by May Dawson
An older woman with her hair braided back looked up wearily from where she sat with two infants on her lap. “Finally. Gior reached you?”
“He always finds a way,” Tiron said dryly, and I had a feeling there were stories there.
The babies were wrapped in blankets, and it wasn’t until one of them stretched that the blanket fell back. I glimpsed a white fuzzy face with big black eyes that was absolutely adorable.
“Gior started off like this?” I asked disbelievingly.
Tiron grinned and lifted one of the babies out of her arms, before he told me, “Make yourself useful.”
He nestled the baby into my arms. It let out a brief cry, looking back at the woman, but when I bounced the baby against my shoulder, it calmed down.
“Ready to fly?” Tiron asked me, taking one of the babies himself.
The two of us made our way back out through the caves and into the forest. It was strange to walk back into the warmth of summer, which felt sticky and clinging after the caves.
We soared through the sky, skimming just above the forest canopy. I could hear animals howl and hoot and scream below, but it felt peaceful up here anyway. The baby curled with its head against my throat and fell asleep, arms wrapped around my neck.
“What was wrong?” I asked. “Why did you have to move them?”
“Their mother had been in a summer lord’s zoo,” he said, his voice sharp at the memory. “Her husband died helping her escape, and she was wounded too--she died in childbirth. These little ones are survivors, but they need the deep cold of the far north now. The heat will kill them at this age…Their parents sacrificed so much to make sure they survived and returned to their own clan.”
“That’s awful,” I said. “There has to be a way to stop the summer court.”
His lips tightened, and he glanced at me sideways, reminding me that I was the solution he imagined.
“I’ll do my best,” I promised him.
“And I’ll be by your side,” he said.
Together, the two of us soared toward the border. We saw some distant Fae flying, and Tiron whistled to me softly, then dived lower. The two of us plunged awkwardly through the canopy, whipping through the branches until we landed softly on the forest floor. Now the dangerous sounds of the forest seemed alive and threatening.
“Fae guards,” he said. “Watching the border between summer and spring.”
We stayed on foot for a while, both of us anxious knowing how many dangerous creatures lurked in the forest. The High Fae were not at the top of the food chain, not at night in the forest.
It was a relief to finally soar carefully back up to the top of the treetops, past eyes that shone out in the night, and then to fly beneath the starlit sky until we reached the border.
When we landed, it was cooler than before, and raining, this soft, constant mist that hung in the air.
Tiron whistled, and a pair of Fae females emerged from the forest, their light hair and pale skin bright under the moonlight.
“I’d introduce you,” Tiron said, “but it’s better that we all know as little about each other as possible.”
The Fae couple taking them for the next leg of the journey thanked me. That was when I realized my hair was still hidden.
Would these Fae hate me if they knew who I truly was?
Some of the joy of the win faded at the realization .
But Tiron looked at me as if he knew who I truly was, and maybe that was all that mattered.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Tiron
Perin pulled me aside while Alisa and Dalin were preparing the troll babies for the trip northward. Her voice was very soft when she asked, “Who is she?”
“She’s a friend.”
“You don’t have any friends outside the winter court,” she warned me. “Tiron, our fate is riding on you. All of us are depending on you…”
“I know,” I said, because it was impossible to explain to her how complicated it all truly was. Azrael and Duncan really were my friends; hell, I’d grown so close to them the past few years they felt like brothers.
But they might become my enemies, once I began our play to save the last survivors of the winter court.
“How is the princess?” Perin asked, and for a moment, I thought she saw through Alisa’s disguise. They would never trust her; hell, if they knew who she was, I’d be lucky to get her out of here alive.
I never should have brought her with me. I’d been selfish; I’d wanted to spend more time with her. I’d wanted to share the wonders of flight and winter with her.
“She’s not what anyone expects,” I said.
Perin snorted at that. “She’s always been a master at pretending to be something she isn’t.”
And so was I, apparently.
Because if Alisa had any inking who I truly was…what we were planning…she wouldn’t look at me with that warmth in her eyes.
“Sometimes I think your father was right,” Perin muttered. “You’re too soft for what has to be done.”
I fixed her with a cold look. “You’d best hope you’re wrong, Perin. No one else has gotten so close to the high throne, and no one else will.”
She met my gaze steadily, her expression haughty as ever. When I was a boy, Dala and Perin were my heroes. From the time I could toddle down the stone steps into the training yard, I’d go out to watch them fight with the other warriors with their shields and swords, with fists and fury. They fell, they were bloodied, but they always rose again.
By the time I was old enough to run across the yard and jump up to straddle the split-beam fence that surrounded the training yard, they’d begun to invite me in to fight with them.
I’d spent the last few years pulling my punches, pretending to be a little softer than I really was, because of them.
They’d saved my life more times than I could count, since war came to the winter court. But they’d done more for me than that, once I was left orphaned.
Perin searched my face, then reached out to clasp my arm, as close to an apology as she ever came. “You’re right. I know you’ll do us proud.”
A few minutes later, Alisa and I said goodbye to them and to the troll babies, who were nestled in a basket on the front of Dala’s horse. Alisa and the baby she’d carried cooed back and forth in a goodbye, and I could’ve sworn Alisa’s eyes were luminous with tears for a second before she joined me, smiling.
Together, she and I flew back toward summer territory.
We were sighted by another set of those damned winged guards—how many gargoyle shifters did Faer have out here to protect his secrets? We tried to dive toward the canopy, but it was too late.
“We’ve got to outrun them,” I told Alisa, reaching out for her hand. I was afraid I’d lose her. She’d gone years without flying; her muscles had softened. But her chin set stubbornly, determined to do her best.
They chased us unflaggingly for miles, and we barely managed to stay ahead of them.
“We’ve got to climb higher,” I told Alisa. “They can’t follow us that high, but the cold doesn’t bother me and you can warm yourself…”
She looked at me wide-eyed—I was asking her to do an awful lot with magic she’d just begun to unleash—but she nodded.
We soared up into ever higher, thinner, colder air. The cold invigorated me, the wind rushing through my hair, but I looked at her, worried.
“Are you all right?” I asked Alisa.
She nodded, though her lips were turning blue, vivid against her pale face.
Then one of the stone-faced shifters hurtled out of the clouds and slammed into us both.
“Fly!” I called to her, urging her out of there, but she ignored me. Of course she did.
She cartwheeled in the air, losing control of her wings as she reached for her knife. I glimpsed her blurrily, because the shifter’s fingers had locked on my throat, cutting off my airway, and I felt my wings going limp.
She plunged the dagger into his side, an
d his grip loosened. Then another one flew into her, knocking us apart.
I shook off the one who still gripped me, that dagger buried deep between his ribs. I couldn’t let him die with the knife in his body; someone might trace it back to Alisa. Instead, I let myself fall with him, grabbing the hilt and yanked it out of his body.
“Alisa, catch!” I called.
I threw it toward her, and she caught it out of the air. She and the gargoyle shifter were spinning through the air together, jockeying for position. As she jabbed out with the knife, I kicked the gargoyle away from me and rocketed toward her, my wings beating the air furiously.
I caught the gargoyle she’d already bloodied, gripping him from behind, slicing his throat with my own knife. He plummeted away from her, falling toward earth.
I turned to her with triumph. We were a good team.
She met my gaze and smiled wearily.
Then I saw the bloody wound in her side where the gargoyle had stabbed her.
She plummeted through the air as if she were dying.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Alisa
I surfaced from the cold and darkness to find myself flying fast and low, swooping over trees, clutched in Tiron’s grip.
He glanced down at me as he felt me stir. Worry was written across his face and in those brilliant green eyes. My arms hung limp and helpless, and now I reached up and threaded them around his neck, helping him that much at least.
“I can fly,” I managed, although the roughness of my voice belied my words. My chest seized with a cough.
“I know you can,” he said, “If you had too. But right now, I’m going to fly for you.”
It wasn’t easy for me to surrender control, but he was right that I couldn’t fly for myself now. I let myself relax in his arms. The pain in my side was intense, my muscles felt hard and cold and I kept shivering these deep, racking shivers that were so intense they hurt.
“I had to freeze your wound,” he said, sounding frustrated with himself as he noticed my pain. “I don’t have much healing magic—it’s not my forte—I need to get you to Az.”
Azrael had told me that sometimes the more intense our magic is one way, the weaker we are in others.
Dawn streaked the sky as Tiron flew us frantically toward the castle.
“Just get me back to my room and teach me how to heal myself,” I said calmly, despite the pain. “I don’t want to cause trouble…”
Tiron cursed, and I would’ve thought he was angry at me, but instead he said, “I don’t care about that, Alisa. Not now.”
He dove through my window. With the next beat, his massive wings slammed into the walls of my room. He stumbled on his feet, gripping me carefully. Then his wings finally snapped into his back.
I tried to struggle out of his arms, but he didn’t stop. He ran down the halls through the castle before bursting into a big room filled with commotion and laughter. I caught a glimpse around me at a room full of male and female knights in those simple black tunics they wore for training. He’d brought me into the barracks.
“Hey, is she all right?” someone started to call.
“Everything is fine,” Tiron lied, right before he carried me through that common room and rushed down the hall. We burst into an oversized bedroom.
Azrael sat at a writing desk under the arched window. There was a lofted space above them, and Duncan peered down at us over the railing. A canopy bed was pushed against one corner, and heavy tapestries had been pulled back to reveal the rumpled sheets and blankets.
Azrael rose from his desk in a hurry, throwing down his pen. Worry was written across his face as he stared at the two of us, but then he crossed the floor in a few quick paces.
“Put her on the bed,” he ordered. “What happened?”
Tiron lay me down on the bed, his movements careful and gentle. “She was gored by a gargoyle shifter.”
“Oh, I can’t wait to hear that story,” Azrael muttered. His hands were quick and gentle as he touched my icy skin—which I could see but not feel. It was bizarre to know his hands were on my body but be too numb to feel them.
He called loudly, “Duncan—”
But Duncan was already at his shoulder, pulling a pendant over his head. He passed it to Azrael.
Azrael gripped the pendant in one hand as he sat on the bed beside me. “Unfreeze her, Tiron. She’s going to start losing—”
“I didn’t have a choice,” Tiron said. “She would’ve bled out before I got her back here.”
Azrael took in the wound. The look on his face said that it was ugly, and I raised my head.
“Don’t look,” Tiron warned, but avoiding how ugly reality was never healed the wound.
Ice covered the wound and clung to my skin, but nothing could hide how deep the gash was or how red it was underneath.
“If she needs a healer, I’ll go get—” Tiron began.
“If she needs a healer, Faer will hang you for it,” Azrael said. “Shut up and let me work.”
The minute the ice faded away, I could barely hold back a scream as agony seared through my body. Maybe I’d been lucky to pass out when I had, when adrenaline had still been coursing through my body and I hadn’t felt it that intensely. I gritted my teeth, grabbed Tiron’s arm.
“Do you have a spell for silence?” I managed to gasp. If I couldn’t hold back my screams, then it would be hard to hide what happened here. I didn’t know if those knights outside would betray us.
Duncan glanced at Azrael, who was intent on my wounds. His hands were hot against my skin. He shifted onto the bed with me, one leg folded underneath his body, and Duncan and Tiron began to close the canopy of the bed around us.
Darkness enveloped the two of us, and Azrael muttered the word to summon light, tossing the ball to hang above us. The light reflected off his face, throwing it into shadow, and I focused on his cruelly beautiful mouth, his straight nose, the defined angle of his jaw.
“You can scream if you have to,” he said. “No one can hear us now.”
“Who sleeps in here?” I demanded, wondering why they’d have a bed enchanted so that no sound left it.
“I do,” he said briefly. “Hang on, Alisa. I don’t have time for a spell for the pain.”
My blood was pumping steadily out under his hands. He’d thrown the pendant on over his neck, and it glowed now with the same shade of reddish-gold magic that lit his hands as he moved them over the wound.
The pain of flesh kitting back together, of my shredded body trying to come back together, made me scream. Azrael winced, but murmured, “You’re fine, Alisa. You’ve survived worse wounds.”
“When?” I demanded through gasps.
“I’ve always admired your strength,” he told me, his voice low and soothing. I wasn’t sure how much of what he said was a lie to salve the pain. Agony flooded my body, so intense that bile rose in the back of my throat and my head swam as if I might pass out.
When it was finally done, the pain faded, leaving my muscles heavy and exhausted. I ran my hand over the smooth, pink skin covering my side. As he tucked the pendant away, the glow that had lit his hands and reflected from his face faded.
The bed, the sheets, they were all soaked with blood. It was hard to believe, looking at my unblemished skin, that I’d almost died.
I knew Tiron and Duncan waited on the other side. But it felt as if it were just the two of us, alone in the world, when we were this close together, surrounded by the tapestries.
“Thank you,” I said softly.
“Don’t thank me,” he said briskly. “If you died, so would Tiron.”
I stared at him. “Have you ever considered not being an ass-hat?”
His brow furrowed over those dark purple eyes. “I know you’re being a jerk right now. I get the gist. But I’m dying of curiosity. What exactly is an ass-hat?”
“I was this close to forgiving you after our fight, after this,” I told him. “Having my life flash before my eyes put me in a
forgiving frame of mind—”
“Did your life flash before your eyes?” he said eagerly. “Your memories returned?”
“No,” I said. “Figure of speech.”
He frowned, disappointment written across his face, then raised his hand to touch my forehead. “Maybe you’re sick—maybe they had poisoned weapons. Nothing you say makes any sense.”
“They’re just sayings from my world,” I said. “They’d make sense if you weren’t such a damned…”
He quirked his eyebrow curiously.
It was amazing how quickly Azrael took me from forgiving right back to maybe I’ll murder him.
I struggled onto my elbows, pulling away from him.
“I don’t know why you would forgive me,” he said.
I thought it was the beginning of an apology, that he realized he didn’t deserve forgiveness, but he went on, “I’m not the one who’s been insufferable.”
It took me a second to even form a response to that. “You are, in fact, the most insufferable man I’ve ever met.”
“I just healed you,” he said, “and you’re not remotely grateful. Who’s insufferable?”
“You already told me you healed me to protect Tiron,” I said, “and not because you give a damn about me.”
Got you, you smug Fae bastard.
“Of course I care about you.” He pulled back the curtains as he slid out of bed.
Tiron and Duncan both looked so worried. Then Duncan’s face rearranged itself into his usual grim air.
I didn’t have the chance to ask Azrael what the hell that meant.
Someone began to bang on the door just then.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Azrael
I yanked my bloodied shirt over my head and dropped it into the basket where it would be unseen. Then I went to the door and smoothed everything over with the captain of the guard. I told him Tiron had spent the night with a prostitute and the two of them had been beaten and robbed; that story should be fun for both Tiron and for Alisa to overhear and not be able to respond to.
