Chapter 24
Chapter
Twenty-Four
A yc hates himself more with every step propelling him farther from Lora, but still he runs deeper into the woods, his sword still in his hand. The rain pours down his face, and the sound of swords grows fainter. He’s leaving her behind, and it hurts in a different way. Not visceral, but deeper, like each step is pulling him apart. Yet, the command and the magic that binds him doesn't let him stop, even as his very soul screams back.
I cannot leave her!
She will die, alone. For him. And then the Drakr will find him, and it’ll be for nothing.
A sharp, high-pitched cry of pain rings out. He freezes. The hand tightens back on his throat, but he forces himself to pull air in through his nose. That was Lora. He’s certain of it. He feels it.
The Drakr hurt her. She is being hurt. While he’s running away, like a fucking coward.
Fuck this.
He sprints two more steps forward, sucking in every ounce of air he can into his lungs, steeling himself for what is to come. Then he turns and races back the other direction. With each step, the invisible force constrict his throat more. He tells himself it cannot actually kill him. No matter how he feels, air is still entering his lungs, but his wheeze as he inhales proves otherwise. Perhaps it can kill him.
It doesn’t matter. Not when every heartbeat pulses the same roar.
Lora. Lora. Lora.
He pulls at the buckle of his bracelet with his teeth and shoves it into the pocket of his trouser. He transfers his sword to his other hand and does the same with the other. Then, in his next step, he wills himself invisible.
In a small patch of light that breaks through the clouds and trees above, Lora holds a solitary line before three Drakr. The fourth lays dead at her feet. One attempts to dart around Lora. She disengages from the Drakr her blades are locked with and spins to meet him. She kicks out and her boot slams into the Drakr’s gut. He stumbles back, but she can’t take advantage of his unsteadiness, because she must fling herself back the other direction to stop the first Drakr from getting past her.
She is far too focused on ensuring none of them make it past her, trying to buy Ayc as much time as possible. It has made her careless. A gash parts the flawless curve of her cheek. Blood pours down her jaw, her neck, and onto her armor. They have hurt her, and anger erupts in Ayc’s veins.
Dead.
Ayc wants them all dead .
He doesn’t know which he should be more scared of: the dangerous, deadly wrath that rises up inside him, or that, really, it doesn’t frighten him at all. In fact, it temporarily eases the pain of the hand around his throat and gives him something greater to focus on.
One Drakr breaks from the others and works his way toward Lora’s side, just as two of the other Drakr lunge. She flings up her sword to engage two, but the third grins, showing every single one of his pointed teeth. Ayc charges across the remaining distance, reappearing in the light as he brings his sword high. He swings the blade downward into the Drakr’s neck. Blood spurts, showering Ayc’s face. A thud sounds as the Drakr’s head lands on the ground and tumbles through the leaves.
“Ayc!” Lora yells. She holds her blades high above her head, catching both Drakr’s swords. “I told you to run!”
It’s not another command, but it’s a reminder, breaking through the haze of rage. The strangle-hold of Ayc’s disobedience pulls taut, and he gasps for air. It refuses to fill his lungs. But he ignores it, ignores the way his vision tinges with black. He leaps forward. He brings his sword down in an arch at one of the Drakr’s heads, and they disengage from Lora to meet him.
Ayc’s teeth rattle as their swords clash, and a second later the Drakr’s boot slams into his stomach. He stumbles back, and his vision blurs further. He fumbles with his sword and barely catches the next blow. He tries to yank a breath through his teeth, but it won’t come.
He won’t be able to do this long, but he doesn’t need long. Lora is a blur of motion, a dancer with two blades. The Drakr barely keeps up. It’s only a matter of time before Lora finds a weakness and ends him. Then only one Drakr will remain. Ayc just needs to be a distraction for a little longer.
Ayc gasps as the Drakr’s blade slams into his own. The Drakr shoves him back, pinning him against a tree. Ayc strains against their locked weapons to keep distance, but long daggers of teeth snap close to Ayc’s throat.
A call echoes above their heads, starting as a shriek and ending with a roar. Ayc dares to look upward. Through his blurred vision, he makes out mighty wings and claws.
Tempest.
She dives between the branches, paws outstretched, talons bared. And she is not alone. On her back is Peregrin and Bronwen.
A knife flies from Peregrin’s hand toward Ayc and embeds into the side of the Drakr’s throat. The Drakr slumps toward Ayc, who shoves him away. He crumples at Ayc’s feet, dead within moments. From above, Bronwen releases a force of power from her outstretched hand. It collides with the other Drakr, knocking his sword from his hand and propelling him away from Lora. A moment later, Tempest crashes down upon him. The Drakr screams, but Tempest silences them quickly, roaring and clawing and stabbing with her curved beak. Bronwen clutches Peregrin’s waist to stay on the rearing beast. Soon, the Drakr is nothing more than mangled flesh beneath her.
The four Drakr are dead. Lahlis might still be out there, watching, but surely he will not face the four of them and a gryphon on his own. Lora is alive. And Ayc?—
Ayc cannot fucking breathe.
The pain drives past the wall forged from Ayc’s need to save Lora. It encircles his throat and rages through his body. He feels it everywhere, into the very marrow of his bones. The world tilts on its side. He drives his sword into the ground, and he clings to the hilt to keep himself upright.
In a distant echo, he hears Lora’s voice. “Tempest, you incredible beast! Thank you! ”
And then, Peregrin shouts, “Ayc!”
Ayc needs to run, but the pain is too much, and his knees buckle. Blurred images whirl before his eyes: Peregrin tumbling off Tempest and, without their cane, scrambling and stumbling toward him. Horror painting itself across Bronwen’s face. Lora falling to her knees before him. He can barely make out her bloody, beautiful face.
“Ayc, what is it?” she demands. Her fingers brush against his cheeks, but he’s so numb he can’t feel them. There’s only pain. He can no longer feel anything good. “What’s happening?”
He opens his mouth, but all that comes out is a choke. His vision disappears completely. The ground rises up to meet him. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe this can kill him. Perhaps, it’s the compounding of all his years of disobedience. The stone let him get away with it once. It won’t allow it again.
Their voices are so far away now.
“Bronwen!” Lora cries. “Help him.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Please, Bronwen. I’m begging you.”
“This isn’t a spell. I’d feel it!”
“Come on, boy,” Peregrin pleads. “Tell us. Dammit, Lora, did you give him a command?”
“What?”
“Did you give him a command?”
“I told him to run. To leave me. I?—”
“Tell him to stay .”
“ What?! ”
“Do it, Lora! Now.”
A hand sweeps across his forehead. Gentle and loving. Maybe, it’s his mother. Maybe, he’s already dead .
Then, “Ayc, stay with me.”
The invisible hand uncoils from his throat, and oxygen races into his lungs. He gasps, gulping a breath and then another. His lungs burn, but the pain ebbs until it's tolerable, until he can feel other things. The ground beneath him. Hands in his hair.
He opens his eyes to find four pairs of eyes peering down upon him. Peregrin, Bronwen, Lora, and even Tempest stare down at him with mixed looks of worry and confusion. He must be lying on the ground, because a rock juts into his back and his head rests… in Lora’s lap. Her fingers brush against the damp hair at his forehead. The rain has stopped, the thunder now distant.
Ayc wants to remain here, wants to beg Lora not to stop touching him. Her blood-stained fingers feel better than anything he’s felt before. But he can’t bear the way they're all looking at him.
He cracks a smile and pushes himself upright, trying not to wince as his back protests. “What do you call dangerous precipitation?”
Bronwen utters a small laugh of relief. Peregrin’s head falls into their hands. Tempest shoves her beak against Ayc’s arm like a cat does when it demands to be pet.
And Lora growls between her teeth. “What the fuck was that?”
“You call it a rain of terror,” Ayc finishes.
“Stop it!” Lora shoves to her feet, so she towers over him.
When Ayc looks up, he finds the blood has dried on her face, the wound already knitting itself back together with the supernatural speed Everadyn fae possess. She’s doesn’t seem to notice it as her voice crackles like lightning. “I want to know what just happened, and I want to know now .”
Ayc runs a hand over his own blood-soaked face. He can’t explain it. If he tried, he would be right back to gasping for air, the consequence of his disobedience. Yris told him to never tell a soul what happened eight years ago, the way she trapped him in Everadyn forever.
Peregrin looks around them. “We shouldn’t talk about this here.”
The clouds are thick enough that the shadows are dense. Anything could be here. And they are still standing among the corpses of the Drakr, their blood seeping into the mud and leaves.
“I want—” Lora begins, then she presses her lips together. “Fine. Ayc and Peregrin will go first. Tempest can take them out of here as quickly and as far as she can go in a few minutes. And then come back for Bronwen and me.”
Tempest bobs her head as though listening, and then bows. Peregrin swings themself up and then gestures for Ayc to follow. Ayc stumbles to his feet. Every muscle screams at him, angry at every tiny movement. He nearly buckles, and Lora’s hands reach to steady him.
He steps back and forces another dazzling smile. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
Her narrowed gaze tells him she’s unconvinced.
Ayc bends to pick his sword out of the earth. Blood drenches the blade. The same blood he wears splattered on his face and clothes. He wipes it off on a patch of grass that isn’t also stained in blood. His stomach twists as he avoids the slain bodies. They are Drakr soldiers, who willingly take innocent lives to ensure their own power. They act like monsters, but they are men, nonetheless. He killed one, took them away from those who loved them. And yet, as he mounts Tempest, the guilt is not nearly as strong as it should be. Because given the choice, he would do it again, if it meant that Lora is here. What does that say about him?
Perhaps, that his worst fear is coming true.
Maybe he can be a monster, after all. Perhaps he's not so different from the man whose life he took.
Tempest races through the sky to a spot farther south and dumps Peregrin and Ayc at the banks of the Ever River. It is only a few miles from where the Drakr’s attacked.
“Shouldn’t we go farther?” Ayc asks, as he watches Tempest vault back into the sky. They must be near a village here. Over the melody of the Ever River, Ayc can hear the symphony of children’s laughter, though he cannot see them through the dense foliage. The storm clouds have disappeared, but heavy white clouds cling close to the tops of the towering trees, turning the air around them a hazy blue-gray.
“We’ll be safe here,” Peregrin assures, lowering themself onto a fallen log with a grunt. “Totus Omni are mainly composed of artisans and lovers, but their guards are some of the fiercest I’ve ever seen. Lahlis is bold, but he's not so foolish to harm a village just for the mere sake of getting petty revenge."
It does little to ease Ayc’s fear, because the Drakr have attacked villages in the name of revenge before. And because Lora is still out there. He paces a few steps. Each one of them hurts, so he slumps against a nearby tree. “You talk as though you know Lahlis.”
“I suppose you can say that. We fought against one another before. Back when he was leader of the armies attempting to take Aluina, instead of ruling over it. He is… not a good man.”
Ayc shrugs a single shoulder. “Well, he’s a Drakr.”
“Don’t do that,” Peregrin snaps. “Most Drakr are my enemies, not because of who they were born, but who they choose to be. Their rulers care nothing about the harm they cause others so long as they get what they want. And the people who follow them do nothing to stop it, because it’s profitable to them. That doesn’t mean they are incapable of goodness, only that they do not choose it. You could say the same of many Everadyn fae.”
Ayc doesn’t have the energy to argue. He slides down the bark of the tree until he’s sitting on the ground, his knees bent before him. “Where are Xylie and Tavish?”
“At a tavern in Silvae.”
Silvae is a large town with an air dock on the outskirts of Elodie. Ayc has landed in it many times when he attended festivals.
Peregrin explains, “We got on a ship shortly after you flew yesterday morning. We wanted to be close in case you needed us. Tempest found us in the early hours of the morning. She suspected that you were being hunted by the Drakr and confirmed it during hunting last night.”
“Good girl,” Ayc murmurs.
“The best,” Peregrin agrees. They run a thumb over the smooth top of their cane. “You’re going to have to tell Lora the truth, Ayc.”
“You know I can’t.”
“But I can. With your permission.”
Ayc presses the heels of his hands into his temples, a dull throb starting there. He knows Peregrin is right. Lora will not let go of what happened, and there’s nothing that will satisfy her other than the truth.
“All right.” He drops his hands and notices the blood streaking across his knuckles. Heaving himself to his feet feels as difficult as trying to uproot an entire stone wall from its foundation. He leans heavily against the tree, steeling himself before he takes the few steps to the river and kneels beside it. The turquoise water washes away the blood stains, and he splashes the ice-cold water against his face. He’s tempted to slip in and let the chill ease away the ache in his muscles, but instead, he fastens his bracelets into place.
“How bad is it?” Peregrin asks.
“I’m managing,” Ayc replies.
“Aye.” Peregrin massages a hand over their leg, the one that took a blade decades before. “That’s what we do. We manage.”
Ayc has returned to sitting against the tree, focusing on his breaths, when the familiar crack of wings beats against the sky. A second later, Tempest’s paws slam into the mud near the river. She quickly side steps out of the mud until she’s on dry ground, glaring down at her dirty paws like it's a personal offense. She must have flown fast, because Bronwen’s braid has come completely undone, the wispy, pale strands clinging to her face. Lora’s own curls are taut, whipping over her shoulder as she vaults off Tempest before the gryphon even stops. Blood still streaks across her face. As she charges toward Ayc, she reminds him of the storm from earlier, roaring in swiftly and filling the air with electricity.
“It’s a Binding stone, isn’t it?” Lora demands when she stands before him. He once again climbs to his feet, using the tree for support. “Bronwen said it’s the only enchantment that could have caused the reaction. You’re Bound to someone, aren’t you?”
Ayc can barely swallow, let alone speak.
“Dammit, Ayc!” Lora snaps, her voice trembling. He expects her eyes to flash, but they don’t. “Ans?—”
Ayc flings up a hand. He dares to put a finger in her face, driven by a flare of anger and a spark of terror. “Don’t. Do not give me an order I cannot follow. Not again.”
“He can’t answer you,” Peregrin says, coming to stand beside Lora. “Do you really think your mother would have Bound him to obey her and then given him the ability to tell anyone of it?”
Ayc shutters his eyes closed. For a moment, he’s fourteen again, with Onanna’s magic draping around his throat as a cool threat, and Yris holding the Binding stone between her pointed fingernails. He remembers thinking the stone was such a tiny thing. Surely, it couldn’t harm him. But it had the power to ruin his life. Yris Bound Ayc to be obedient, and with her first order, she commanded him to tell him the truth of his power, of who he really is.
And he lied.
“I’m divina,” he told her.
He’s been in pain ever since.
The first day he could barely stand it. Irving must have been in that room, lurking in a corner while Ayc was too terrified to notice, because Peregrin found Ayc hiding in the stables, crying like he was a little boy once more. Peregrin only said, “Come along, boy.” Then they helped Ayc to stand and led him to their home. There, Ayc drank his first gryphon feather, mixed into tea that Zinnia made him, served in a cup he cracked and she called his own .
Peregrin taught him something that words cannot. People live in pain every day. They adopt strategies to survive. And it doesn’t make it easy. It makes every day, every simple task, really fucking hard. Some days are easier. Some days are almost good, but there are other days that breathing feels like the only thing he can manage.
Peregrin helped Ayc train his body and taught him mental techniques to block out some of the pain. The other things—how to get lost in baking and music and sex—are things he taught himself. He survives. He is still surviving. And he hates to think of Lora knowing, of thinking him weak.
But he’s losing his secrets. One by one.
When Ayc opens his eyes again, he watches as the stone of Lora’s face fractures. He’s always imagined her being gleeful of the power Yris has over him… of the power she might one day have. Of the way she might exploit it. But she doesn't look happy, now.
She looks… devastated.
She stares at him, her eyes a watery, crystal blue. “Please, tell me it’s not true,” she begs. That’s the only word for it. It isn’t a command or even a request. She is begging him to tell her.
“I can’t,” Ayc replies.
“Oh, Ayc,” Bronwen murmurs from where she’s dismounted from Tempest’s back. He doesn’t look at her. He doesn’t want pity.
Lora shifts her head away, blocking his view of her face in the cascade of her hair. Little raindrops still sit on top of her curls, sparking in the blue-gray light. “When?” she asks, her voice tight, like she’s clinging to control .
Ayc shakes his head. He can’t, so Peregrin answers for him, “Eight years ago.”
“Eight years? After you ran away?” Heat rises in Lora’s voice with every word, her horror shifting to anger. Good. Ayc knows better how to deal with that emotion. “That’s why you never tried to run away again. That’s the power she still holds over you. My mother has kept you prisoner at Wyntra all this time?”
Lora doesn’t need an answer this time. Ayc’s silence is confirmation enough.
“Fuck!” She flings herself around and paces away, her hands rising to her hair, forming into fists around the roots, before spinning back around. “Then why was it my command that hurt you?”
Ayc rubs a hand over his face, uncertain whether to answer. But Yris didn't command him not to tell that part. “Before we left, she ordered me to obey you like I obey the Sovereign.”
Lora looks as though he just told her he’s going to throw her into this river, the one she’s terrified of. “So if I give you a command, you have to follow it?”
Ayc nods.
“No!” Lora barks, her canines bared. “No, I don’t want this. I always suspected you didn’t agree to be my Fifth of your own free will. I came to your kitchen expecting I’d have to beg you to help me, and you agreed as soon as you heard my mother knew I’d picked you. You knew you couldn’t say no. You never had a choice. You’ve never had any choices.”
He lifts his hands in a helpless gesture. “What do you want me say, Lora? Choices aren’t a luxury I will ever have.”
“No,” she says again. He understands the feeling. It’s what his soul cried out for years, until he accepted his fate. He simply doesn’t understand why she is feeling this so strongly.
“Ayc?” Bronwen says softly.
They all turn to look at her.
Bronwen approaches slowly, like she’s afraid she might startle one of them away. “You said Sovereign.”
“What?” Ayc says.
“You said that Yris commanded you to obey Lora like you are bound to obey the Sovereign. Not Yris. Did she Bind you to herself or did she Bind you to the Sovereign ?”
Damn, she’s smart, and the other two must realize it, too. Peregrin hisses through their teeth sharply. Lora closes the distance between her and Ayc in two strides. Her hand rises, and he nearly leaps into the river, concerned she might grab his throat again. Instead, her fingers curl around the front of his shirt. She doesn’t pull taut, because the action isn’t done in anger, but in desperation.
“Look at me,” she says, her voice scarcely a whisper.
Ayc doesn’t believe she meant it as a command, but it is one, nonetheless. Before the pain can warn him, he meets her eyes. They are a swirl of color, flickering between the deepest of purples and the deepest of blues, a subtlety of shades reflective of the chaos within.
“Please, tell me that your Bond will not pass to the next Sovereign.”
“I… I can’t tell you.”
“Because of the oath?” Peregrin demands. They clutch their cane so tightly their knuckles lose all color.
“No, because it would be a lie.”
Lora releases him and stumbles back a step.
Peregrin presses their fist to their forehead. A brutal string of curses flies from their mouth. Lora looks at them, and they shake their head. “I didn’t know the exact wording. Irving couldn’t tell me. He has his own oaths he’s bond with.”
“So if Marcellus wins,” Bronwen says, leaning heavily on her staff, “you will have to obey his every command?”
Anxiety flares under Ayc’s skin. He fidgets with the buckle of one of his bracelets. “Yes.”
“No!” Lora snaps back. “No, I won’t allow it.” She spins her body to fully face her First. “How do we fix it, Bronwen?”
“There’s only two ways that I'm aware of,” Bronwen replies. “One is if the original person who Bound them chooses to release them?—”
Ayc barks out a laugh at the absurdity of that statement.
Peregrin glares. “Nothing has been less funny to me, boy.”
Bronwen ignores them both. “And the other is a Severing stone.”
“Then we’ll get a Severing stone,” Lora says.
Ayc snorts. “Do you think it's so simple? Do you think I haven’t thought about it? Severing stones are rare and cost a fortune. I could save until I grow old, and I wouldn't have enough money to purchase one.”
“Then I will buy one!”
Lora advances on him until she stands only inches from his chest, lifting her chin so that her eyes blaze into his. They’ve settled on the deep purple, but silver lines the edges. He feels no fear, only the exhilaration, the fire of having her so near. He still doesn’t understand why she is reacting in such a heated way. Is this because he is yet another injustice that she now feels she must set right? Or is it because of something… more?
It doesn't really matter, because either way.. .
“I’m not letting you use the money that’s meant for helping people escape Lux Aester on a Severing stone,” Ayc says.
She growls in frustration. “Why do you have to be such a damn noble hero, cinnamon roll?”
“I’m not your damsel in distress that needs rescuing, villainess!”
“Keep your voices down before you scare the whole village,” Peregrin warns.
Ayc locks his jaw, and Lora presses her lips into a fine line, both still glaring at one another. The laughter of children and the call of a mother floats through the woods. The river rushes by like it too is shushing them.
Bronwen breaks the calm with a scoff. “You two are ridiculous.” Ayc and Lora break their locked gazes to look at her. Bronwen still leans against her staff, but it seems more relaxed and casual now, her head resting against the place where the blade begins. “If you would stop fighting each other for two seconds, you might realize that you both are trying to fight for each other. You’re both just too proud and stubborn to admit it.”
Ayc casts his eyes above him to avoid looking at any of them. He watches the branches that stretch over the river sway and cast shadows. Somewhere near here, Lora tried to buy him time as he ran away; he stayed behind to rescue her, knowing that it would cost him.
Maybe both of them have been prisoners of Yris in their own way, both obeying when they must and rebelling when they could. They’ve fought each other as she meant them to—Lora with knives, and Ayc with jokes—but perhaps, along the way, they’ve found ways to save each other, too .
“Shut up, Bronwen,” Lora mutters, almost beneath her breath.
Bronwen smirks. “The only time you tell me to shut up is when you know I’m right.”
She is, Ayc thinks. Dammit.
Lora exhales slowly, before looking up to meet Ayc’s eyes. “Ayc, what can I do? I can’t let you be her prisoner.”
“You want to help me, villainess?” Impulsively, Ayc reaches for her hand. She lets him wrap his fingers around her palm, soft skin gliding beneath his fingertips. He lifts it so her chronicler is at eye-level. “Then win . Win so I don’t have to be stuck for the rest of my life serving Marcellus or Wylder.”
Lora doesn’t look away from his eyes. “I don’t want that power over you, either.”
Isn’t that what Peregrin said about Lora? That she didn’t want the type of power that came with being Sovereign. Ayc hadn’t believed it when they said it four days ago. But Ayc has lived lifetimes since then. The walls and the half-truths he’s used to protect himself have crumbled to dust at his feet. For so long, he has forced himself to believe that she can’t be both a villain of stone and a beautiful, caring soul.
But two things can be true all at once.
She is vicious. And she is beautiful.
And perhaps, one day he’ll be courageous enough to admit he likes both sides of her.
“I don’t want anyone to have power of me,” Ayc says. “But if someone must, you’re the only person I trust to have it.” He adjusts his hand against hers, and their fingers lace together. She doesn’t pull away, and Ayc finds himself lost in the feel of her skin on his. Then her eyes shift from him to her wrist, and his own gaze follows .
“Two stones,” Ayc murmurs, when he sees it. “There are two stones lit.”
“Really?” Bronwen rushes forward to see.
Ayc drops Lora’s hand like he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t.
“Which quest did you complete?” Bronwen asks.
Lora pushes back her sleeve to look at her forearm. “Forge a new path.” She blinks. “How?”
“You said no to the Drakr,” Ayc says. “You forged a path different from your mother, from what your mother wanted from you.”
Lora rolls her eyes. “Divine, that’s really obtuse, isn’t it?”
Ayc laughs. “It is a little, yes.”
Lora smiles. Not a quirk of one corner of her mouth or something forced and strained. A quiet, sincere smile. And, fuck, he could stare at the curved line forever. He could build dreams upon its peaks and make himself home in the valley.
Ayc reels back, shaking his head. What the fuck is the matter with him? He’s never been one for poetry and yet one smile from Lora and he’s composing sonnets in his head. He needs help. Or a cold dunk in the river. That might set him straight.
“I told you the quests could be completed in obscure ways,” Peregrin says.
“And you were right. As always.” Lora stares at her forearm a moment more, and then she pulls down her sleeve. A gleam of determination passes over her face.
“Oh no,” Bronwen says. “I know that look.”
“What look?”
“That determined look. It used to mean you were about to do something that might get us expelled from Adamant. You have an idea. ”
“Maybe I do.” Lora sweeps her gaze across the three of them. “Two things. First, Ayc, I want you to understand that you are free to choose. With me, you're free to choose. I’ll do my best not to issue a command, but if I slip up and do, tell me to—I don’t know—fuck off or something.”
He smiles at that. “Fuck off, Lora.”
A soft line appears between her brows. “That was a command?”
“Little bit, yes”
“Fuck. Sorry.”
“And look at that,” he cheers. “You just apologized without insulting me first. That’s progress.”
Her eyes narrow. “Oh, shut—” She snaps her mouth shut so audibly her teeth clack.
Damn, she’s serious about this. Relief floods through him, a soothing balm to wounds that are far deeper than physical.
Bronwen rolls her eyes at them, the corners of her lips twitching. “What was the second thing, Lora?”
“Second,” she says, “we need to get back to the others as soon as possible. If the Drakr mean to help Marcellus, we don’t have much time. Forget Laud for now. I know how to complete the next quest.”