Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
They trudged in determined silence, side by side, as they pulled the elk behind them, the light of the morning no match against the thick clouds.
Eldrick halted, throwing up his hand for her to stop, too. He crouched, releasing his game sled and eased forward on silent, cautious feet. Tovi mirrored his movement, and hidden behind a large evergreen, they assessed the forest below.
The Johannes envoy walked the very path Eldrick and Tovi were headed for, their indistinguishable chatter crackling the air. The hairs on Tovi’s arms rose, tension settling in the air.
“They’d be fools to travel home in these conditions,” she said. “With their wounded, too?”
“I don’t think they are.” Eldrick narrowed his eyes. “I don’t spy their wounded with them either.”
Tovi assessed them again. Dalinda and Bjorn and two others she vaguely recognized. Weapons strapped. Light furs. Leather breastplates. Not traveling leathers nor horses. Or Sam, the alpha’s son, in sight.
“They’re tracking something,” Tovi said.
“Or someone,” Eldrick hissed, teeth grinding together. He stood on quick feet, pushing away from the tree.
Tovi grabbed his arm, ignoring the heat searing up her arm. “Eldrick, wait.”
He shut his eyes, releasing an angry breath. “Stars above, you’re right.”
“Bloody hel, can you say that again?” Tovi smiled.
He gave her a pointed look. “How can you joke when they might be tracking you?”
She shrugged. “I’m used to others wanting me dead.”
Eldrick’s jaw ticked, his eyes darkening.
She squeezed his arm, making him look at her. “We can’t be seen together.”
He blinked and understanding flashed through his eyes. “Then we hide and wait them out. They were only looking to get lucky, not search all day. Others will venture out of the village soon enough, and Bjorn can’t afford to be seen up to something.”
“Alright.”
They first hid their sleds under a burly evergreen, lost beyond the snow crusted branches. Eldrick led them to a small cave, large enough for two to stand. The front was covered in interlocked roots, weaved like some curtain.
Silver caught Tovi’s eye, and she snatched Eldrick’s wrist. Power glowed in delicate tattoos, ones that hadn’t been there before, pulsing under her touch.
Three parallel lines with a double-lined dash ran down his forearm, until they reached the depiction of a crescent moon, the curve following Eldrick’s palm.
The shapes held an ancientness to them, simple yet powerful—a magic Tovi had never witnessed but understood.
The world slipped out from under her.
“You ascended,” she whispered, the words breathless with awe as well as hollowness. It spread farther and farther, with no way to stop it.
But she had no right to feel hurt.
Tovi’d made her choice, and Eldrick had made his choice.
This was for the best. For them. For their people. For Sorin. Yet, disappointment bled through her like ink blooming in water. This hurt far more than she ever imagined. The urge to say something, to put everything out in the air, danced on the tip of her tongue.
Eldrick’s green eyes studied her, swimming with a thousand thoughts, and then he stepped closer. Another and another until she was backed against the enclave’s wall, caged under his arms. He brushed his nose against hers. It was almost gentle, kind.
If it weren’t so damn painful to feel the heat and intensity that Tovi couldn’t have.
Her traitorous body arched up, planting her lips against his. He answered her kiss with a slow, methodical one. Taking his time. Tasting her. Molding his lips against hers. He wasn’t hurried or hungry. Neither was she, their kiss long and slow. Tovi’s body burned. Her heart ached.
Bloody hel, the kiss tasted like a goodbye.
Tovi couldn’t bear it. She braced her hands against his chest, and pulled away enough to breathe, “Eldrick, wait.”
His body deflated, and Eldrick leaned his forehead against hers. With clamped-shut eyes, he released a shuddering breath. Their hearts hammered together in tandem until he peeled himself off the wall, his muscles shaking with effort.
Tovi stayed, needing the stone to keep her upright.
“We can’t,” she whispered.
“I know.” He planted his hands on his hips, staring off into the forest. He was stone, rigid and stern, the Eldrick she once knew.
She shook her head. “I’m sorry—“
“There is nothing to be sorry for,” he said. “We have our own paths in this. I an alpha, and you a queen.”
“Exactly.”
Eldrick scoffed, forced and uneasy. “I’d hoped the prophecy meant something different. That you and I brought werewolves and vampyrs together.”
Tears pricked at the edge of Tovi’s eyes. “I think we can, Eldrick, just not in the way we might want. If Sorin has any chance of beating Riven—“
“We need to be united.” Eldrick sighed. “I have to win the vote.”
“And I must return home, secure alliances with whom I can before I return here.”
Eldrick nodded, jaw rigid. It suddenly felt so final, so damning.
Tovi sucked in a breath, heart cracking. “I need you to know that I l—“
“Don’t.“ Eldrick gave her a hard stare, tone near desperate. “It is already difficult enough to walk away. Please don’t make it hurt more than it already does.”
“It’s what’s best,” Tovi said, voice thick.
“I know,” Eldrick said again, a sad smile marring his handsome face. “You will always have me as an ally, Tovi, and”—he broke their stare, couldn’t look at her, couldn’t bear this either—“a friend.”
Two hearts broke in a little cave of the Vadon Mountains, and hours later, long after they’d returned to the village, passed out the elk’s meat, and went their separate ways, Eldrick’s promise etched into Tovi’s heart, a scar to remind her of their end.