Chapter 10
N essa’s words drove the warmth from my stomach.
I set the bowl on the bench hard enough to send the spoon rattling against the rim. Bramble scrambled across my lap and climbed to my shoulder as I pushed to my feet. Pain pulled through the stitches in my leg, but I followed Nessa into the passage.
Xandros' steps stayed close behind mine.
The amber light around Torren’s bed had been lowered. Caelan stood over him with one hand wrapped around the wooden frame and the other hovering above the Thornwarden’s ruined vines as though he had forgotten which male lay beneath him.
Torren’s eyes were open.
They drifted across the curved ceiling without settling. Sweat darkened the hair along his temples, and each breath caught beneath the bandages around his ribs.
“Torren.” Caelan leaned closer. “Look at me.”
His lashes fluttered. The muscles in his throat worked twice before any sound came out.
“Cedar.”
My right palm burned beneath the bandage.
I moved to the side of the bed. “The cedar near the eastern boundary?”
Torren’s gaze dragged toward me. His pupils widened and narrowed without finding my face.
“Stone.” His blackened fingers curled into the blanket. “Cracked.”
The standing stone near the eastern boundary rose behind my eyes. A cedar grew through the split, its thick roots wrapped around both halves.
I had passed it on more patrols than I could count.
“What happened there?” Caelan’s grip creaked against the bedframe.
Torren swallowed, and a shudder rolled through his chest. “The ground gave way.”
Nessa pressed two fingers beneath his jaw. “Easy. Breathe first.”
A dry rasp slipped from his mouth. “Everything pulled back.”
“What did?” I stepped closer, ignoring the pain tugging through my thigh.
His unfocused gaze drifted toward me. “The dirt. Around the stone.”
Heat climbed from my palm and circled my wrist.
Xandros moved to the foot of the bed. Gold glimmered beneath the constellations across his hands before his fingers closed around it.
“What did you see underneath?”
Torren’s face twisted. “Light.”
The word barely carried past his lips, and I bent closer.
“Beneath the cedar.” His ruined leg dragged weakly against the mattress. “Coming through the ground.”
Caelan’s shoulders locked. “Did the beast that attacked you cause it?”
Torren’s breath caught. His blackened arm jerked against his chest.
“No.” His eyes squeezed shut. “It was already open.”
Bramble’s claws sank through the shoulder of my tunic. A faint tug moved through our bond, enough to draw my gaze toward the sealed wall.
Torren began shaking.
Nessa caught his jaw while another healer pressed both hands to his chest. Green light gathered beneath the healer’s vines, but stopped before reaching Torren’s skin.
Caelan leaned closer. “What happened after the ground opened?”
Torren’s eyes widened.
“Claws.” He seized the blanket. “First, the claws. Then three heads.”
The words rasped out of him, and his body went slack.
Nessa captured his wrist to keep it from slipping from the bed. The fae healer stepped closer, bending over him, listening for the shallow breath that followed.
“He’s still with us.”
Xandros had gone rigid at the foot of the bed.
“A rift hound.” Gold flickered beneath the constellations along his throat. “They hunt weak places in the Veil. If one reached far enough to drag him through, the opening was already widening.”
Caelan’s hand tightened around the bedframe. “Could it open again?”
“If the weakness remains.” Xandros rested a knuckle against his mouth, his gaze fixed on Torren.
I stared at the dead vines beneath the Thornwarden’s skin. Light had burned below the cedarstone marker, and a three-headed rift hound had found the opening before any of us knew it was there.
All of this had happened only steps from where I had stood guard.
Caelan straightened and faced Xandros. “What does all this tell you about the opening?”
The prince watched Torren’s shallow breathing. A crease formed between his brows as his gaze dropped to the packed earth beneath the bed.
“Not enough.”
Bramble twisted around my neck, his warmth doing little to steady the pit in my stomach.
“I need to know what kind of light he saw, how wide the opening became, what he saw on the other side, and whether anything remained after it closed.” Xandros lifted his gaze to Caelan. “Until he can answer, anything else would be a guess.”
Caelan’s mouth hardened, but he gave one sharp nod.
Nessa eventually ordered us out so she could tend to Torren. Caelan remained beside the bed, one hand locked around the frame as the living wall drew across the opening.
Torren’s breathing was still uneven as he disappeared from view.
By the third day, his broken words had worn themselves into every hour I spent beneath the Mother Tree.
Cedar. Stone. Light beneath the ground.
I heard them whenever Bramble turned east. They followed the pressure gathering in my palm and pushing behind my eyes each time sleep dragged me under.
Something had opened beneath the land my family had guarded, and I remained sealed away, deep within the Grove, while other Thornwardens stood watch over it.
Without sunlight, I marked the hours by the people around me: who slept, who paced, who picked at loose threads, and who woke, only to begin the same restless habits again.
Caelan’s boots crossed the same seven steps between Rhian’s bed and the sealed passage.
By the second day, I had finally learned the fae healer’s name. Solan tapped his thumb against each fingertip whenever he checked a patient. Nessa hummed while she worked, repeating the same low tune as she sorted and re-sorted jars that no one had touched.
Even Xandros had become familiar. He slept with his back against the wall and woke whenever there was a changing of the guard.
He adjusted his stride when he passed my injured leg and no longer waited for permission from Caelan or Nessa before checking the strength of Rhian’s barrier, or examining the indigo beneath his skin.
Time narrowed to the intervals between each failure of Solan’s containment.
The first ring of Everlight had held for nearly half a day. The next failed before we finished our evening meal. By this morning, Solan had renewed it twice since waking, and each new band of gold appeared thinner around the indigo pressing beneath Rhian’s skin.
Every time the barrier faded, the dark veins climbed a little farther before Solan forced them back.
Every time, Rhian looked less like himself afterward.
None of us had been cleared to leave.
Xandros had first asked the Circle to bring the other fae somewhere the healers could reach them. When the elders refused his request, then refused to let him leave the infirmary to check on them, the careful calm in his voice hardened.
Elder Maren’s bargain had promised treatment to both peoples. Locking Xandros and Solan away while the rest of their wounded remained beyond the walls honored only the half that benefited the Druids.
When the Circle refused to bring them inside, then refused to let Xandros leave to check on them, his request became a warning.
Asterra’s crown would eventually receive one of two reports: The Druids had sheltered sick fae within their walls, or they had imprisoned a prince and his healer underground while leaving the rest of their party exposed to the Marred.
The Circle changed its mind before nightfall.
The fae now stayed in a guarded ward near the empty storage terraces. They could move within the enclosure and receive food, medicine, and clean water, which made it look somewhat less like a prison. If only just.
Caelan had spoken to Xandros in clipped words ever since. Xandros met each one with calm, unrepentant courtesy.
Three knocks sounded from the other side of the wall, followed by the scrape of wood across stone.
Nessa crossed to the narrow pass-through. Once the outer panel sealed, the inner one opened, revealing a tray crowded with bowls, bread, water, and clean linen.
She carried the tray between the beds, handing the first bowl to Caelan, who took it without stopping his pacing. Xandros accepted the next bowl and settled onto the bench across from me.
He eagerly ate the mushrooms and greens first. Then he pushed every boiled turnip into a neat pile beside his bread.
Bramble noticed.
My pine marten slipped from the end of Rhian’s bed and crept along the bench. His nose lifted as Xandros pushed one turnip toward the edge of his bowl.
“I wouldn’t start that.”
Xandros hesitated, then raised his brows as if the turnip had somehow found its own way toward Bramble. “Start what?”
I nodded my thanks to Nessa as she offered me my bowl.
“Feeding him.” I watched Bramble plant both front paws on Xandros' knee and blink up at him. “Keep it up, and he’ll consider you responsible for every meal until one of you dies.”
Bramble chirred, his tail going rigid as he stretched toward the bowl.
Xandros looked down at him, lowering the turnip anyway. “That seems rather excessive.”
Bramble snatched it and climbed higher onto his leg.
“I tried to warn you.” I lifted my spoon. “You belong to him now.”
The prince balanced another piece on the edge of his spoon. When I raised my brows, he offered it to Bramble with such careful innocence that a laugh slipped out before I could stop it.
He kept doing that. Finding a way past my guard when I least wanted to let anything through.
I brought my spoon to my lips, breathing in the savory steam before I tasted it. The broth was rich with garlic, cracked pepper, onion, and herbs, while the vegetables had softened enough to nearly melt beneath my tongue.
I tore off a piece of bread and dragged it through the bowl, soaking up the thick broth before taking a warm, salty bite.
For a few breaths, I let myself enjoy it.
When Bramble finished the second turnip, he planted a paw against Xandros' knee and reached for another. The prince carefully slipped it beyond the edge of his bowl.