Chapter 29 Too Far to Fail
ALAR SHOULD HAVE let someone else go to Lara as she crumpled to the ground, but he didn’t.
He crossed the distance between him and his wife in long strides and scooped her up into his arms. He then turned and climbed the slope, back to where their fire pit still burned—brightly now, in response to the fire magic that had just roared through the hollow.
Lara had been magnificent.
He’d watched her flames whip around the frost spirits. Spindly bodies melted. Boiling water bubbled across the ground. Steam rose in thick clouds. And then, it was over.
However, her actions had come at a cost. She’d acted bravely, had driven back the knavoar and saved her friends’ lives.
But she was burning up in his arms.
Fuck.
He lowered her by the fire and then reached for a waterskin.
“Here.” Annis was at his side then, handing him a scrap of linen. “You’ll need this.”
He took it, wetting it thoroughly before wiping the sweat from Lara’s flushed face and brow. Her breathing was quick and shallow, and when he felt her pulse, it fluttered like a caged moth against his fingers.
“It’s worse than last time,” he muttered.
“Let me help.” Ren knelt opposite, her slender fingers moving in the air above Lara. Her voice, soft and tremulous, filtered over their camp. It was a haunting melody.
Bone to marrow, blood to vein, Let the fever break like rain.
What was scattered, gather in, Stitch the soul beneath the skin.
Root to earth and earth to stone, Call the wanderer back home.
Lara’s breathing slowly deepened as Ren continued her sain.
Breath that falters, breathe again, Earth will mend what flame has rent.
Fire that burns too bright will fade, Cool the embers that you made.
Sleep now, daughter of the flame, Wake restored and whole again.
Alar bathed her face once more. Her skin was burning to touch. They had to cool her off.
Ren’s melancholy song ended, and as it did, the fever receded just a little.
He continued to wipe the sweat from her brow, aware that the others now sat silently around the fire pit, watching. Alar paid none of them any notice though. He couldn’t look away from his wife.
A groan escaped Lara then, and his breathing hitched.
She was returning to them.
Sitting back on his heels, he raised his chin. Bree sat opposite him. She’d been there since Ren had begun her vigil, her face taut with worry.
His gaze met hers and held.
It was the first time Lara’s warder had met his eye without dislike glinting in her gaze.
Her expression wasn’t friendly either though.
“I’ll let you take over from here,” he said softly. “She’d prefer to see your face rather than mine when she wakes up.”
Bree snorted. “Aye … you’re learning, Alar.”
He stilled. Alar. Not ‘Half-blood’. Could Lara’s fierce protector be lowering her guard around him? “I am.”
Rising to his feet, Alar shifted away. He realized then that some members of their group were missing. The Shee. Leaving the fire’s warm glow, he emerged from under the overhang, and there, under the silvery glow of the moon, he found them.
The remaining Ravens were building cairns over their fallen warriors—tombs of stone.
Mor looked on, Eagal upon her shoulder, as they worked. She looked otherworldly, standing there, frosted by moonlight.
Vyr began to sing then. A slow, soft lament for the dead that drifted over the hollow. Among the Marav, it was women rather than men who sang such songs, but Vyr’s voice was right for it.
Alar couldn’t understand the words, for they were in the Shee tongue.
But they settled into his bones, all the same.
Longing rose in his breast. For a realm he’d never seen, and people he’d never known.
The Shee were the other half of him. He’d spent his life hating his father, but underneath it all, he’d always been curious.
This journey had taught him that the Shee were his people too.
He shared their strangeness, the difference that set him apart from Marav.
His gaze shifted from Mor then, to the tall lean figure who heaped stones onto one of the cairns that were quickly taking shape.
Wynn Sablebane’s profile was stern, yet Alar studied it, searching for answers. Earlier, when they’d been battling the knavoar, he’d been surprised to find his father fighting at his back.
For a short while there, they’d been a team.
“Can you sit up?”
Lara’s jaw tightened. “I’m not dying, Bree.”
Not yet anyway.
Her friend’s mouth pressed into a thin line.
Fine. She’d prove it.
Lara braced her palms against the ground and pushed. Her arms shook—a fine tremor that ran from wrist to shoulder. Her pulse hammered so hard she could feel it in her teeth, in her throat, and behind her eyes.
She made it upright. Barely.
Her vision swam. The nearby firepit tilted and then righted itself. Sweat slicked her spine despite the biting cold in the air. A shiver rippled through her, chills crawling across her skin.
The fever. Already clawing its way back.
“You did well.” Cailean had hunkered down next to her, his concerned gaze roaming Lara’s face. “There were too many of the bastards … we’d never have bested them on our own.”
“They were relentless,” Roth agreed, his voice gravelly with fatigue.
“Thank the Gods, we’ll reach The Shattered Crown by tomorrow eve,” Annis murmured. “None of us can take much more.”
Silence followed these words. Meanwhile, Lara accepted the cup of hot broth Ren had just passed her. She took a sip, grateful for the heat that pooled in her belly. The chills were bad.
“Will you be able to ride tomorrow?” Ruari asked, concern shadowing his eyes.
“Of course,” Lara replied with more conviction than she felt. “I’ll be right by dawn.”
“Will you?” Bree asked softly.
Lara sighed, lowering her cup and casting her gaze around the fire.
The Shee were still building cairns for their fallen.
Alar had disappeared for the moment. There were just the seven of them here.
Her protectors. “All you need to focus on tomorrow is getting me safely to The Shattered Crown,” she told them firmly.
“And all I must do is take my place inside that stone circle and then throw this” —she held up her right hand, letting her ring glint in the firelight— “into the rift to seal it.”
That was true. The binding didn’t require her to wield fire. Mor would be the one doing all the work. The hardest part was getting to their destination. This grueling journey had proved that. It had tried to beat them but hadn’t.
“We’ve come too far to fail,” she continued, emotion constricting her throat.
“Aye, fire-madness has its talons in me … but it won’t have me …
not until I’m ready, at least.” She paused then, noting the tears that now sparkled in Bree’s eyes.
“And if I have to crawl into that stone circle to get this job done, I will.”