Chapter 14
She was here.
Here!
And...
She was with Arawn.
Kinlear did not miss the way his brother stepped closer to her as he approached. As if, already, Arawn had laid some sort of claim.
Impossible, he thought.
But his heart was in his throat.
He felt sick, dizzy with panic as he cast a glance at her.
She was his.
For how could she be anything but?
How could he ever doubt the connection they’d shared on the back of the raphon? How could he ever ignore how, in his dreams, she’d filled the gaping hole in his chest where his heart should have been—but it had been missing ever since Soraya left.
He would not be alone anymore, left to face the shadows in himself.
His raphon rider was here.
And... oh gods...he was pretty sure she hated him.
He could tell from the second she laid eyes on him, how she studied him with her strangely haunting eyes. And here he was, standing in the snow with his damned shirt half unbuttoned. With his cane and his vial and his differences. Him, amongst three Sacred warriors.
He wasn’t a warrior.
He was the farthest thing from it, and suddenly he felt more self-conscious than he ever had before. He felt smaller than the snowflakes that danced between them. He was a speck and she was...
Glaring?
At him.
Yes, she was glaring, her eyes roving over him as her lip quirked in what he could have sworn was a snarl. Like she was ticking off all the boxes that she didn’t like.
Don’t say something stupid, Kinlear told himself, brows raising as he pretended to notice her for the first time.
“A Ravenminder,” he said, unable to stop the words that left his lips as he looked her up and down. He stood a bit taller, as if that would make any difference. “How very...charming.”
His blood went cold at his own words.
Pompous ass, he thought. He wanted to scream at himself. What in the gods’ name are you doing?!
He cleared his throat. “Spent a bit of time with the omens, have you?”
He hadn’t meant it as a slight.
But she certainly took it as one.
“If by omens, you mean ravens, then yes,” she said. “In some ways, the messenger birds are just as important as the war eagles.”
Oh, now it was his turn to be slighted.
He would have been truly offended, if her voice weren’t so godsdamned sweet. He’d imagined this moment, imagined seeing her for the first time, meeting her, learning what she sounded like and how she moved her lips, and...
She was nothing like the woman from his dreams.
She was harsher.
Stronger, despite her small size.
A true verbal opponent.
He raised a dark brow and put on his toughest armor. “A clever sentiment, albeit a false one.”
“It’s true, I can assure you,” she said.
A muscle in his jaw twitched. Was that...anger, sparking to life in him?
A part of him loved it. It had been so long since he’d felt things. So, he leaned into her challenge, and answered, “Is that so?”
She nodded. “It’s called communication, Prince. I’m no soldier, but I’m well aware that this war would already be lost without the ability to communicate. You have the ravens to thank for that.” She lifted her chin. “And their Minders.”
Stubborn creature. There was a beautiful challenge in her gaze.
He wanted to meet it.
He crossed his arms, ignoring how damned cold he was, how tired. He wouldn’t let his weakness show. “And quite the communicator, you are,” he said.
And then they just stared at each other.
Was he a stranger to her...or had she, too, been dreaming of him?
Impossible, said a voice in his mind, and it sounded like Magus. You’re the only Veilborne here, Little Prince.
Kinlear narrowed his gaze even more.
She was here, and she was lovely... every bit as much as she was terrifying, for how fiercely she stared up at him.
Small enough to fit on a raphon with him, of course, for that part of his dreams had been true.
He could tell already, from how she’d spoken to him – a prince that could hang her, for all she knew— she was so damned bold.
Braver than most men he knew.
But there was also a rage that wasn’t there in his dreams.
He could see it boiling behind her eyes, like she’d been challenged all her life. Like she’d been seen only for the enormous shadow wolf scars on her face, the very same way he was seen for his illness. For his cane and his vial and his second born stigma.
Weak, his mind whispered. You’re so incredibly weak.
She glared up at him as if she wanted him to look at the marks on her face, as if she expected him to be shocked by them.
But he knew those scars.
He saw them every night in his dreams.
He loved them, as much as he loved the promise of a future with her.
And what they would become, together.
Her scars were as familiar to him as her touch, as her warmth in his arms...and so as he stood there across from her, feeling for all the world, like the gods had granted him a gift...he never once broke her gaze.
It was an effort to pull himself away.
To act as nonchalant as any prince would, when faced with a recruit.
“I’ll be seeing you, Ravenminder,” he told her.
Still, he hadn’t caught her name.
“Eagleminder,” she said back.
He carried her words with him.
He carried her image like a promise.
She was here.
And someday, no matter what it took...she would be his.