Chapter 12
LYRAE
Iwoke to the same godsdamned snoring that kept me up half the night, and to make things worse, Ryland’s hand hung over the edge of the bed, those long, artist’s fingers somehow tangled up with mine.
I peeled those fingers off my own, ever so carefully extricated myself and sat up, bones groaning, muscles painfully stiff.
Varian’s eyes popped open and stared straight into mine, not a single part of him moving except for the awareness growing in those golden eyes.
For a long moment we stared at each other, until Ryland rolled over, the bed creaking as he stretched.
“God, what a fucking uncomfortable mattress. I hardly slept a wink.”
His mocking grin grew wickeder. “How did you sleep, Lady Lyrae? You look fresh as a daisy.”
“She’s clearly exhausted, you asshole. And what’s all over your shirt?” Varian asked quietly, already on his feet, padding closer. “Looks like blood.”
“Nothing, just a few cuts from the straps yesterday.” I tried rolling my shoulders and my bloodied shirt peeled off a layer of skin, pulling the wounds open.
Varian’s nostrils flared as he dropped to his knees beside me, yanking my shirt collar back.
“You should have said something,” he snapped.
“I could have treated these last night, and you would be healed by now. At least enough for today’s walk.
You were always stubborn, Lyrae, but this takes obstinate to new levels. ”
“I expected them to disappear,” I admitted, trying not to move, because they really did hurt. “This is nothing but a nuisance. They’ll be gone by tonight.”
Varian fished around inside his pack while Ryland swung his feet off the bed, tousled hair framing his face as he leaned closer, eyes widening when he saw my bloodstained shirt. He reached out and I slapped his hand away. “It’s nothing,” I said crankily. “Besides, why do you even care?”
“I never would have…you should have slept in the bed last night. I was just trying to be…”
“An asshole?” I supplied, listing my brow as Varian pulled a metal tin out of his pack. “Well, congratulations, you succeeded.”
“Funny,” Ryland muttered, smoothing his hair out of his face. “I was trying to be funny, and I fully intended to swap with you, but I fell asleep.” Yet you fucking managed to end up holding my hand, I wanted to point out, but didn’t.
“Unbutton your shirt,” Varian murmured, then added, “I need to see how bad they are, Lyrae, that’s all.
” I hesitated, then decided my body was just a body.
Nothing special. Nothing the two of them hadn’t seen before, back in the day.
Varian unscrewed the top and my senses flooded with the strong scent of arnica and lavender, undercut with a strong antiseptic.
“This will sting, but you will be better by tonight, since Ryland and I will take turns carrying your pack. Tilt your head to the side…yes, just like that. Now take a deep breath, try not to move until I’m finished.”
Varian’s fingers were gentle as he dragged them over my bare shoulder, down to my collarbone and then over my shoulder, to where my shoulder blade poked out. Again and again, his fingers smoothed and circled, as tenderly as butterfly wings, until my eyes drifted closed.
It had been a long time since I’d allowed anyone else to treat my wounds, unless I couldn’t reach them myself, and as a rule, battlefield healers didn’t exactly have the lightest touch.
But this…this felt divine.
I was being selfish right now, enjoying this so much, wanting things to be the way they once were.
But even if Varian wasn’t responsible for Ariel’s capture, even if she might still be alive—and I couldn’t allow myself even the slightest sliver of hope, not after so long—they’d still abandoned me and our friends to rot while they’d walked free.
That part of the past was immutable.
Indefensible.
When I opened my eyes, Ryland was staring, his heavy-lidded eyes missing nothing as I quickly buttoned my shirt, a bundle of nerves. Stupid. This was stupid, the way my body burned for him still, the way all I could think about was that was exactly how he looked, right before he kissed me.
“There.” Var’s voice was tight and pissy and scolding and oh, so Varian.
“The bleeding’s stopped, and in a few hours, you’ll grow new skin over those injuries.
No carrying anything, and no scratching until tomorrow, because those will itch.
” I heard the telltale metallic grind as he screwed the lid back on the tin, the aromatic smell blocking out the sour smell of the dingy room.
We were out the door in a matter of minutes, down the narrow, creaking steps and into the dirt lane, where Ryland heaved his pack over one sturdy shoulder and mine over the other.
“Wait here.” Ryland ordered, then headed toward the knot of men smoking on the corner, collars turned up against the morning chill. And in the twenty steps he took to reach them, Ryland Storme did what he did best.
Became someone else.
He dropped his shoulders beneath the twin packs, his stance shifting from a warrior’s fluid, sure-footed stride to a halting, non-threatening shuffle.
His face smoothed into a blander version of eagerness and by the time he raised a hand to ask directions to the next city, the males waved him closer.
“He’s so damn good at that.” Varian shook his head. “Five minutes, and he’ll know everything there is to know about the prince, including where to find him.”
I shifted uncomfortably on my feet.
Here we were, wasting time and energy, when all I had to do was tell them the truth. Yet some stubborn part of me held back, unable to trust them.
Unwilling to lose my advantage.
“Next time you’re hurt, say something sooner,” Varian murmured quietly.
“None of us heal quickly here, and even a minor injury can be life-threatening if not treated. You can’t keep acting like we’re the enemy, Lyrae.
We have to trust each other, at least until we’re back on Valarian soil.
Then you can go right back to despising us both. ”
Yesterday, I would have laughed in his face for lecturing me.
Today…he was right.
I nodded. “I’ll be more careful. I didn’t expect…I thought, given the enormous, life-threatening ward, there would be plenty of magic here.”
“That’s because you skipped the meeting where we told Zephryn everything we knew about this place.
Here.” He shoved some bread and meat wrapped in paper into my hands.
“Eat this and keep drinking water so you don’t get dehydrated.
We’ll stop in a few hours to refill our canteens and rest. How are your feet?
” His eyes slid down until his gaze narrowed on my dusty, hastily laced-up boots.
He dropped to his knees and ran his hands down my calf, then unlaced and re-laced my boots in a complicated pattern, fingers quick and deft as he tightened them back up. The difference was astounding, my wobbly ankles felt stronger.
“If you get blisters, tell me. If you twist an ankle…tell me.” His face took on a harder set.
“This place can kill you in about a hundred different ways. Once we get through the forest and hit the sand, there are poisonous spiders and vipers, so keep your eyes open. Don’t touch anything with red leaves, and for fuck’s sake, don’t eat any berries. ”
“Hmm. I didn’t peg you for a nag.”
“You know Varian, he’s always been a worrywart.
” Ryland brushed roughly between us. “Get used to it. Now that he has you to fuss over, that’s all he’ll do.
But don’t expect me to fall on my knees, Antares.
That’s not my style, not anymore.” He left me staring after him, wondering if I’d detected… jealousy in his voice?
Varian rolled his eyes, like he’d already had enough of us both, even though the day had barely begun.
But when he rose up over me, I couldn’t help noticing how much he’d changed from the gangly boy I remembered.
No, this Varian was quiet and careful, and built, layers of lean, supple muscle over his lithe frame, a new sharpness in his dark eyes.
He’d always been handsome, but now, even in his dusty coat, with tired circles under his eyes, there was a haunted quality to him, something that called to me, something that made me want to wrap my arms around him and hold him close.
Even beneath the grime, he smelled good. Like amber and fire, all warmth and comfort.
Like home.
Dangerous. This was all so fucking dangerous.
“Look. It’s a full day’s hike to Ebonhollow and the terrain is rough,” he explained, his pinched gaze fixed on Ryland’s retreating back. “We need to get there in one piece if we hope to kill the prince and stop…whatever this threat is.”
Like me, Varian had to be questioning the lack of an army, the absence of any visible threat. He and Ryland were flying blind, relying on me to parse out information to them in meager little bites.
And even so, his first impulse was to take care of me, to treat my wounds and keep me safe.
While mine was to keep everything from them and kill them both the second we were safe.
“We’re not going to Ebonhollow. The prince isn’t in a city,” I admitted. “We’re looking for a frozen lake or a moat with an island in the center. There’s a fortress…or a castle, I’m not sure, but that’s what we have to find.”
“That has to be Frostveil Keep,” Varian murmured. “Come, let’s catch Ryland. He’s heading in the wrong direction.” Varian’s lips quirked. “Or we can just let him stalk off and see how long it takes him to realize we’re not following behind him like a couple of lost puppies.”
“Can you imagine how pissed he’d be?” I smiled, despite myself, before remembering none of this was funny. “In fact…why aren’t you angry? I kept the truth from you, wasted your time, and you’re making jokes.”
The smile fell off his face as fast as it had mine. “Because it seems like you have every right to be angry with me.” He shook his head.
“You blame me for what happened to Ariel. I can’t imagine what life’s been like for you…thinking she’s been dead all this time. But I’m telling the truth, Lyrae. There was something about our capture that wasn’t right. How they kept Ariel, then turned me loose, without so much as a fine.”
“They executed her, Varian. In the city square.”
I hung onto the only truth I’d known for fifty years. I had to, because hoping Ariel was alive…no, if I had to mourn Ariel all over again…I wouldn’t survive it.
The Oracle herself told me they’d hung my sister at dawn, executed for stealing from the king himself. Then she’d given me a curl of white hair and Ariel’s favorite ring.
I still had that lock of hair, pressed inside a poem book back in my rooms at the palace, the only piece of Ariel I had left—or so I thought.
As for the ring…I toyed with the slim band on my finger, spinning the blue stone around and around.
“The Oracle lied,” Varian whispered, his golden eyes pleading with me to believe him.
“She was never executed. I know, because I watched the gallows every day. I bribed a couple of guards from the dungeons, but she wasn’t down there, either.
Kept an eye on the southern road for months afterwards.
I never saw Ariel again, but she wasn’t executed, of that, I’m sure. ”
I’d known Varian since we could walk. I’d memorized every subtle facial expression, that dimple in his chin, every shade of his brown eyes. And as much as I wanted to continue hating him, Varian was telling the truth, at least what he thought was the truth.
And if Ariel was still alive, then all these years I’d held a grudge against the wrong person.
I rubbed my belly, all that hoarded anger forming a cold, hard pit at my center. For too long hate had given me focus, a sense of purpose. I’d driven myself harder, because I’d lost my sister. Fought without mercy, because she’d been taken away.
Getting revenge against Varian Kronos consumed years of my life.
But what…what if I’d been wrong.
What if, for whatever reason, the Oracle set her sights on me, using my sister to blackmail me into her service. Unfortunately, the old witch was dead and there’d be no vengeance had against her.
And no answers, either.
“Anyway, we knew you weren’t telling us anything, but I can hardly blame you, since you had good reason to hate us.
” Varian’s smile lit up his entire face with wicked glee.
“To be fair, Ryland bet me it would take three days for you to come clean. I wagered one. Wait till I tell him he owes me fifty gilder.”
“You bet on how long it would take me to admit where the prince was?” I didn’t know why I was surprised, since that was such a Ryland thing to do. “Then why did he bother talking to those males this morning?”
“Smoke and mirrors, love.” Another of those wicked winks. “But also, to ask how long the ward has been this bad and who’s controlling all that magic.” Varian’s face shuttered closed. “They said it’s been growing for six months.”
“That tracks with my reports,” I murmured. “How far to this Frostveil Keep? And what do you know about it?”
“I’ll walk and talk.” He jerked his head at the bread and cheese clutched in my hand. “You eat and walk, and when we catch up to Ry, we’ll tell you all about the many horrors surrounding that island.”
“Let me guess. More ways to die?”
“Oh, definitely.” Varian’s grin almost looked…happy. “And they’re all absolutely terrible.”