Chapter 27
Andrian had barely reached the shadows of the trees when the horns started.
Fear hammered through him, beating his thundering heart, but he didn’t look back. Even when his mind raced with all the worst possible reasons for those horns, he didn’t stop pushing forward into the woods.
Had they realized he was no longer in the castle? Had Gabriel’s ruse failed? Had Anniliese had another change of heart and turned him in?
No. He couldn’t let himself dwell on any of that; it would only slow him down. It was likely just a surprise drill with the gathering army. The commanders ran them occasionally to discourage too much frivolity within the ranks. To keep the troops from getting too comfortable.
Andrian had heard those same horns at all hours of the night over the past few weeks. That’s all it was.
All it was.
He chanted it to himself, a silent repeated whisper, as he forged deeper into the darkness of the forest. His shadows leeched from his skin, melding with the dark, praying it hid his path from any who might’ve followed.
No matter how thick those shadows grew, the light of the moons above lit his way.
The horns were fainter but still blaring when something rustled in the trees. Andrian halted, tightening his shadows around him, scanning the canopy. He gripped the handle of his sword over his shoulder, ready to slide it free.
His hand slackened when the branches jostled again. A great golden eagle settled on the limb of an oak tree, her light-refracting feathers catching the moonlight, outlining her like a wraith.
Her? How did he know that?
The eagle shook out her wings, trilling softly. She cocked her head, golden eyes narrowed, as if they knew and saw far too much.
Something—some instinct—told him this was the same eagle who’d landed on his windowsill not long ago. His shadows writhed with the realization, crawling around his feet.
He scowled at the bird. “I thought I told you to leave.”
The eagle ruffled her feathers again, puffing up against the night breeze. She clicked her beak, a deadly talon picking at the branch.
He might’ve been going mad. For days, he’d been driven by a lack of sleep and existed in a constant state of alertness and agitation. But when she trilled back to him, he swore he understood.
“I did,” she seemed to say. “Now you need my help, so I’m back.”
Yes. He was definitely going mad.
He stood slack jawed, still processing. The eagle lifted from the branch, swooping down over his head.
Her feathers grazed his cheek, and her talons lightly gripped his pack, tugging gently before flying back to her branch.
She landed, hopping from foot to foot, giving him what could only be a glare.
They stared at each other for a long moment—assessing, thinking, contemplating.
Shadows coiled again around his forearms. “Do you…want me to follow you?”
The eagle trilled, this time higher pitched. In approval?
He really needed to sleep.
With a swallow, he gave her a small nod. “I’m heading north. Does that work for you?”
Another trill—this time even more animated.
Andrian rubbed the back of his neck, brow furrowed. He shrugged. “Fuck it. I’m dead anyway. If you’re going north, then I’ll follow.”
The eagle gave one more happy sound before leaping into the air, flapping up through the boughs. She passed in and out of view, giving Andrian just enough to see her in the bright moonlight.
With an exhausted sigh and a single glance over his shoulder toward the looming darkness of Khento, Andrian followed.
The horns faded as Andrian traveled deeper into the forest.
Their shrill bleating melted from a panicked scream to a faint whisper to eventual silence. Only the sounds of the forest surrounded Andrian now. With each twig that snapped, he glanced over his shoulder, as if he could feel something lurking on his trail.
No matter how many times he looked, nothing ever emerged from behind him.
The eagle would occasionally trill impatiently at him from above, as if telling him to stop worrying and keep moving, but that did little to calm him. What would a bird know, anyway?
Something rustled ahead in the underbrush.
Andrian froze, shadows swirling and dancing down his arms. He ignored the eagle’s whistle as he waited. Listening.
For a moment, it was quiet. Then there it was—a soft nicker, followed by a snort.
Panic flooded him in a desperate wave.
A horse.
Horses wouldn’t just be in the woods; he’d surely been followed. A guard or scout from Khento, realizing the only way he could’ve gone was north, into the trees.
He’d risked his life—and his brother’s—for nothing.
A branch above shuddered as the eagle landed. Andrian wanted to wave at her to take off, to fly away while she still could. To not draw the attention of the men behind him. But she just watched him with something akin to impetuousness, clacking her beak. Andrian glared at her.
The horse finally emerged onto the trail, coat shining in the moonlight, tossing his head and prancing.
Everything dropped away from Andrian. Not just because the horse was riderless, not wearing even a single piece of tack.
But because he recognized that gleaming golden coat, the long black mane, the white star on his forehead.
Andrian pulled his shadows beneath his skin and stepped into the moonlight, a hand cautiously extended. The horse pricked his ears, nostrils flaring as Andrian approached.
He took a tentative step forward. Then another. Above, the eagle rustled her feathers impatiently.
“Kodie?” Andrian said in a broken whisper, and it was like some spell had snapped.
The gelding—Mariah’s gelding, the one she’d raised from birth—tossed his head, nickering again softly, before walking into Andrian’s waiting palm.
Andrian loosed a great sigh of relief, not realizing until that moment that his hands were shaking. That his heart was ready to beat out of his chest, every tense line of his body aching.
He stroked the horse’s forelock, noticing its tangled state. “What are you doing out here?” The horse nuzzled into him, inhaling his scent.
That’s when it struck him.
They’d left their horses in these very woods that day they’d approached Khento. They’d meant to find them again after Mariah’s family was rescued, but things hadn’t gone according to plan.
It was guilt this time that washed over Andrian. He hadn’t had anything near the bond Mariah’d had with Kodie, but he did have an affection for his warhorse. And Mariah…she’d been in Khento, had willingly fled, not knowing whether her beloved horse would be safe.
Yet here he was. A little unkempt, but healthy. Weeks in the forest and he hadn’t lost any weight or injured himself in any noticeable way.
It was almost unbelievable. But Andrian had long ago started believing in impossible things.
He trailed his hands over Kodie’s neck, then his back, then down his legs, feeling for any hot points or cuts or signs of injury. The gelding stood patiently as Andrian took stock of him, finally coming back to stand by his head.
“You’re just as tenacious as your mistress, aren’t you?”
The horse tossed his head. It was almost enough to pull a small smile to Andrian’s lips.
The eagle whistled at them again, this time more urgently.
“All right, all right.” Andrian gave Kodie a soft pat. His ears flicked back at the contact.
“I don’t have a saddle,” Andrian said. “So please, don’t buck me off, and I promise you all the carrots you could ever want once we get somewhere safe.”
Kodie snorted, and Andrian hoped it was an acknowledgment.
With a grunt, he muscled his way onto Kodie’s back, settling himself behind the gelding’s withers.
He may not be able to go to Mariah, but he swore on whatever forces would listen that he would keep her horse safe. That would have to be enough, though he could never convince himself it was.
The eagle gave a final impatient trill and took off from the branch, feathers refracting the soft light of the approaching dawn. Andrian clicked his tongue and pressed his heels into Kodie’s flank.
Northward they continued.
They’d been traveling for two days. The eagle kept them moving at a brisk pace, only allowing them to rest in short, two-hour bursts.
Weariness tugged deep in Andrian’s bones, but even when given the opportunity to rest, he couldn’t. Every small crackle in the woods had him shooting awake, every tiny sound that might mean his luck had finally run out.
When he did manage to fall asleep, the nightmares of Kol’s burning eyes, a shadowed presence in his mind, and a blade sinking into soft flesh drove him back to consciousness.
He wasn’t sure he had processed what he’d done. That Julian Laurent, the man who’d raised him, tormented him, destroyed him, was gone. It was so foreign, so strange, that such a presence in Andrian’s life could simply end like that.
And that it had been Andrian’s hand to do it.
What sort of monster did that make him? No better than the ones who’d raised him. Perhaps even worse.
The stain of that blood was the reason he could never go back to Mariah. If he lost control again, if Kol found his way back in, every moment she spent in his presence would be a risk. A risk he simply would not take.
Gabriel had packed him enough dry provisions and water to last three days, and Andrian did what he could to consume it sparingly. His hunger snarled angrily beside his exhaustion, but he had to ration it.
He didn’t have a bow, and he couldn’t hunt with a sword. He’d rather be uncomfortable now than run out of food before reaching a town in Leuxrith.
Kodie’s pace was steady as they followed the small game trail winding through the forest. A northern chill had settled in the air despite the deepening of summer.
Even through the trees, a cool breeze rustled Andrian’s hair and grazed his cheek.
He swore they were also going up, the elevation rising as they approached the foothills of the Everheim Mountains.
They must be nearing Onita’s northern border, where his mother’s kingdom of Leuxrith waited beyond. Andrian didn’t know what it would look like or what to expect, but he figured a piece of him would know when he made it.
It was in his blood, right? At least, the only side he had any interest in acknowledging.
Never mind that his mother had all but betrayed the world to bring him into existence. That knowledge still didn’t fit with the image of the kind, gentle, and compassionate woman he carried close to his heart.
The fact that he harbored no ill will toward her, even knowing what she’d done, was something he wasn’t quite sure how to process. Wasn’t sure he even wanted to.
Because in truth, what did it matter? She would still be his mother, the first person who ever showed him kindness, and he would always love her.
The eagle flashed her wings, letting out a piercing whistle and darting into the clouds. Andrian straightened. She’d been good at keeping in his sight, never flying too high or too far ahead.
Until now.
“That’s what you get for following a fucking bird, you idiot,” he grumbled, hands fisting in Kodie’s mane.
The horse’s ears pricked. He tensed beneath Andrian just before he surged forward into an animated trot, tail swishing behind him.
“Gods—Kodie, easy—” Andrian ducked to narrowly avoid a branch that easily would’ve unseated him.
Kodie didn’t listen. Only kept moving forward in the direction the eagle had vanished.
The sunlight through the trees grew brighter ahead of them—a break in the tree line. Kodie nearly pranced out of the woods, tossing his head before finally coming to a halt and nickering.
Andrian blinked away the sunlight as the clearing opened before him.
Four tents were pitched in the frosted grass, a small fire burning in the center. Two rabbits on a spit roasted over the flames, the smell mouthwatering.
An unfamiliar man emerged from one of the tents, strange shoulder-length indigo hair shining in the setting sun.
There was an otherworldly aura around him, as if this clearing was simply too small to contain him.
Beside him walked a woman Andrian vaguely recognized, all black hair and violet eyes and brightening smile.
A second man stood beside the fire, turning the spit. A man with short brown hair and hazel eyes who Andrian definitely recognized, his bow tossed carelessly at his feet.
But Andrian wasn’t focused on any of them.
No, his attention had locked on the dark-haired woman standing in the center of the clearing.
Brokenness and strength were written into the set of her shoulders, desperate stubbornness carved into all the beloved, perfect lines of her face.
Everything swirling up inside him—all that anguish and heartache and soul-shattering longing he’d been battling for weeks—looked back at him through shimmering, forest-green eyes.
Andrian nearly went limp as he slid from Kodie’s back, feet touching the ground with a soft thud that could have splintered the earth.
His soul shouted at him. Screamed at him. Every fiber of his being focused on this one moment, this one person. He was nothing more than a lost soul caught in her devastating orbit.
He forgot his fear. He forgot why it ever mattered. He would gladly let himself crash into a dying star, crash into everything, if it meant he had her.
The moon of his life drew in a breath that sounded like a scream.
“Andrian?”