Chapter 62 – Ayer
AYER
“And the rune is still there?”
I nod without bothering to look at Theo. My eyes stay fixed on the female fae across the village square instead.
I’d stuck Rowan with Wyatt for the day. I need space to think, and I’m sure she wouldn’t mind a little space from me too.
Their task is to keep the children occupied while the rest of us work on clearing the village of the remaining bodies and debris.
“How do you reckon she got around it?” Theo asks, moving to stand beside me as I study the Sitari princess.
I shake my head, my jaw tightening. “I’m not convinced she did.”
“How so?”
“The rune is still intact. I checked it myself. That rune… It’s old magic—impenetrable.”
“Then how do you explain this?” Theo waves a hand over my ribs.
I glance down at the scar hidden beneath my shirt before gripping the shovel in my hands tighter.
“I can’t. But I know I felt it.” I flex my fingers, remembering the strange warmth that had spread through me. “Whatever she did, it healed me. There’s no other explanation.”
Theo is quiet for a moment, and his gaze drifts across the square to the princess. “Did you ask her?”
“We didn’t talk about it.” I stab the shovel into the dirt again, continuing the grave we’ve been digging.
“Ayer,” Theo chastises.
I ignore him, shoveling more dirt out from the hole. Stab, scoop, dump. Stab, scoop, dump.
Theo sighs so heavily I’m surprised the trees don’t bend with it. “You realize conversations require actual words?”
“I’m aware.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
I let the silence stretch between us.
“Wow, I can’t believe I was right,” he muses openly.
“Right about what?” I grumble, working to focus on my task.
“You and her.”
That catches my attention and my gaze lifts, eyes narrowing. “You’re going to have to be a little more specific.”
He just stares down at me, that impish smile of his widening the longer I glare at him.
“There’s nothing going on between us.”
“I never said there was.” Theo smiles victoriously back at me.
My frown deepens. “You ordered me to keep her alive.”
“And you are doing a fine job,” Theo says, his blue eyes lighting up. “It’s funny though,” he continues when I stay silent. “I don’t remember you ever taking an order quite so seriously.”
I bristle at his words but keep my mouth shut, refusing to take the bait.
“We could interrogate it out of her—how she saved you...” Theo floats, revisiting our earlier topic of conversation.
“No.” I drive the shovel into the dirt hard enough to make Theo raise a brow. His eyes sparkle with satisfaction, and I clench my jaw harder.
“Since when do you defend fae?”
“I’m not— I…” My words trail off as my gaze drifts up—back across the square.
Rowan sits in the middle of a semicircle of children.
She has them completely enthralled with some dramatic story she’s telling.
Her hands fly wildly as she talks, her expression animated enough that I can almost picture whatever tale she’s busy spinning.
Until suddenly, she freezes. Her expression grows ominous, and she stays completely still for a moment before snatching up the little boy closest to her and tickling him while he laughs and laughs, kicking wildly in her lap.
“She’s just not what I expected,” I mutter.
Rowan’s not weak. Not spoiled. Not helpless. Every time I think I’ve figured her out, she goes and does something else that tears apart the picture I’ve painted of her.
I feel Theo’s eyes on me, following my gaze across the square. Neither of us says anything for several long minutes, watching Rowan incite a rebellion within the small group of kids, leading them in a surprise attack against Wyatt, who pretends to fight them off using sticks as swords.
“Say it,” I sigh, unable to endure Theo’s pointed silence any longer.
Light still dances in Theo’s eyes, but all amusement has faded away from his face, leaving only a somber expression behind. “Maybe you should tell her the truth?”
The weight of his words sinks in. The fact that we’re even having this discussion is absolute insanity.
This conversation. Rowan. All of it. She’s the Princess of Sitara.
King Harland’s pride and joy, not to mention Fel’s bloody sister.
The key to my revenge. I attacked her home, slaughtered her guards.
I took her… dragging her for days through rough terrain, starving her, letting her freeze, threatening her—her brothers, all of Sitara—and still… she saved me.
She’s fae. I want to believe it was just another one of their tricks.
But I looked into her eyes as she did it. Green, ringed with molten gold around her pupils; they were wide with fear and uncertainty. Yet beneath both lay something I never expected to find directed at me.
Worry.
She took my wound—a wound that should have killed me—and drew it into herself instead. The pain alone must have been unbearable.
But tell her the truth?
“Maybe…” I murmur after several long minutes.
Theo and I both know how important Rowan is.
The two of us return to digging, but my attention keeps drifting back to her. Taking in her smile—her laugh. She’s distracting, and I let out a growl when I slam my shovel into the dirt harder than is necessary, reminding myself once more to focus.
Stop looking at her.
“Are you really going to be able to use her as a pawn against Fel?”
My grip tightens around the shovel’s handle at the sound of the fae princeling’s name.
“Fel deserves everything that’s coming to him,” I say coldly. “He’s the reason Ridge is dead.” The reason one of the three of us never made it home.
My gaze settles on the little Rose Princess again.
She resembles her brother enough to make my stomach turn sometimes, but I’ve started to notice the differences too.
Her hair is darker than his or Riven’s. And while her eyes are green, they’re threaded with gold—a burst of sunlight breaking through a forest of dark pine.
“But does Rowan deserve what’s coming for her?”
Theo’s question makes my jaw tick. Rowan’s brother killed my brother. Her father ended almost my entire bloodline. She owes a debt that can only be paid one way.
Revenge has never made me hesitate before.
So why does the image of Rowan bleeding leave a twisted feeling in my chest?