Chapter 24 #2
We slow at the edge of the fields, and let our steeds dissolve back into mist with a thought. In the darkness, two fae stand in human territory, preparing to walk into the seat of their power.
“How strong a glamour can you make?” Therin asks quietly.
I test the magic. “Strong enough to pass casual observation. Maybe more, if no one looks too hard.”
“And if someone does look hard?”
“Then we kill them and keep going.”
His mouth curves. “Just like old times.”
I weave the glamour around us both. Not invisibility. That will take far more power than I can spare yet. Instead, it’s a suggestion. We belong here. There’s nothing unusual about us. Look away.
Human eyes slide past, dismissing what they see.
The palace grounds are well guarded. Patrols move along the walls in predictable patterns, torches marking their progress. But torchlight creates shadows, and shadows have always been easy for us.
We scale the outer wall where the patrol pattern leaves a gap. My fingers find holds in the stone, muscles burning in ways they shouldn’t after such a minor exertion. My body is still weak, remembering how to be what it was.
Inside, the glamour does most of the work.
A servant passes without glancing our way.
Guards share a joke at their post. We wait in the shadows until they’re distracted, then pass behind them close enough to touch.
One of them laughs, a low sound that scrapes against my ears.
The urge to silence him is almost physical—a blade across his throat, the look of surprise as he realizes too late what kind of predator has been watching him.
I let it pass. There will be time for killing later.
Finding her chambers is the hardest part.
Before we left the hollow, I reached through the bond again.
She was awake, sitting on the edge of her bed with her wounded arm cradled against her chest. Through her eyes, I noted what I could.
The view from her window, the layout of the room, the position of the door.
East wing, third floor, I guessed based on what I could see of the grounds below, and the direction of the sun.
It’s enough to narrow the search.
Endless hallways branch into more hallways. Stairs lead to identical floors. Doors that all look the same, all leading into rooms I don’t care about. But we move methodically, checking each hallway until we reach the east wing’s upper floor.
Hers is the third one we check.
Therin positions himself against the wall, watching both directions. I test the handle. It’s locked. I push a thread of magic into the mechanism until it clicks.
The door swings open, and I go in alone.
Dying embers in the hearth cast a faint orange glow across the floor. The room is exactly as I saw through her eyes. Armoire against one wall, washstand near the window, dressing table with its mirror catching the firelight.
And the bed.
She’s curled on her side, one hand tucked beneath her pillow, the other resting on the mattress near her face. Her hair is loose, spread across the pillow in dark tangles. Her breathing is slow but shallow, and even in sleep her face is drawn tight, a frown creasing the space between her eyebrows.
The bandage on her arm is visible above the blanket’s edge. Green cloth wrapped from shoulder to elbow, with darker spots where the blood has seeped through.
I cross to the bed on silent feet and look down at her.
The princess. The Moirthalen. The human who came to the Dell with excitement in her eyes, ready to hunt me like an animal for sport. Now she’s the one being hunted. There’s a symmetry to it that almost makes me smile.
She looks smaller than I remember. Younger. Asleep, wounded and alone, she’s not the threat she once appeared. She’s just a human girl. Fragile in the way all humans are, convinced of their own importance until they’re snuffed out.
I reach out and touch her forehead with my fingertips.
Her skin is warm. Her pulse flutters at the base of her throat, too fast even in sleep. She’s dreaming. Possibly of the attack. Possibly of me.
I could reach in and find out. I could sift through her dreams, learn what she fears, what she wants, and what secrets she’s hiding. It would be useful. But that’s not why I’m here.
I whisper a word, and send her into a deeper sleep. Her breathing slows, her face goes slack, and the tension drains out of her body. She doesn’t stir at all when I pull back the covers.
She’s wearing a nightdress. Thin white fabric that’s ridden up around her thighs, tangled from restless sleep.
The bandage on her arm looks worse up close.
It’s been hastily wrapped, too tight in places, already soaked through in others.
She clearly had no idea what she was doing, just pressed cloth against the wound and hoped for the best.
I slide one arm beneath her shoulders, the other under her knees, and lift.
She weighs almost nothing. Her head lolls against my chest, her wounded arm dangling until I shift her to cradle it against her body.
She smells like soap and blood, and something faintly floral that humans put in their bathwater.
The scent fills my lungs with each breath, and I hate it.
I hate how close she is. How easy it would be to—
Therin appears from a doorway nearby, his own arms full. His eyes move over the princess, then back to me.
“Ready to leave?”
We go back the way we came.
Down the stairs, through the hallways, across the grounds. The glamour holds stable. The princess doesn’t stir. Her breathing stays slow and even, her body limp in my arms. The spell will hold for hours yet, long enough to get back to the hollow.
At the outer wall, we slip through the gates behind a patrol, ghosts in their wake. They ride the perimeter, never knowing that we’re taking one of theirs away from them.
Once we’re clear, we summon our mounts. I drape the princess across the saddle.
“She’ll wake up covered in bruises if you ride back with her like that.” Therin’s voice is dry.
“And?”
He levels a look at me. “You’re not a monster, Cairn. No matter what they might claim.”
I want to laugh, and tell him that I’ve been a monster for so long I’ve forgotten what the alternative looks like. The part of me that might have cared about her comfort died years ago.
Instead, I settle her across the saddle in front of me, her back against my chest, and her head tucked beneath my chin. It’s not comfortable. Her weight is awkward, her body too warm against mine, and every breath I take is full of that damned floral smell.
But she’s secure and won’t fall. “Happy?”
“Ecstatic.” His mouth curves into that irrepressible grin. “Let’s ride.”
Dawn is touching the horizon when we reach the hollow. Pale light filtering through the trees, and birds morning songs filling the branches overhead. We dismiss our steeds, and I carry the princess through the sleeping camp.
Therin follows with his bundle. “Where do you want this?”
“Take it with you.”
His eyebrows rise, but he doesn’t comment. We’ve known each other too long for him to waste words on the obvious questions.
We part ways at my shelter. He goes into his, and I step into mine.
The interior is dim, lit only by the faint silver glow of the walls.
I’ve kept the furnishings sparse—a table, a chair, and a low platform spread with furs I conjured when we first raised the camp. Everything I need. Nothing I don’t.
I lay her down on the furs and crouch beside her. Her face is peaceful. The frown that creased her forehead has smoothed away, and in the silver light she looks almost—
No. I pull back from that thought before it can form.
The wound on her arm is still bleeding. I could heal her. It would cost almost nothing, a thread of magic, a few minutes of focus.
I don’t.
Let her keep the wound. Let the scar form. It will remind her what her own people did to her. And it will remind me what she is. Human. A problem I created and now have to solve.
Straightening, I turn away, walking over to the chair and sitting down. She’ll wake soon. The magic is already thinning, her breathing growing less shallow, her eyelids twitching with the first stirrings of returning consciousness.
When she opens her eyes, she’ll find herself somewhere very different from the palace she fell asleep in.