Chapter 27
E mer didn’t have a destination in mind as she rose and excused herself, only the deep need to escape the prediction and the doubt that coiled around her heart, strangling the fragile hope she had been guarding there.
“Take care of our Sea Raven, starling,” Aggie called after her.
Pressing her palms into her eyes, Emer mentally clawed and pushed at the words, trying to change their shape to fit a different story. She tried to rationalize that the grief could have been about Lachlan, but she shook it away as soon as she had the thought. Losing him hurt, but it was not the kind of hurt that had someone gasping for breath.
Emer yelped as her body crashed against another.
“Careful now, love.”
Ewan’s voice grated against her already raw temper, as did his hands now firmly fixed to her waist from their collision. “Sorry, Ewan, I didn’t see you. Are you okay?” she asked, attempting to push back from him.
He grinned at her, his hands tightening slightly as he said, “I think my pride may have taken most of the impact. ”
A different unease replaced Emer’s previous panic as his gaze raked over her. She bent back, testing to see if she could reach the knife in her boot, and thinking about Calder’s earlier promise. She pushed against his shoulder once more, and the moment his grip eased, she stepped back.
“Are you so unaccustomed to someone trying to care for you that you assume I mean you harm?” Ewan asked, cocking his head to the side.
The interest in his eyes was suddenly replaced with something that caused her rage to burn even hotter than before. Pity.
“I feel I need to have a stern talk with my friend. A delicate flower such as yourself needs to be tended to.”
The thought of Ewan demanding anything of Calder caused her to laugh. It was a dark and humorless laugh that she was certain the Cold One himself would have been proud of. Given Ewan's shit-eating grin, she was certain he attributed her laughter to his charm rather than fantasizing about causing him physical harm.
“I told you. She’s not impressed by flowers.”
Immediately, Ewan’s body went rigid.
Calder stood tall as he approached, his chin held high and his eyes sharp. The hand that wore the death rune opened and closed at his side.
“He touched you,” Calder said in Emer’s native tongue.
Struck speechless, Emer did not immediately give meaning to the words.
Still speaking the language of Rest, Calder echoed the words he had spoken at the Alder Barrel.
All you have to do is ask.
It was different hearing them now. They were not the poor imitation of a man seeking to impress. They were not simply words memorized and stored in his mind for occasional use.
Calder sounded like home .
If she traced the words back through the air, they would lead straight to his heart, in the space he had carved out for his mother.
Those words, Emer realized, were not just of her people. Calder was his mother’s son, and the words he spoke belonged just as much to him as they did to Emer.
Calder’s muscles grew tense as he waited for Emer’s answer. Although Ewan did not know precisely what Calder had asked, his expression gave a fairly good indication.
Finally, Emer answered, savoring how the familiar words felt on her tongue as she told him she was fine.
Calder did not acknowledge how breathless she sounded.
Emer did not acknowledge his smirk.
“Luck seems to be in your favor, Ewan. Had Emer seen you as a threat, she most likely would have stabbed you. She has a nasty little habit of turning her blade on those who take liberties with their proximity,” Calder mused casually.
Ewan Cunningham had the color of someone who had spent time in the shadow of others for so long that even though the heat would surely burn him, the prospect of time in the light was too alluring to resist. While he demonstrated a level of deference for Lina, it was clear in how his eyes narrowed on Calder that it did not translate to both of the Morvran siblings.
“Tell me, Morvran. Does that knowledge come from experience?” There was a triumphant defiance in Ewan’s tone.
Emer turned, expecting to see Calder’s familiar glower, but found something far more startling. Calder was smiling.
A smile that was genuinely pleased in a hungry sort of way—all teeth.
“If you are asking if I have taken liberties with my proximity to her. Yes, enthusiastically and frequently. Have I been stabbed?” Calder dragged his gaze to Emer. “Only once.”
Further proving his point, Calder took her hand, intertwined their fingers, and pulled her away. “Always a pleasure, Ewan,” he called .
“The storm grew violent last night. Surely you would not risk her safety by leaving without knowing the road's condition.” Ewan challenged.
His expression was smug as his eyes darted to Emer like he expected her to appreciate his concern for her safety by pointing out a perceived oversight on Calder's part.
Calder glanced at him out of the corner of his eye.
Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.
The sharp and mocking click of Calder’s tongue cut through the quiet. Each one was a blow meant for Ewan, but Emer felt the warning roll down her spine—bone by bone.
When he flicked his eyes back to hers, she saw the glint of mischief flash just before he blinked them closed. When they reopened, the ice blue and streaks of gray were being swallowed by onyx. The darkness spread from the center of his eyes and bled into the white like ink washing over parchment. Before long, his gaze was consumed entirely, a void of darkness staring back at her. Not at her, through her, and Emer had the sudden thought that perhaps she should be afraid. Instead, she leaned forward, captive to the pools of nothingness before her. She did not move. She did not speak. She did not glance at Ewan, who seemed entirely unsurprised by the strange turn of events.
Calder’s jaw worked momentarily, and then a satisfied hum rumbled from his throat.
“Wouldn't you know, a fine ride indeed , ” Calder corrected.
A blink and the darkness had receded. His shoulders stretched back as he lifted his chin and drank in Emer’s shock.
If Ewan had given a parting comment, she did not hear it. In truth, all she could hear was her heartbeat in time with Calder’s heavy footfalls against the cobblestone. She gaped at him unabashedly, but her companion continued on as if he had not just transformed into a creature of myth before her very eyes.
It was Calder who spoke first.
“Raven got your tongue, Merrow?” he asked wryly .
She just blinked. Her mind worked to organize the details of what she’d seen. When he spoke of Sea Ravens’ talents, she had not expected for his body to transform into something not quite mortal.
Magic. The singular thought ricocheted in her mind.
Calder was a little bit magic.
“What… what was that, Calder?” she asked, the faintest hint of awe in her voice.
“Me proving a point since apparently you riding into town at my side, on my horse, in my clothes was not sufficient.”
She shot him a glare.
“Ah,” he remarked insincerely. “It is my talent— the ability to project my consciousness into ravens. I can see what they see, hear what they hear, and guide their direction,” he explained. “Careful, if you keep looking at me like that, I might think you are impressed.”
“And Lina’s?” Emer asked.
“My sister has a very different type of sight. She is a War Weaver, but I believe you would be more familiar with the term Seer.”
Emer’s mind conjured Aggie’s words once more.
“She can see the future?”
“It is not like how I see you now. She told me once it is like coming up from beneath water. Too bright and slightly out of focus. I think that’s because the vision precedes the actual event. It’s blurry because it can change,” he advised.
He explained how those with sight didn’t have complete control over their visions but that they could see those nearing death and strategize accordingly, weaving a different future in battle.
Emer’s steps halted, and the resistance of his hand in hers stopped him as she thought of what he had said earlier about his talent. She considered all the times she’d run. She recalled the raven’s cry that distracted Dempsey and how Calder’s eyes looked when he first found her that night. She had never truly been his shadow—he had been hers.
“I was never going to escape you, was I?” The words left her with a slight chuckle.
A wicked grin pulled at his lips.
“Not a chance,” he confirmed.