Chapter 2 #2
Emillie followed her line of sight to see Ehrun grinning like the madman he was as Madan tried to haul Whelan back.
The fury etched into Whelan’s usually stunning features had her choking back her retort about him being more understanding.
She did not want to imagine losing a close friend to someone they now had to keep alive.
“How much longer do you think all of this is going to take?” Emillie asked as Luce pressed a bowl of the stew into her hands.
Luce sat and looked at her expectantly until she sat alongside the lycan before responding.
The change in the woman’s demeanor since the tomb had been blatant.
Not only did Luce keep in close proximity to Emillie, but she now carried on conversations as though there had never been any distance between them.
As though they had not, in fact, shared a kiss to keep Emillie safe from the Valenul soldiers, the brethren of whom inevitably helped take her sister away.
“Your sister’s wedding is tonight,” Luce mused, watching her until she took a bite of the stew. Satisfied, the lycan continued, “So I assume she should be back by sunrise.”
Because if Ariadne did not make it out by sunrise…
Gods, Emillie could not stomach the alternatives. Ariadne had to make it out. There was no other way around it.
She turned back toward Azriel, beyond the shouting men and Phulan, who had Ehrun sitting back down as he laughed into his bowl.
He had not moved in all the commotion. Not a flinch.
Even as Razer passed overhead, drifting down slowly to land beside his bondheart and nudging him with his huge snout, the Dhemon King did not stir.
Were it not for his steady breathing, Emillie would have thought him dead.
How would Azriel ever be ready to get Ariadne out before it was too late?
It’d been a year and a half since it was just Madan and Emillie sitting by as a sibling withered away.
Last time, he’d stood outside Ariadne’s door too many nights to count alongside his half-sister, wondering if they could go in and interrupt the sobs in the room beyond.
Her cries of anguish had shattered his heart.
Now, Azriel’s screams buried into his mind, fixing themselves so thoroughly alongside the mortifying image of his brother clawing bloody trenches into his own neck. They reminded Madan of the deep bruising that took shape around Azriel’s neck after he’d been forced to cut him down from the rafters.
After hauling Whelan back from pulverizing Ehrun’s face with a blade, Madan had to step aside to collect himself.
They’d been through too much in the last week for him to feel any amount of peace.
Between Kall’s death, Ariadne’s self-sacrifice, and Azriel’s plummet into madness, he and Whelan were the only two remaining of their original group who departed from Auhla.
“We’re almost done,” Brutis said, his deep voice rumbling through Madan’s mind as he sat on a boulder away from the camp and stared out between the tree branches to where Lake Cypher sparkled in the moonlight. “Just a few more hours.”
Madan’s heart throbbed, and he hung his head. “We’re far from done.”
“Ariadne is on her way to the Temple,” said a smaller voice that Madan had come to recognize as Almandine.
The two of them were out there somewhere, getting as close to Laeton as they could manage without drawing attention. Brutis had been quick to volunteer after Razer’s blatant refusal to do so following their inaugural flight to connect the bondhearts on the night they captured Azriel.
“I want nothing to do with her,” Razer had said after ensuring her safe return to their camp. “I don’t have the time to look after her right now.”
After the initial shock of his words cleared, the meaning behind them made sense.
He would not act as a guardian to a young dragonling that needed too much guidance in this new world, despite her advanced mental capacity.
As such, he’d effectively cut himself off from her entirely and refused to stay in close proximity.
“Did I do something to upset him?” Almandine had asked when he left her behind the first time.
It was one of the many moments over the past week that Madan had wished Bindhe were still around.
She was the most heartfelt of the dragons and would have known precisely how to assuage the small dragon, but Anthoria did her best and said, “No, little one. He needs space right now. We will take care of you.”
Her confusion on the matter only underscored the importance of Razer staying away.
Though dragons lived extensive lives—or so they assumed due to their slow aging over the last century—she was entirely too naive to the workings of the world outside her shell.
As mature as she was despite her small stature, teaching her how to survive was a huge task.
Particularly when keeping her alive was paramount to Ariadne’s own survival.
Dragging himself back from the strange string of thoughts, Madan refocused on the task at hand and asked the newest member of their cavalry, “Are you resting?”
In response, Almandine sent an image from her vantage point on Brutis’s back.
They soared over the lake, the lights of Laeton in the distance.
Her control over the mental communications was getting better and better each time she practiced.
Perhaps she would be able to withhold sharing unpleasant images from Ariadne’s perspective in the future.
“Good.” Madan turned his attention to his bondheart’s consciousness. “How are you?”
“I’ve flown longer durations than this,” he said, and the sensation of him banking to the right had Madan’s stomach doing a flip despite being on solid ground. “We’ll keep you updated if we hear anything from Ariadne.”
Madan sent back his gratitude before his bondheart’s presence cut away.
A crunch of underbrush had him turning towards Whelan as his mate approached.
He carried two bowls of stew and held one out to Madan, which he accepted with a grunt of thanks, before settling onto the ground beside him.
Whelan’s shoulder leaned against Madan’s knee, the gentle pressure a soothing reminder of his presence.
“N’vha bahn, alhija,” Whelan said quietly after a long moment of quiet between them.
Heart crunching, Madan set his spoon into the bowl on his lap and looked at his partner.
Of them all, Whelan was typically the most steadfast. The one who brought light to dark conversations.
The one who kept them all from taking life too seriously.
It wasn’t often that it was he who caused trouble.
“You have nothing to be sorry about,” Madan responded in the dhemon language. He took hold of Whelan’s horn and tugged, encouraging the dhemon to look up at him.
At first, Whelan did nothing of the sort. He stared at his bowl, mouth drawn into a tight line. When he finally turned to search Madan’s face, he did so with watery eyes. “I miss him.”
Him—Kall.
Fuck.
“I do, too.” Madan swallowed back the lump forming in his throat.
There was no reason to say anything else. Madan knew why Whelan reacted the way he did with Ehrun, nor did he blame him. Had that comment been directed at him, he likely would have reacted in a similar fashion. And didn’t that just make everything worse?
No matter what they did, Ehrun had the upper hand. He knew exactly what to do and say to get under their skin—to elicit that exact reaction from them.
“If all goes to plan,” Madan said, turning his attention back to the stew to keep from crying, “the real Ehrun will be back soon.”
“I don’t want him back.” Whelan’s brows furrowed, and he turned away again as well. “I want Kall back.”
Madan couldn’t argue with that. Unfortunately, no matter how much they desired the return of their friend, they would never get that opportunity.
Their best chance at winning the looming war against Loren was to do what the Crowe never could and ensure Ehrun’s mind was repaired so he could gather his forces to fight alongside Azriel.
Assuming, of course, his brother made it through this with his own mind intact.
“We have everything we need for the ritual.” Madan took a bite of the stew, relishing the flavors that were so vastly different from the ones Kall would use. If it had been a classic dhemon dish, he might not have been able to stomach it.
“How can we be certain?” Whelan’s voice was duller than Madan had heard it in a long time. Flat and hopeless. “She hasn’t even gotten to the book yet. Assuming Emillie’s correct and that book has what we need.”
Madan sighed. Of course he was right. They couldn’t know for certain whether or not they had all the supplies, or if the book Ariadne now risked her life to get would have the proper ritual.
His foolhardy, impulsive sister hadn’t thought it all through.
Not the repercussions, not the threat to her own life, and certainly not what she’d do if, after all of this was said and done, the book held nothing but poetry that Emillie had misinterpreted based on the notes.
“We have the spring water,” Madan said, blowing on the next bite of stew so it wouldn’t scorch his mouth. “We preserved the moonlight flowers—”
“And Phulan took leaves and branches from the Keonis Tree,” Whelan finished. “But what do we do with it all?”
“We pray to Keon that everything is going precisely as it needs to.”