Chapter 45 — Ethan
It shouldn’t be this hard to sort through a wardrobe. I grab my worn jeans and shove them into the leather pack sprawled open across my bed.
What belongs at Kortan is on the left, what belongs to me is on the right. It’s a simple enough distinction, in theory. I showed up here in a shirt, jeans, underwear, and socks. That’s the complete inventory. Yet, my hands keep stalling.
I toss my training vest on top of the Kortan pile. But then I pull it back, my fingertips gliding over the leather that has molded to my frame over weeks of getting my ass handed to me in the yard. My hands go still at the thought of walking away from it.
It’s a stupid vest, idiot. Let it go and get a grip, I tell myself.
I stuff it into my bag anyway.
Three days have passed since we defeated Holden.
Three days of recovery. Negotiation. Mourning. Three days of counting ceiling stones from my bed in the infirmary.
Doc declared me his “most fascinating case study” within the first hour. Apparently treating a human with magical overwhelm is new territory. There were blood samples, aura readings, tests I don’t have names for. It sounds more exciting than it was.
“Rest,” he kept telling me. “Your system needs time to stabilize.”
So I rested. And read books. And counted ceiling stones until I was ready to climb the walls.
Rhiannon came to see me between fulfilling her duties, though I tried to assure her that she didn’t need to use all her free time babysitting me. Still, she kept me filled me in on everything I’d missed while trapped in the infirmary.
They released Jayme from the dungeons within hours of our return.
Whatever twisted magical leash Holden used to control him broke the second that bastard died.
Doc monitors him daily now too, running tests, searching for remnants of dark magic lurking in his system.
Xander issued a standing order: No Blackroot anywhere near Jayme.
Ever. He’ll make damn sure no one can use it against him again.
Lady Gemma started visiting Jayme every afternoon. She sat with him for hours at a time. Talking. Listening. Helping him process the trauma. Of course, it’ll take time.
Stasio refused to cancel the peace summit, despite losing his son.
“It’s more important now than ever,” he’d said to Xander and Thea. “Holden wanted war. The greatest tribute I can pay to his mother and my people is to ensure he failed.”
So, Stasio and Xander negotiated. Hour after hour, day after day.
Thea and Haron found themselves in each other company during those long meetings. Haron’s remedies eased Thea’s pregnancy symptoms, and contributing seemed to lift Haron’s spirits too. Perhaps the idea of new life helps her grieve. She even began teaching Thea a few Shaman rituals.
Strange, how tragedy forges bonds.
This morning, Olcan finally discharged me. “You may go, but take it easy. No training. No guard duty. No heroics for at least a week.”
He doesn’t need to worry. The only thing that’s next for me is far from heroic.
The Treaty Ceremony will be held tonight. Peace will be official. The summit will be over. And it’ll be time for me to be gone before my execution is ordered.
A glint of light flashing off metal on the table catches my eye. It’s the short dagger Rhiannon hurled at me on my third day of training with instructions to try not to stab myself.
I pick up the blade, test its weight. The memory tugs at my chest.
I stare at it longer than I should.
Then, I set it on the windowsill and bid myself to turn away before I change my mind.
“There you are.” Rhiannon strides through the open door without knocking.
A pain pricks inside my chest at the sight of her. She’s in her training gear — a fitted leather vest hugging her torso and dark pants molded to her legs — fresh from running the guards through their morning drills.
Her sleek dark hair is pulled back from her face in a high ponytail, and a bright smile spreads across her face. “Olcan said you’d been discharged. Just in time for the—”
She stops. Her gaze sweeps the room: the open pack on the bed, the sorted piles.
Her smile dissolves. “What are you doing?”
I don’t know what to say. Suddenly, it feels like I’m being crushed.
“Ethan. What are you doing?” she repeats, her hands curling into fists against her sides.
I try for a smile. “Just a little spring cleaning. Bit early, I know, but—”
“Don’t.” The single word slices through my pathetic attempt at making light of the situation. Her gaze locks onto mine, and for a heartbeat, gold sparks in her eyes.
I drop the facade, sadness slumping my shoulders.
“I have to be ready to leave.” I let my socks fall out of my hand into my pack. “After the ceremony tonight, Akila will come to bring me home.”
“Home?”
“Yes, home.” I dig through the pack as if I’m looking for something, but really I just need something to do with my hands. “The Outer Lands. Creek Falls.”
Her breathing quickens. When I look up again, her nostrils are flared and her pupils have sharpened to narrow slits, every line of her body wound tight. She exhales hard through her nose, forcing her shoulders down.
“Don’t you think we should talk about this first?”
“What’s there to talk about?” I ask, resigned. I don’t want this to be more painful than it already is.
“Ethan.”
“When I first came here, all I wanted was to find out what happened to Thea. Now I know that she’s safe. She’s happy.”
My hand tightens around the pack’s worn leather strap. Don’t look at her.
“Then we happened, and my whole world changed. But Stasio and Xander sign the treaty tonight. I’ve kept my promise to serve as Truth Seer until the summit ends, but the Alpha King’s sanction for me to be here expires with that.
Akila can slip me out during the afterparty, when nobody’s paying attention. ”
She takes two steps closer, then stops, like she’s hit an invisible wall. The leather groans as her hands clutch her hips. “So you were just going to sneak out of here without saying anything to me?”
I finally turn to face her. She’s studying me the way she’d study the map of a battlefield, searching for every vantage point, except she’s biting her lower lip.
“We’re out of time, Rhiannon.” I hold her gaze. “This has always been the plan, and we don’t have another one. It’s the only way to keep us both safe.”
She flinches. A micro-movement — barely there — but I catch it. I catch the way her lips press together, the slight upward pull of her brow. Her gaze shifts from my pack to the doorway. For just a second, her control slips and it shows on her face.
My grip on the strap loosens. The words sounded wrong the second they left my mouth, but it’s too late now. I can’t take them back.
“That was before,” she says.
“Before?”
Her mouth opens, then clamps shut. Her gaze flits again to the sorted piles on the bed like they’re a snake in the grass.
Neither of us speaks, and I watch her wrestle with the silence. This woman who commands an entire guard, who threw herself in front of a blade for me, is struggling to find words. Just like I am.
“Before everything.” Her tone is sharp, but her voice splinters on the last syllable. “You agreed that we wouldn’t push each other away anymore. That we’d fight for what we have until there’s nothing left to fight for.”
The truth of her words spreads through me like a crack through glass.
She’s right. I said those words. I meant them, but.
. .I guess I thought I would feel more effectual when it came time for us to figure out our next move.
Instead, once we’d returned from the temple, life at Kortan picked right back up at the same pace as before, and my final days as a permitted guest passed with me being laid up in an infirmary bed.
Now, I’m a fugitive once again, my life and hers hanging in the balance.
I shake my head. “I don’t know what to do. I still don’t belong in Clarion.”
“Why would you say that?” Her tone softens. She closes the distance between us. “We took down Holden because of you. This Peace Treaty never would have—”
“I’m dead weight.” The pack jumps on the bed as I shove it away from me.
“What?”
I cross to the window, pressing my palms flat against the cool stone ledge. Below, the garden stretches out in midday light, the bright cheeriness mocking my mood.
“Do you know what plays on repeat every time I close my eyes?” I squeeze my eyes shut, digging my thumb and forefinger into the bridge of my nose like I’m physically pained by what’s burned into my memory.
“The Alpha carrying me off the fucking mountain like a sack of flour. Conan was fighting for his life, and Xander had to worry about hauling my useless ass down a mountain.” My shoulders brace against the window frame. “I’m literally dead weight, Rhiannon.”
“What are you talking about?” Rhiannon says behind me. “You discovered how to defeat Holden.”
Her fingers wrap around my arm, but I pull it away.
“You were the one who figured out which crystal was the cornerstone. You risked your life to break the ward.”
“And then I collapsed like a ragdoll.” I turn from the window.
“Yeah, I solved the puzzle. Great. Gold star for me. And then my body shut down and your Alpha had to carry me out like the pathetic human I am.” A bitter laugh scrapes out of me.
“In the end, I just landed right back in the infirmary with Dr. Olcan all over again. Tonight, Lycans will celebrate that peace has been achieved, but I can’t hang around with you pretending like that means I’m accepted now. I’m a sitting duck.”
She inhales to argue, then exhales and lets her shoulders drop a fraction. “That’s not—”