Chapter 58
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
RYOT
I’ve kept one hand on Leina’s wrist, two fingers pressed to the pulse point there, for the past day and a half that she’s been unconscious.
That slow, steady beat is the only thing that assures me that she’s alive.
Her skin is deathly pale, especially around her lips, like she’s not getting enough air.
I honestly can’t tell if she’s breathing—she must be, for her heart to still beat.
Even Altor can’t survive without air. But there’s no visible rise and fall of her chest, no flutter of air at her lips.
She’s clammy and cold, no matter how many furs and blankets Elowen piles on top of her.
I’ve kept my other hand free. Prepared to pull the broadsword from the holster at my back at any moment, even here—in the infirmary at the Synod.
She’s so godsdamn vulnerable when she’s in the Veil.
Here, and, if the journal I stole from the temple at Elandors Veil is accurate, also while she’s in there .
She’s vulnerable in two realms. In either place, she can fall.
The thought is unacceptable, and I press my fingers deeper into the skin at her wrist, and the steady beat under her skin is the only thing that keeps me sane.
We’ll be sharing a room from now on. There’s no godsdamn way I’m leaving her like this, alone, ever again. I can and will protect her here.
The silence in the room is jarring. My ears strain in vain to catch the whoosh of her breathing.
I can’t take it anymore. I bend down, until my lips can brush against her ear. If she were awake—if she were here—that would have made her shiver. But she’s not here.
I start to whisper to her, to try to bring her back to me.
First, I whisper about politics and royal schemes and the history of Faraengard and Selencia.
Things she should know but probably doesn’t.
When she first arrived, I was always amazed by the things she didn’t know.
Now, after seeing the conditions in Selencia, I’m truly shocked she knows anything at all.
That she can read is a miracle, a testament to the determination of her mother.
When my voice starts to go hoarse, and she still doesn’t move, I whisper nonsensical things.
Words of sentiment and tenderness. Things I should have told her at the Crimson Feather instead of “it’s time to go.
” Forbidden things, things that I shouldn’t feel, much less speak aloud.
About her smile and her eyes and her quick wit and her courage and her bravery.
Footsteps sound in the hallway, I quiet, only to start again after they pass.
“You are a very special person, Leina of Stormriven. But not because you can stride through the veil,” I whisper against her ear. “Not because of your value in this war, or because of what the gods have planned for you.”
I clutch her hand and bring her wrist to my lips, feeling that beat with my kiss.
“You are a very special person, Leina Haverlyn,” I barely utter that forbidden name, so that it’s only a breath in the air.
But I want her to come back to herself and it feels right to use it.
“Because you claim refuse to be broken. Because of your unwavering resolve to overcome obstacles that were meant to hold you down, and the quiet defiance that drives you to create a better path. You are special to me, Leina Haverlyn, because of the place you hold in my heart.”
I lower her arm back down to the bed and replace my two fingers at her pulse.
There’s movement in the corridor before the doorknob turns, and those were not Elowen’s footsteps. I come to standing, brandishing my sword before the door swings open.
The Elder walks in, his cane clicking against the stone, and I resist the urge to curse.
I wanted more time with Leina. I want to be alone when she comes back.
To have time before anyone else questions her.
I lower my sword and bow deeply—deeper than is expected, even, though I keep that one hand on Leina’s wrist.
Thump, thump, thump goes her slow—terribly slow—heartbeat.
“Elder,” I say, infusing respect into each syllable. I don’t want any trouble from him.
He smirks at me, like he knows the precarious position I’m in. He hasn’t spoken of a punishment for my impudence when I interrupted their training session the other day. He also hasn’t broached a punishment for Roran’s injury, though I’m sure that’s coming.
“Skywarden Ryot,” he acknowledges me, and I rise.
Leaning heavily on his cane, he enters the room and snaps the door closed.
“We will want privacy for this,” he explains the closed door.
I quirk an eyebrow at him. “Privacy for what, Elder?”
He waves his cane at me to back up. With boots that feel they’re weighted, I do, vacating my spot by Leina’s bed. The Elder sinks into my chair with a heavy sigh.
“For when she wakes up.”
We don’t even know if she will fucking come back. She could be stumbling around in the Veil, fucking lost. But then, Leina’s head moves from side-to-side on the pillow. That little movement is a balm on my chafed nerves. I cast an aggrieved look at the Elder, more annoyed by his presence than ever.
“You have auspicious timing, Elder.”
He smiles wider at that—an expression so strange, so unfamiliar on his usually detached face.
Leina’s eyes are twitching underneath her eyelids and her hand spasms. Her back arches as she gasps in a deep breath and I stride over to the other side of the bed regardless of the Elder’s presence.
All at once, her skin flushes with a pink color and warmth.
Her eyes snap open and she jolts up, reaching out for me and gripping my forearms as she does.
“Kher’zenn,” she says on a ragged exhale. The blood in my veins turns to ice. Sweet Serephelle, was she in another battle with the Kher’zenn?
“The Kher’zenn are coming,” she says.
I whoosh out a breath, relieved. “Yes,” I agree. “As soon as the weather warms, they’ll come.”
But she’s shaking her head, her eyes darting around, frantic, until they land on the Elder. Then they bounce back to me.
“No,” she says, her dry voice cracking. I get her a glass of laomai, but she doesn’t take it from my hands.
She keeps speaking, like we don’t even have time for her to take a sip.
“They’re coming to Aesgroth. They’re planning to attack Aish first because it’s warmer there.
And Aish is weaker, they think. Then they’ll use the strength they gain there to come for Faraengard and Selencia. ”
The Elder has his head cocked slightly to the side. He doesn’t question her.
“They can’t reach Aish,” I say, bringing the laomai cup up to her lips. She drains the cup as I’m speaking. “They’ve never been able to reach Aish. It’s too far to the south of Morendahl for the draegoths to fly without a break. There’s nowhere for them to stop and rest.”
Aish has never been as vulnerable to the Kher’zenn, because of geography.
She grips my wrists, hard. Her nails break the skin, her eyes are grave. Focused. “They’ll be able to reach Aish.”
From outside, there’s a commotion, but I don’t tear my eyes from Leina’s.
“We have to at least warn them,” she says. “For their sake and for ours.”
The Elder rises from his seat near the bed.
He turns to face us fully, spreading his arms wide, the heavy folds of his robes billowing outward. He blocks out the light pouring through the window behind him, casting the room in shadows. It’s such a strange movement, I’m momentarily distracted from Leina.
The window shatters. The sound is a sharp, violent crack. I move without thought, throwing myself between Leina and the explosion of glass, sword already in my hand before the shards hit the floor. I brace for an attack—Kher’zenn, a draegoth, some new enemy slipping through the Veil into our world.
But it’s none of those.
It’s Vaeloria.
She kicks and thrashes in the air beyond the broken window, her powerful wings beating a frenzied rhythm that sends a fresh gust of wind howling through the broken frame.
Her silvery mane is wild, her dark eyes wide and frantic.
She lets out a sharp, furious neigh, the sound of it high and ragged, a call filled with fear and desperate need.
The force of her wings fractured the glass.
Vaeloria’s not waiting for Leina to come to her.
She wants Leina now. Behind Vaeloria are Einarr and Sigurd, though both are further back.
Einarr’s agitation radiates off him, so raw that I can feel it scraping across my skin.
The only reason I hadn’t noticed it sooner is because I was too locked in my own fear for Leina.
Fuck.
Einarr’s been hovering ever since our close call at Solmire, never straying too far, never letting me out of his sight for long. I reach for him with my mind, stretching that invisible tether between us. “ It’s fine,” I project sharply. “ Everyone’s fine.”
Einarr snorts—a blast of sound that echoes even at this distance, as clear and derisive as if he were standing next to me. The message he sends back is blunt. “ Nothing is fine, Lastwall.”
Before I can snap a reply, the Elder steps forward, dislodging shards of glass from his robes. He caught it all. The sound they make—little pieces of broken light falling to the floor—rings out in a high, sing-song chime.
“Come,” the Elder says, his voice calm, almost cheerful. “We ride for Aish.”
I can only stand there, staring at him, the words failing to fit into any sense of reason.
We ? The Elder is leaving the Synod? Leina throws the blankets off herself without hesitation, revealing the shirt— my shirt—I dressed her in at the Crimson Feather.
I needed her to be in something that was mine .
She swings her legs off the bed, her movements quick and determined.
No. No fucking way.
I step between her and the Elder without thinking. I gesture sharply at Leina—at the way my shirt swallows her body, making her appear even smaller, at how she sways when she stands, pale and hollow-eyed. The fury rising in my chest is almost enough to drown out the fear.
“Leina only now woke up from a day and a half trapped in the Veil," I bite out. "She’s not fit to ride. She needs rest. She’s not even fucking dressed.”
The Elder raises an eyebrow at me. “And whose fault is that Skywarden Ryot?”
I flush but maintain my eye contact with the Elder. He can’t know. He may suspect, but he doesn’t know. “She’s not fit to ride,” I bite out.
Leina grabs my arm and tugs me around to face her. “One night together doesn’t give you the right to dictate to me!” she whispers furiously. “I say when I’m fit to ride.”
My eyes flick to the Elder. Well. Now he knows. Leina pulls my face back to hers. Her glare is a fierce, blazing thing, her chin jutting out in stubborn defiance.
She is flushed with anger—and with life—and for a moment, the sheer relief of seeing her burning so brightly after so many hours of stillness nearly blinds me. I have to fight the urge to snake my arms around her and haul her against me.
I don’t think she notices. Her message delivered, she stomps around, grabbing her boots from the foot of the bed. She stomps around a little more, no doubt looking for her weapons, but all she finds are her daggers, which was all she was wearing when she disappeared into the Veil.
She hesitates for a fraction of a second, clearly weighing her options, before squaring her shoulders again. And it’s obvious she would rather march down the corridor half-dressed than ask me for help.
“As soon as I find my scythe and my clothes, I’ll be fit to ride,” she announces sharply, before storming out the door, barefoot, with her boots and daggers clutched in her arms.
“Great. Fucking great.” I take off after her, heading for my own chamber to get a pack together.
“The teachings say love clouds the mind,” the Elder calls after me.
I stop. “But what the priests and the teachings don’t understand is the irony of forbidden love.
It is like watching a flower bloom in the desert.
The more it's denied water, the more determined it becomes to show its colors. In our halls where love is but a whispered taboo, the furtive glances and hidden smiles become the most captivating of spectacles. Who needs tales of old when the most thrilling stories unfold right under our ascetic noses?”
I turn slowly, making eye contact with the Elder’s cloudy, unseeing eyes that miss absolutely nothing. I quirk an eyebrow. “Are you saying that our angst amuses you, Elder?”
He smiles broadly.
“What is romance if not the universe’s finest performance?”
I glare at him, before I turn to stalk down the hallway. He’ll have to punish me for falling in love later because I will be going with Leina to godsforsaken Aish.
“Skywarden Ryot,” the Elder calls out from behind me. I pause, briefly, but don’t turn. I tense, waiting to see if he’ll order a punishment for all the rules I’ve broken. Or … smashed my way through with complete irreverence. But he doesn’t.
“We’ll bring your cast with us to Aish. And we’ll need diplomatic representation. As the king is not available, do find Princess Rissa. Collect them all, mmm? We’ll meet at the galehold.”
Sweet Serephelle, he wants to bring Rissa ? And he’s really coming?
Tension drags my shoulders tighter. The Crown hasn’t interacted with Aish in nearly one thousand years. Aish has never allowed representatives of the Synod or the Crown into their territory. Their borders are closed, their alliances sealed off behind centuries of silence.
Now, an entire cast of Altor, their beasts, and the heir to the Faraengardian crown are going to glide right up to the border and request entry into one of the most guarded, most isolated kingdoms known to man.
What could possibly go wrong?