Chapter 48 #2
I swing my legs over the side of the bed to go to her. I will always go to her.
Her eyes widen, and she’s moving before I can even plant my feet. “Don’t you dare get up!” she cries out. “Elowen will have my head if you pull a stitch or fall on your face.”
But I’ve no desire for her to see me in a sick bed. Not when I’m awake and can do something about it. The stitches that crisscross jaggedly across my neck ache and stretch with the motion, but I don’t dissolve into a coughing fit, so there’s some progress.
She scowls at me. “I should have known you’d make a horrible patient.”
“I think you know what kind of patient I am firsthand,” I tell her, one eyebrow quirked. “Veilstrider.” I gesture to the patched-up gash over my throat that should’ve killed me. “Thank you.”
She winces as she lowers her eyes to the jagged scar. “I’m sorry I stitched it so poorly.” She smiles ruefully. “I’ve been working with Siofra to improve my field dressing so that I don’t curse anyone else with a scar quite so horrific again.”
I scoff. “An Altor that cares about a little scar isn’t a real Altor.”
“Little?” she questions. “I wouldn’t call it little.”
A wicked grin winks out before I can control myself. “No,” I drawl. “I don’t think you would.”
She blushes, a beautiful pink flush covering her chest and her cheeks. Thank Serephelle for Elowen and the gift of privacy.
My voice is still hoarse from the ash. The volcano on Solmire started blasting thick plumes of it before the Kher’zenn attacked.
It was like they knew. Like they knew I was there alone; like they knew the volcano was going to erupt ash, creating the perfect camouflage for them.
When Einarr and I were ambushed, it had seemed like the worst kind of luck.
Or the gods reaching down with a blade.
And then our fate changed again when Leina dropped from the sky. An avenging goddess on wings of fury, born for death and war. But the truth is, my fate didn’t change then . It changed in the woods, when I first found her.
And gods, I’m so tired of fighting it.
She clears her throat, awkwardly. “I’m sorry about …” She waves her hand in the air a bit helplessly.
I quirk an eyebrow at her in question.
She blushes an even brighter red. “About the dreams,” she mumbles.
The sex dreams. The dreams that weren’t quite dreams. The implications have us both standing incredibly still, until I take a measured step toward her.
“Are you?” I ask, my already-hoarse voice going deeper.
“Mmm,” she answers. “I didn’t know of course, but even still.”
“I’m sure it won’t happen again,” I say, but my voice is a challenge. What the fuck am I doing?
“Of course, I-I-I. I wouldn’t—” she stammers, and then stops, unable to get a promise out. Because she still wants me. Because she can’t control it. Not yet.
She throws her shoulders back, raising her chin up at me, and narrows her eyes. There’s that fire.
“The Elder wants to take over my training for a while,” she says, her voice firmer as she changes the subject. “There’s not another veilstrider to work with me, and he believes he’s the best to help me understand my gift, given his experience and knowledge.”
I nod. I expected this.
Her lips part on a silent exhale. “The archons said you’ll still be my master, that I’ll still ride out with you in battles,” she continues. “But I’ll spend the winter training with the Elder while you’re in Selencia.”
The distance will likely be good for us.
Not because I want to leave her—gods, the last thing I want is to leave her, especially now that we know the danger surrounding her is greater than anything I’d prepared for. And I’d prepared for a lot—every worst-case scenario, every shadow at her back, I’d already counted. But this?
She’s not just a threat to the traditions, the authority, the sacred little systems. She’s a threat to control, to the lies I suspect our entire kingdom has been built on. They won’t come for her out of fear or hate—they’ll come for her out of desperation.
But even so, going to Selencia gives me the opportunity to step beyond the bounds of my oath and chase answers I was never meant to seek.
Because Leina’s existence calls into question the entire foundation the Synod stands on. And this—this forbidden desire, this unrelenting need that crosses godsdamned veils and transcends realms—it calls into question the entire structure of our way of life.
I’ll stand by my oath, but not the way the Synod interprets it—not with blind obedience or fear masquerading as faith. I’ll honor it in the way it was meant to be honored. If that means standing against kings, against temples, even against the gods themselves … So be it.
Because I am Altor. Because it’s time the Synod stood for more than simply not dying. It’s time it stood for living.
I rub a hand over my face, trying not to picture all the trouble she’ll be able to get into when I’m gone. “Just, don’t veilstride into any more battles until we’ve done some more weapons training and air maneuvers, yeah?”
She gives a noncommittal “mmm.”
And I don’t think she’s trying to be smart with me.
Her lack of control over her gift is a truly terrifying thing, and I don’t even understand all the ways it’s terrifying.
There hasn’t been a veilstrider in hundreds of years.
It’s never been common. It’s a gift I know next to nothing about, but I keep picturing her dropping out of the sky into the middle of half a dozen Kher’zenn, with no training and riding a new, untried faravar.
What if she drops right into Morendahl, alone? What if … What if she drops into a different realm altogether? Fuck, what if she gets lost ?
I’ve already requested Elowen bring me all the texts on veilstriding she can get her hands on, though I gather that I’m probably last in line to request them—behind the Elder, the archons, the king, and every other godsdamn Altor who was here when she revealed everything.
It takes me a moment to realize she started talking again. I pull my attention back to her.
“… can’t believe I left you on Solmire. How is Einarr doing?”
“I can’t believe you made it there, at all. You saved us,” I reply. “And Einarr is fine. He’s on his way here from Carrisfal. How is your beast?”
Contentment blooms across her face, and her entire expression softens. “Perfect,” she whispers. “Vaeloria is perfect. I can’t wait for you and Einarr to really meet her.”
“Her?” I ask, not bothering to cover the surprise in my voice.
“Yes,” Leina says. “I’m not the only female warrior in the Synod anymore.”
Another knock sounds on the door, and a young ward enters with a tray of food. Leina steps to the side, giving him space in the little room to maneuver.
“Archon Robias wants to know if you’re ready to give your post-mission account?” the boy asks me.
I give a nod.
“He’ll be here shortly,” the boy says, and then leaves as quietly and quickly as he arrived.
There’s so much more to say. Too much for mere minutes.
“Heal well, Ryot.” She turns to leave. “And I’ll see you soon, when you’re back from Selencia.” Her voice breaks on the word Selencia, gutting me.
“Leina.”
She turns back, one hand poised to open the door.
“Thank you again. For saving my life.”
She tilts her head. “I never thanked you for all the times you’ve saved mine. So, I guess … now we’re even.”
The door clicks open as her hand twists the knob.
No. We’re not leaving it like this.
I step forward, pressing my palm above hers, easing the door shut before she can open it any wider. I stop close, just behind her, but I don’t touch her. Not yet.
I feel the shift in her breath, the subtle hitch in her chest. And gods, her scent—lavender and heat and her—wraps around me like a tether.
I drop my lips to her ear. She shivers, as she’s done every godsdamn time I’ve done this from the first moment we met. It makes me want to drag my tongue along the curve of her ear, to tease that soft, vulnerable place at her neck until she can’t hold back that sound she makes in my dreams.
“We stopped being about debts owed and paid a long time ago,” I whisper, voice low, breath brushing her skin.
She gasps. Her hand trembles on the door. But when she speaks, her voice is steady.
“What are we about, then?”
I give in—finally. I lick that sweet curve of her ear and then give a quick tug with my teeth.
She moans, and the sound is everything I knew it would be.
Everything I’ve dreamed it would be. Sweet Serephelle—it’s everything she dreamed it would be.
What a godsdamn mindfuck to know that this pull between us isn’t just lust. It never was.
We don’t only find each other in our sleep.
We reach for each other across the Veil—through whatever both gods and man put between us.
“Fate,” I breathe, hoarse and wrecked in a way that has nothing to do with the ash still clinging to my lungs. “Because even the gods didn’t see us coming, my rebel girl.”