Chapter 17
Everly
Islept through the day and the rest of the night, but between my sister’s salves and Amias’s healing, I woke up with the wounds on my wings already scabbed over.
Not that it mattered much when it wasn’t like I could use them to fly.
How do you stand it?
Did you think I was planning on hiding you forever?
I pushed away the echoes of Draven’s and Zerina’s voices in my head, still too groggy to consider all the implications of a future I might not even live to see.
Draven’s mana was close enough that I knew he must be in his sitting room, so I left the door between our rooms cracked as I went to my own bathing chamber.
I got all the way to the outside of the tub before I remembered that I couldn’t call my own bath. Even now.
All the risk I had taken, and I couldn’t risk channeling my mana long enough to learn to do basic household things with it. Gritting my teeth, I debated whether it was worth facing my irate husband to rid myself of the grime and sweat that still clung to me from yesterday’s… misadventure.
I could still feel his frustration echoing through the bond, and he had made no move to come after me, though I knew he must have sensed that I was awake.
But I was also disgusting and had no way of calling for Mirelda.
Shards blasted hells.
Just as I turned to go, though, I heard the smallest trickle of water. Tilting my head, I stepped closer to see steaming, shimmering water filling the deep basin, just as it did when Mirelda called my bath.
The palace had taken pity on me.
Maybe I should have felt sorrier for myself, knowing that a sentient hunk of stone felt pity for me, but I wasn’t about to look this gift Velgrun in the mouth.
I tucked my wings in, wincing at the sting as they folded beneath my skin, then stripped off my clothes before lowering myself into the glorious warmth. Mirelda was there when I got out, alerted by whatever sixth sense she had that I was about to have the nerve to dress myself.
Or rather, to let Closet dress me, which was indeed a battle I was too tired to fight today.
Though I had mana now, I wasn’t any more impervious to the cold.
Either the Unseelie nature of half of my powers or the ice that ran unchecked through my veins kept me from stabilizing myself the way the rest of the Winter Court did.
It was hit or miss whether the closet would deign to accommodate my need for warmer clothes, so I was just as happy to let Mirelda wrestle something with thick enough fabric from the opinionated room.
I focused on the gentle feeling of her hands arranging my braids, the plush velvet fabric of the pale blue gown, the familiar weight of my dagger at my thigh, anything at all but the way my mana had so thoroughly debilitated me the only time I truly dared to try to wield it.
Even if Nevara woke up, would I be able to feed my powers into the Heartstone before it killed me? Could I convince her to let me try if there were no other options?
They weren’t questions that bore considering yet. If she woke up… we could get our answers then.
Draven stepped into the room, already looking pristinely put together. The tailored cut of his high-collared coat accentuated his broad shoulders and muscular chest. His moonlit locks fell artfully across his brow, and a row of dark earrings gleamed from the tip of each ear.
But it was his eyes that got me, just like always, burning with every shade of frost and teal and emerald as they met my gaze in the mirror.
He truly was gorgeous, in an untouchable way that made me almost forget the way he had fallen on his knees for me in more ways than one.
“I’m headed to see Nevara… if you’re up for it.” His tone and expression were carefully guarded. Even his mana seemed contained, like he had hidden all evidence of his feelings inside of himself the way I did my wings.
I nodded, wondering whether he had been summoned by my thoughts. I hadn’t tried to replicate the way he had spoken inside my head, but that didn’t mean I had never done it unintentionally. I couldn’t bring myself to ask, not sure I was ready for the answer.
Mirelda secured the diamond-studded strands of silver she had threaded into my braids, working seamlessly around Batty’s stubborn presence on my shoulder. As soon as she placed the final pin, she excused herself.
Draven’s gaze settled on the subtle hint at a crown before trailing down to my features, lingering on my carefully painted lips long enough for an unmistakable spike of heat to escape whatever shields he had put in place.
Wordlessly, he held out his arm, and I spun to take it, ignoring the lightning that zapped from his body to mine. It was a strange place we were in.
Married, but not quite together. Our bodies caving at every turn while our minds refused to.
If I had any privacy at all, I might have asked Wynnie about it. Her marriage might have been unconventional, but it was more experience than I had with relationships.
Then again, nothing about my marriage was conventional either. We had been forced into these roles before we chose them, and whatever we felt for each other didn’t erase who we were. Not our roles or our heritage or the way we couldn’t seem to break the silence between us.
It was a relief when Draven spun us into darkness and frost.
At least, until we landed on the other side.
I had only been to Nevara’s rooms once before, the day she told me—or at least heavily implied—that my sister was going to die.
Though, in hindsight, I wondered if what she had been trying to do was apologize in advance for all the torture and pain she couldn’t, or wouldn’t keep me from enduring, for reasons only she understood.
This was the only way that I could See… I hope that you’ll remember that.
I shook the memory away. Wynnie was alive, and so was I, so I could hardly hold that against her anymore. If I had even been capable of holding a grudge against someone who looked closer to death than to life.
Since the infirmary was more or less emptied out from the attacks, Draven had moved Nevara to her own rooms, both for her comfort and to make her less visible.
The court needed to believe that rest alone stood between her and recovery. It was a thin hope, but that was better than no hope at all.
Now, standing in the doorway of her chamber, I wasn’t sure how true that was, if it was cruel to give any of us hope at all.
She was lying in her bed, pale strands loosely brushed on either side of her, black tips standing out starkly against her pale pink gown.
The darkness that stained the edges of her hair and nails crept upward with each passing day, though Amias assured us that it was a comfort to see how slowly the venom was spreading.
I took in her pinched, hollow features, still ethereally beautiful for all that they were utterly devoid of life, and couldn’t help but picture them the first time she had let the icy edges of her facade waiver.
My name. It’s Nevara.
Are we going to be friends, then?
I don’t see my own future.
I had never asked her what she meant by that. If she couldn’t See her own future, or if she merely refused to. Had she made an exception this time?
Soren sat beside Nevara with the same book he had held at her bedside the past week in the infirmary, though today he looked as though it weighed more than he did.
His posture was slumped, his angular eyes so hollowed out by exhaustion that even the amber flames seemed oddly subdued.
He rarely left her side, even to bathe or sleep.
Out of love? Or guilt?
Wynnie told me that Nevara had taken the hit from the Korythid for him.
Had she known what was going to happen when she fought the monster that day? That she would risk her life, risk abandoning the Court—and the king—she had spent her entire existence protecting?
Was it a split-second reaction or a carefully thought out decision, choosing to save the male who painted her pictures with his words and made her laugh when she was tormented by all the nightmares she couldn’t un-See?
Soren closed the book as we entered the room, setting it on the side table with a carefulness that bordered on reverence.
Not just guilt.
Amias followed shortly behind us, clearing his throat in a way that I knew meant nothing good.
“I’m afraid there isn’t much to report.” A reserved sort of empathy shone from his bright green gaze.
“The venom has fused too deeply with her bloodstream to burn or siphon it away, though her mana still seems to be shielding its progression. In the meantime, there are a number of antidotes we can try. I have written to Spring Court for herbs we can’t grow here, and we can be grateful that between her own powers and my ability to heal the effects of the venom, if not the source, she is stable for now. ”
For now.
The words thinned as they left the healer’s mouth, dissolving into the quiet of the room. The air felt suddenly wrong… too thin, too still…
Amias moved back to Nevara’s bedside, his hands working with careful precision while the rest of us stood rooted in place, unsure where to look or what to say.
No one spoke. No one moved.
We lingered there, suspended in that fragile breath, knowing how easily for now could unravel into something far worse.
When he was finished examining Nevara, Amais left to return to the infirmary. Soren, however, lingered.
Usually he at least retreated to the main area of the infirmary when Draven came, so his presence felt intentional, even before he looked pointedly at my husband.
“We need to clean this mess up before she wakes.”
Draven blinked at him. “What?”
I echoed his surprise, though mine was at least half because Soren was still so convinced she would wake. Or at least was doing a better job of lying to himself about it than I was.
He leaned back in his chair, giving all the impression of nonchalance. “I’m just saying that she’ll be less than pleased to see you’ve let all her hard work with the Court fall by the wayside.”
My husband let out an irritable breath through his nose, one that Batty seemed to agree with, if I interpreted her chirp correctly.
“What would you know of my Court when you haven’t left this room to so much as bathe for the last several days?” Draven replied smoothly.
Soren gave a wan imitation of his usual smirk, though it didn’t come close to reaching his eyes. “I have my ways.”
Draven scoffed outright. “Finally ready to acknowledge you are more than the emissary you pretend to be?”
The male put a hand on his chest. “I most certainly am an Autumn emissary, and an effective one, if I do say so myself.”
Draven leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms and surveying the seated male. “It’s what you do behind the scenes that concerns me.”
I narrowed my eyes, tired of the way they were both talking around something I had no notion of. “Such as?”
“Drinking copious amounts of good whiskey,” Soren offered.
“Spy,” Draven corrected flatly.
Spy? It made a certain amount of sense for the male who always seemed to know so much more than he should. But it also didn’t because he was still very much alive instead of frozen wolf food.
Something shifted uncomfortably inside me as I recalled all the times I had let my guard down for one of the few people who had bothered to be on my side since I got here. He had brought me books when I was recovering from the Mirrorbane attack, had defended me to the court.
Was all of it for an agenda? Was I the only one na?ve enough to think that an emissary could also be a friend?
I looked from one male to the other, then to the sleeping—comatose—female.
“Does Nevara know?”
Did he hear the question I didn’t quite voice aloud. Is that why you’re close to the second most important person in this Court?
Soren raised his eyebrows in an expression that might have been casual, but for the smallest tensing of his jaw.
“Most emissaries have… side hobbies, and there’s very little that Nevara doesn’t See.” His voice was soft as he met my eyes with a rare earnestness. “But she also knows that my relationships here are genuine, whatever loyalties I have to my own Court.”
His meaning was clear enough. He was trying to tell me that our friendship had been real, too, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to believe that.
I exchanged a look with my husband—the husband who had still not made a move to kill the Autumn emissary, which lent a certain amount of truth to Soren’s comment about his role not being unexpected.
Not to mention, Draven would never have allowed Soren to be one of the only people who could access Nevara’s rooms if he didn’t trust him to some extent.
Did that mean the rest of what Soren said was true as well?
“Is that why you allowed him to stay?” I asked.
Draven gave me a terse nod. “Better the frostbeast you know... Though that doesn’t mean I am likely to trust him where Winter is concerned, considering I know full well he’ll report back to his.”
Soren opened his mouth, then closed it, shaking his head like he was warring with himself. Several seconds ticked by on the intricately carved silver clock before he seemed to make up his mind.
“I haven’t told them about Nevara, and I’m not going to.”
It was Draven’s turn to raise his eyebrows. “You’d turn traitor to your own… king?”
The pause was deliberate enough to make me think I was still missing something, but Soren gave no outward sign that he noticed.
“Of course not,” he responded easily. “But unless you have plans to attack Autumn—and I can’t imagine you’re itching to gain yet more enemies—then nothing currently happening here concerns him.”
There was an undercurrent to his tone, a hint of a threat concealed in the nonchalant words.
You can’t afford more enemies, he was saying. And he wasn’t wrong, but that didn’t mean we had to trust him as an ally. There were plenty of reasons for Autumn Court to want to see an end to the strongest king in a millennium.
I could practically feel the same thoughts warring in Draven’s mind. I studied Soren only to find him fixated back on Nevara, grief once again clouding his gaze.
No one was that good of an actor. Whatever else he was, he cared about Nevara… Maybe even loved her. And he had helped us before, had fought monsters at our side… and he had kept the secret of my heritage for months now.
I turned back to Draven, remembering the way I had sent him the image, how he had sent words in return, and trying to channel the same back to him.
You’re the one who said we can’t fight a war on every front.
His gaze snapped to mine with just enough ire that I knew he heard the part I didn’t say.
It mattered enough to slaughter my people, so you can damned well make an uncomfortable concession for yourself.
Draven heaved a long-suffering sigh, turning back to the smug-faced male before us.
“What did you have in mind?”