my ear, the words holding a strange hesitation.
Pulling back a fraction, I held his deeply honest eyes. “What is it, Kaelun?”
A soft smile tugged at the sides of his mouth. “Your heart,” he said softly, “I’m pleased to see the scar tissue has softened it instead of callusing it.”
My brows furrowed as I looked up at him, trying to understand his meaning.
Then, without a word, he squeezed me a little tighter, and I understood.
He was holding me. And I was holding him. Tears blurred my vision as the ramification settled over me. I’d been afraid of touch. Had viscerally reacted to it so harshly that a part of me had come to believe it was permanent. It was then that I realized I would be okay.
“I’m not broken,” I whispered.
Cautiously, he leaned down and pressed a soft kiss against my cheek. “You never were,” he whispered back, then stepped away, allowing me to claim this truth.
I stood there, feeling… different. Perhaps lighter, like a snake that has shed the layer of skin it no longer needs.
“Ny,” Tarrin said from my side. “You okay?”
Nodding, twin tears slipping down my cheeks. “Yeah, I think I am.” He smiled, and for the first time since he’d come back into my life, he looked hopeful.
Wiping my face dry, I focused in on the brothers who were pulling away from their own embrace.
I looked past the trees to where Kaelun had emerged and focused on my fae hearing for Artton, but I came up empty.
Fear gripped my heart as I turned to Kaelun.
“Where is he?” I asked, voice betraying my fear.
He shook his head, and the joyous relief slipped from his face, replaced with something darker. Kaelun looked at his brother apologetically, and my hand flew to my chest, clutching my bandolier as I braced myself. “I’m sorry, Sir,” he began, and my heart plummeting from the formality.
“Go on, soldier,” Sidrick said, as if knowing he needed to anchor to his commander—not his brother—to share this news.
Kaelun swallowed and shifted uncomfortably before finally speaking again. “They have him, Sir. They have Artton.”
The world spun around me.
“Explain,” Sidrick commanded.
“I’m not sure I know how, Sir. We kept them from following, though—I see we did a poor job,” he said, looking past us at the valley littered with bodies.
“They didn’t follow us,” his commander offered, “they appeared out of nowhere.”
Kaelun nodded, soaking in this information, and I had to stop myself from demanding answers—stat. Clearly my shadow was feeling the effects of shock, something I was all too familiar with, and getting upset wouldn’t help.
“Everything happened so fast,” he finally continued, “one moment we were holding our own—no, more than that, we were about to break through their defenses. Then the next, the commander had some sort of arrow lodged into his shoulder just below the clavicle here.” He pointed to his chest, about three fingers below the collarbone.
I winced, personally knowing how much that hurt. But it wasn’t fatal.
“I couldn’t sense where it came from, or that it possessed magic, so I ripped it out.”
I closed my eyes, hearing Endymion’s instructions in my mind as we’d carefully removed a similar object, courtesy of the Autumn Court’s experiments.
“Just like that”—he snapped his fingers—"his magic slipped away as if he’d never had any. He ordered me to valen away and find you. I did as he asked, but I watched from a distance first. They took him, Sir. That’s when I left to find you."
My eyes snapped to his. “Did it paralyze him?”
“Did what paralyze him?”
“The arrow,” I said more forcefully than I meant to.
Confused, Kaelun shook his head. “No. It just cut him off from the Mother.”
“Thank the gods,” I breathed.
“What is it?” Sidrick asked.
“It means he’s alive. The arrow Endymion and I took was laced with a paralytic that’s used to torture someone before it kills them,” I explained.
“Wait, you got shot with an arrow?” Tarrin said.
“It was more of a bolt.” I shrugged.
“Seriously?”
“Yes, Tarrin. Seriously.”
“Well, then I’m assuming death arrows—sorry, bolts,” he added, giving me a hard look, “aren’t the best option when they want you alive.”
“I’d have to agree with Tarrin here,” Sidrick said, “and now that we know they have the capability to render us powerless, we have to get out of her.”
“Wait!” I protested. “We can’t just leave Artton—they’ll kill him.”
Sidrick shook his head. “No, they won’t. If it were Tarrin or Kaelun, yes. You? Not until they got what they wanted. But Artton and me…” He shook his head again. “Let’s just say that Wymond isn’t stupid enough to kill one of Caius’ commanders.”
“Just capture and torture them,” I mumbled.
“Yes. But remember, Artton can’t physically give away any court secrets.”
“That’s not as comforting as you think it is, Sidrick,” I shot back.
“Either way, we need to get back home. The sooner we do, the sooner Wymond will be forced to release him,” Sidrick said, and although it was the only sane path forward, it didn’t stop me from feeling sick to my stomach over abandoning Artton.