Chapter Twenty-Seven
It’s startling to see everyone clean and in fresh clothes. We were all so travel worn, even before the Barrows.
Elianna hugs me, Andras smiles and nods, and Trick throws his arms around my neck. His hug is so familiar, I’m almost overwhelmed and so glad he’s alive. That we all are.
“You’re safe,” he says, over and over. “I was afraid …”
“Me, too.” I touch his hair and step back. “When you flew away from the pit like that …”
“Draugrs,” he says grimly. “And that was bad enough, but then the Zhagarn and Fell showed up.”
I gasp then glance at the door, worried someone will overhear.
“Don’t worry. Elianna warded the room against eavesdroppers,” Trick says, touching my cheek and smiling. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
A crock of stew and loaves of bread steal my attention. I grab a bowl and spoon and join my companions in digging in, taking a moment to close my eyes and let myself get so absorbed by the savory combination of lamb, vegetables, and spices, that the hum of voices around me dulls to a murmur.
I survived the amulet. We survived the Zhagarn and Fell twice—no, three times now, from the bits of news I caught when Kaelen and Neville were talking. We defeated the draugr to retrieve the key.
We can do this.
Kaelen, taking a seat next to me at the long wooden table, nudges me with his arm. “Are you sure you filled that bowl full enough? This is my third helping.”
I glance up at him, smiling, then freeze.
The impact of Kaelen, the elegant courtier, and his beauty was bad enough.
Even dirty and beat-up with cuts and bruises, the man is shockingly gorgeous.
But this Kaelen—the deadly warrior who saved my life, who fought for me, who cared for me when the Gray Mind struck—this man is a danger to the heart I walled over long ago.
His thick, black hair is still damp from his bath, and his sculpted face is clean-shaven. When I look at him, I see the prince as well as the man.
Personally, I liked him scruffy. He looked dangerous with a hint of beard, like an outlaw, perhaps. He also looked more … human.
Less royal.
Less like someone I’ll never have a chance to … do or have anything meaningful with.
My heart literally aches in my chest—an actual physical reaction to how hard and how fast I’m falling for this man. Is that even possible? Sorchonne Parnour wrote quite a long chapter warning courtesans of the dangers of falling in love. But should ordinary people be afraid, too?
Maybe not ordinary people.
As I’ve heard all my life, I’m not even close to rising to the level of ordinary.
If I don’t protect my heart, it could easily become one of the casualties of this journey. Especially since I never know which version of the prince will look back at me through his purple eyes.
“Soli?” His tilted head and raised eyebrow tell me I’ve been staring at him, but he’s smiling.
“You shouldn’t smile like that. It makes you unfairly beautiful,” I mutter beneath the covering sound of Neville’s hearty laughter at some quip of Chitai’s.
Kaelen leans toward me and speaks softly, his voice nearly a purr in my ear. “I’m not the one who’s unfairly beautiful, my Solitude. When we’re alone, we still need to continue our conversation from that night before the Barrows. My … decisions would be different now.”
Heat rushes up from my toes, soaring through my body, and I reach for my mug of spring water and gulp some down. When I look up, I see Chitai studying me with narrowed eyes, but she looks away when I catch her at it.
Great. Yet another person who wants to tell me I can never be with the prince. They should form a line.
“If you’ve all eaten enough, we should share our stories,” Sergeant Neville says. He ate with soldier-like efficiency and now nurses a mug of ale.
“Yes,” I agree. “Tell us everything that happened after we fell—”
“After the draugrs hurled us into—” Kaelen says.
“That horrible pit,” I finish. “First, though, I want to show you all the key and tell you what Artemisen said.”
I hold it out but don’t take the chain off my neck to pass it around. I’m not sure why, and I shrug uncomfortably when Elianna raises an eyebrow at me. I feel like the key and amulet want to stay with me.
Or maybe I hit my head too hard when I fell.
“That’s … a lot to take in,” Elianna says, clearly frustrated, after I wrap up the recitation and put the necklace back beneath my shirt.
“I mean, ‘you must yet retrieve the key from the Scholars’ Temple.’ Really?
She couldn’t have given us a few clues as to how we’re going to do that?
Or where exactly in the temple we’ll find the key? ”
“Not so much. She said the key and amulet coming together gave her a burst of energy, but it didn’t last long. She’ll be able to talk to us again when we find the next key. We may want to write up a list of questions, so we’re prepared.”
When I look up from my bowl, everyone is staring at me with varying degrees of surprise and respect.
“What?”
“You have an uncanny ability to cut through to the meat of the matter,” Chitai says. “A list. It’s basic, but none of us thought of it.”
“Well, to be fair, we didn’t know the goddess would appear when we touched a key to the amulet, either,” I point out reasonably. “Just that she’d grow stronger.”
“What happened after the draugrs but before the goddess?” Sergeant Neville asks. “You’re the heart of this company, Soli. How did you survive?”
I look to Kaelen. “You tell it.”
He does but puts far too much emphasis on what he calls my “heroic efforts” to save them. So, I jump in and tell them about his heroism in that tunnel. Bern adds his part, and they recount an edited version of the rest, leaving out any mention of my bout with Gray Mind.
“And then we walked out of there and found you here,” Bern concludes, skipping my breakdown.
But I’m tired of hiding. “That’s not quite accurate.
I cost us time.” I tell everyone what happened as briefly as I can manage.
“I wasn’t able to climb out of it. Too much happened in too short a time, and I think it all overloaded my mind.
Also, the sheer relief of knowing Kaelen and Bern were awake to take over …
Well. There it is. I’m sorry for the delay I caused. ”
Chitai holds up a hand when everybody talks at once. “Soli. That’s a very normal reaction to the stresses and fears of battle, even in the toughest warriors. We do what needs to be done in the worst of it, then we collapse and sleep for a day or two when it’s over.”
“Agreed,” Sergeant Neville says. “You held up like a champion, lass. I’d be proud for you to serve on my watch.”
I have to blink very hard to keep back the tears, so I look down at my empty bowl. “Thank you. Anyway, that’s us. Tell us what happened to you.”
It was even worse than I’d feared. Taking turns, with each of them adding in parts to the story, they tell us how they fought off the enraged draugrs and found a narrow passageway only wide enough for the people and the horses to get through.
The draugrs chased them to it and then, furious at being thwarted, took out their ire on the abandoned wagon.
“But then the smallest of the monsters figured out he could squeeze into the tunnel,” Andras says dryly.
“Luckily for us—and I realize the irony of saying that—the foul Zhagarn arrived with a full cohort of their monsters. From two different directions, which we didn’t understand until we got here and learned of the group that burned the crops. ”
“Enemies from two different directions, but none of them knew to sing,” Elianna puts in, giving me a tentative smile that I don’t return.
Chitai shudders. “Can you imagine the Fell singing? Birds would fall dead from the trees in horror.”
I grimace, preferring not to imagine it, actually.
Andras continues from his spot by the window. “The draugrs wore themselves out killing all the Zhagarn and Fell, and then daylight must have arrived, because the four creatures collapsed and fell asleep right there on the remains of their conquered foes.”
“Elianna healed us—we were pretty banged up. Trick’s arm was broken,” Chitai says. “After that, we found our way out of the tunnel, spent some time in a futile search for you, then headed this way, in case you were out in front of us.”
“So, that’s all the news,” Trick says cheerfully, waving his unbroken arm to show me. “We survived, so now I guess we’re off again on our fun-filled journey through the freezing cold mountains and into horrible danger?”
“No,” I say, staring at Elianna. “Now the powerful Air Touched Guild sorcerer tells us why she hasn’t been able to do much beyond floating a few pretty balls of light in the air and using already-activated potions since we began this expedition.”
“Yes. Very good idea,” Andras says, folding his arms.
Elianna sits back and puts her face in her hands for a long moment. Then she drops her hands to her lap and shrugs. “I tried to tell you.”
“You didn’t try very hard! How about, oh, I don’t know, anytime during this entire journey, something like, ‘Hey, sorry to have to let you know I barely have any magic’?”
Kaelen stares at me and then turns to her. “Elianna? What is this? Tell us. Now.”
She raises a sardonic eyebrow at the tone of command in his voice but doesn’t argue. “Yes. Fine. I lost almost all my power nearly a year ago. I can do small magics, like producing the ‘pretty balls of light’—which, I’ll remind you, also helped defeat our attackers at the palace.”
“And took so much out of you that you collapsed,” I shoot back.
“But you healed the dying ferryman,” Chitai protests.
Elianna sighs. “Only because I had a potion I’d already activated.”
I shove my hair out of my face and catch sight of my GM brand out of the corner of my eye. Mostly I can ignore it, but right now a wonderful, horrible thought jumps into my mind. “Elianna,” I say slowly. “Do you have any of that potion left?”
“Yes, thankfully.” She gives me a sharp look. “Why? I thought Artemisen healed you.”
“She did.” Now that I’m thinking of it, I don’t understand this one bit.
“Every single new ache and pain and cut and bruise. There’s not even a scar or raised mark where my head bled so much, although my earlier scars are still here.
” I touch my cheek. “And this.” I roll my sleeve back and show them the brand.
Unhealed.
“Whatever she did, it didn’t touch this. Why?”
Andras sighs. “It’s better not to question the actions of a goddess.”
“I’m not questioning, just wondering,” I tell him.
“But Elianna, if you use some of your potion … if you don’t mind using some on me …
could you heal this?” My voice is barely a whisper by the end of my request. Inside me, hope wars painfully with the bleak certainty that she can’t do it, that even a goddess couldn’t—or wouldn’t—heal this ugly mark.
“I’m so sorry, Soli. I would if I could. I hope you know that,” Elianna says, her face set in lines of regret. “But my magic doesn’t touch old scars or burned-on brands. Plus, the Guild has long suspected the Inquisitors of using magic to enchant the iron and make the brand irreversible.”
“Sure. Of course.” I can’t look up. Don’t want to see the pity on their faces. “Just a thought. Not important compared to our quest.”
“I’m sorry, Soli,” the sergeant says kindly. “But you’re right. We need to focus on the quest. Elianna, why didn’t you tell us? I know that at least in the back of my mind, I was counting on you to save the day if circumstances turned dire in the Barrows.”
“Dire is an understatement,” I mutter.
“Why did the king send you to help us find the keys when you’re practically defenseless?” Kaelen demands.
“Because he doesn’t know,” she cries. Then she gulps in a shuddering breath and falls back into her chair. “He doesn’t know. My Guild doesn’t know. Nobody knows. I tried something I shouldn’t, and it cost me my magic. Worse, it nearly cost me my life.”