by Alex Lidell
“Prudence,” River calls over. “I want to be at full strength at the palace and get eyes on the land meanwhile—and let the land get eyes on me. I’m hoping that if Griorgi’s spies spot us on our way to Slait, he might even beat us there instead of us having to draw him out.”
“Yes, well, it sounds like you have plenty of eyes to go around, so you don’t need mine.” Autumn tosses her braids over her shoulder and gives me a sympathetic look. “I know the Gloom seeps energy, but so do the cold and wind. I want to have life’s basic necessities.”
“Basic necessities like a library?” I ask.
“Precisely.” Motioning for me to spin around, the female takes charge of my unruly auburn locks.
“Did you have too many dolls growing up?” I ask, feeling confident hands tug along my scalp.
“There is no such thing as too many dolls.” Autumn lowers her voice. “Can you believe Kora will let me choose none of her clothes? I brought out some lip paint yesterday and she ran away faster than Tye at the sight of a book. You are my last hope.”
“I take it you’ve relented to Kora tagging along while we dethrone the king of Slait, reseal Jawrar inside Mors, and turn our relationship with the Elders Council on its head?”
“Only because I promised to bring chocolate on the ride,” Kora says, stepping up beside Autumn and me. The tall warrior’s blue eyes survey the departure preparations, softening as they fall on Autumn. “Though I’m not sure where it will fit, considering the number of books she’d like to bring along. Could we discuss whether borrowing half of the Citadel’s holdings and transporting them to Slait is . . . prudent for such fragile and valuable texts?”
Swallowing a snort, I excuse myself from the pair only to spot Shade entering the stable yard.
My body tenses at once, the thin beat of my heart echoing through my muscles, which suddenly can’t decide between freezing or bolting. The two hours Shade spent working on me earlier, mercilessly clearing debris from gashes, setting bones, and driving sharp needles through injured flesh (to lay the groundwork for the subsequent—and little more pleasant—magical healing) make me unable to look at rocks without blanching. Much less at the male himself.
Suddenly I’m aware of a dull throbbing in my ankle, a cut on my shoulder where one of the stitches came open, the intermittent zings of pain that will make sitting tall in the saddle difficult—each injury a healer’s target as surely as a bullseye is an archer’s. Unable to stop myself, I step back. Instead of escaping, I hit a hard body, its slightly metallic male scent mixed with a horse’s sweetness. Coal. Who was with the horses until moments ago. Heat rises to my face, tingling in my ears. Caught in the act: a warrior who fears healers. Having Shade understand the truth of it is bad enough; to have Coal realize what’s happening stretches the limits of humiliation.
“Cub.” Shade’s yellow eyes soften in sympathy as he approaches. Wearing soft black pants and a gray cashmere sweater that clings to his hard chest, black hair loose at his shoulders, he is the perfect mix of wolf and fae. Soft warmth sheathing deadly teeth. Stunning golden eyes that pull you in—and can follow you in the dark. Velvety, tan skin covering muscles that could break your neck with a single jerk. What was it that Coal said once? Don’t let Shade’s good table manners distract you from what he eats for dinner. “Let me take another look at you before we go.”
“Of course. In a moment. Excuse me.” I try to wriggle out of Coal’s hands, which have settled heavily on my shoulders. “I need to relieve myself.”
“No, you don’t.” Coal’s low, gravelly voice brushes the back of my neck, the heat of his body a shield against the wind. “You are as bad a liar as Tye claims.”
Lovely. Where is River’s earth-opening magic when I need it?
Turning me toward him, Coal puts a callused finger under my chin, lifting my flaming face to meet his cool blue eyes—looking at me for the first time since storming out of the preparation room hours ago, though his chiseled face reveals nothing of his thoughts.
I tense.
Coal’s eyes skitter over my shoulder for a moment, no doubt to examine Shade’s, before returning.
My heart stutters, a new heat filling me despite everything going on around us. I bite my lip, a small defense against the force of Coal’s mere presence. I’ve met no other being who wields silence the way the warrior before me does, and that alone quickens my breath.
“Pain that you cannot defend yourself against is the worst kind,” he says quietly, dropping those shields of his to let me see the understanding in his eyes. Images tap my mind softly. Shackles. A whip. And then another: Shade’s hand glowing with silver magic while the rest of the quint pins me—no, pins Coal—against the ground. “When I had just come through the wall, I hated Shade very much.”
I bite my lip. “Not just me, then?”
“Not at all.” Coal’s muscles tighten. “I tried to shove my way into more risk than you might have otherwise taken this morning. And I see you are paying for the consequences still. That, at least, I might be able to do something about.”
Bending his head, Coal presses his mouth over mine. His masculine scent and taste surround me. The intensity of his lips rouses each of my exhausted nerves to alert, my hands rising to dig into the hard swells of his biceps. A heartbeat later, a phantom power stirs inside me, mirroring the sudden swelling of my breasts and a gripping need low in my belly. The throbbing in my ankle quiets. An energy that’s an echo of Coal’s magic seeps new strength into tired muscles, masking the pain and ache.
“Coal.” Shade’s rough reprimand has Coal’s hand tangling in my hair as he pauses to lift a brow at the shifter. Behind me, Shade growls softly.
I do too.
“There is a cost to her echoing your magic.” The usually gentle male sounds like the wolf he is. A predator defending his territory—not me, but my wellbeing. “Lera’s body will echo your strength and healing for a bit, and then she will crash even lower than now. Any more mending needs to be done the old-fashioned way until her body recovers. Let me have her.”
“Poke and prod her again just now and the mortal will slug you,” Coal says evenly. “And I will help her. Go. Away.”
A growl and flash of light are Shade’s only answer. As Coal’s mouth descends upon mine, however, I catch sight of a gray wolf lifting his leg to urinate over Coal’s scabbard, his black muzzle pulled back over long white teeth. Wrapping my hands in Coal’s hair before he can notice as much, I meet his demanding kiss with a force of my own. Our tongues clash inside our joined mouths, the battle making my hips press against Coal’s hardness, my body singing with new strength.
The last coherent thought I have before releasing the waking beast inside me is the realization that I haven’t seen Tye in hours. I shove away the worry for him, the pain, the questions, and just let myself live in the now for a bit longer.
10
Tye
Leaning against the wooden fence, Tye let the breeze brush the hair from his face. Far away from the brewing departure preparations, the sand-filled sparring ring was silent but for the slight whistle of the wind. That and the ghosts.
He hadn’t been able to get to her. To go through the static shield, for its impenetrable magic. Or jump over it, for his own deficiency. Worse, the whole mishap had been his fault. Tye knew the strength of his magic, the wildness in it that rivaled any stallion. No, stallion was too domesticated a term. Tye’s magic had the visceral needs of the tiger without any of the safeguards of the fae male. That’s what he’d given Lera to wrestle with while holding back the one act that might have helped her control the force.
Lera got hurt. And it wasn’t the first time someone Tye cared for had been injured over his choices.
Digging his fingers into the fence, Tye stared at the horizontal bar that someone had lugged from the practice arena to this unused spot. Even standing at the fence, Tye could feel the smooth flex of the bar, smell the chalk that always made a mess no matter how careful one was,
taste the exhilaration of flying through the air, his magic and his muscles singing. It was all there for the taking.
A piece of cheese in a mousetrap.
The sound of familiar rolling footsteps behind Tye was simultaneously unexpected and inevitable. Tye still didn’t understand how Elidyr had managed to train in flex when he seemed unable to walk quite right without a horse beneath him. Hell, Tye wouldn’t even believe it possible if he’d not seen Elidyr compete for himself.
Elidyr had competed on the flex-air circuit, as Tye had on the flex-fire track. At his peak, the elder had been a few tiers below Tye, but that in itself was an achievement few could claim. As for the level Tye had been at, well, things had looked very different from up there.
Leaning against the fence beside Tye, Elidyr let the stallion he was holding graze on the lush grass. “Miss it?” he asked, holding a long strand of hay between his teeth.
There was little point in feigning misunderstanding, so Tye didn’t bother. “No.”
“I could have sworn I saw you enjoying yourself there for a moment, before class started,” Elidyr drawled, a smile cracking his tan, oval face. “Flying through your routine, defying death, stretching the full control and precision of your power.”
“Aye.” Tye turned around and leaned back on his arms. Anyone else, he’d have told to pound sand—elder or not. But Elidyr had lived and breathed the sport for a solid century, and the pull of professional courtesy made Tye indulge the male’s questions longer than he would have otherwise. “But I presumed you were asking whether I miss the lifestyle, not a few flips when no one is watching.”
“And you don’t?”
“Do I miss spending ten hours a day in practice, most of it in one agony or another? Listening to the healer warn me time and time again that if I sustain one more injury to my shoulder or my magic or my spine, there won’t be enough power in Lunos to piece me back together? Being called three kinds of imbecile over and over?”
“Heh.” Elidyr clicked his tongue. “From where the rest of us stood, you were one breath away from a god. There wasn’t one athlete there who didn’t worship the ground you walked on. Who wouldn’t have traded anything to be you.”
“Yes, well, it always looks more glamorous from the side.” Especially since, at the end, none of Tye’s skill or training had mattered. “Pity party over. What can I do for you, sir?”
Elidyr’s bay stallion nuzzled the male’s hip, rubbing against it with enough force to have knocked a lesser being off his feet. The elder spread his shoulders, glaring at the horse until the latter stepped back and lowered his head. “Better.” Elidyr scratched the animal’s head before returning his attention to Tye. “It occurred to me that I owe you an apology. That perhaps when I helped twist your arm into teaching flex to the trainees, I didn’t fully comprehend the wounds it would open.”
“I was a Citadel initiate. Your order was fully lawful.” Tye raised his face to the wind. “There’s nothing to apologize for.”
Elidyr clicked his tongue. “Something happened right before the championship you never came to.”
“The whole of Lunos knows what happened, Eli. I got drunk enough to be thrown in a cell and I missed my start time.”
“Hmm.” Elidyr made a noncommittal noise, his attention back on the horse, idly stroking his neck with a callused hand. “I did hear that. Occurred to me after watching you teach class that mayhap there was more to it. That perhaps your quint brothers know as little of the truth as I do.”
Tye stuck his hands into the pockets of his leather riding pants and grinned. Coal might think brooding silence was the most efficient way to get intrusive bastards off one’s back, but in truth, cockiness worked a great deal better. “I assure you that my quint brothers know more about my past than my own mother.” He cut a conspiratorial glance toward the other male. “Point of fact, I think the notion of making us do two extra trials to make up for my indiscretions was your idea. I hope I never accidentally thanked you for it.”
The expected bark of laughter didn’t come. Not good. Inside his pockets, Tye’s hands clenched into fists.
“You should tell them,” Elidyr said, flipping the horse’s reins into place and swinging lightly into the saddle. “At least that female of yours.”
Tye’s jaw clenched, his anger surging to the surface one moment before he would have been in the clear. “You and Klarissa did a fine job of running my personal business up the bloody flagpole for all to see. You’ll forgive me if I little want your advice on what else I should be doing.”
“Tye—” Elidyr started, but Tye stepped into the Gloom and drowned out the elder.
11
Lera
I only realize how tight my chest has been when I take my first breath of pine-filled freedom. Sprite’s saddle shifts beneath me as the silent hinges of the Citadel’s intricate metal gate close at our backs, the blindingly white wall rising above us. Despite being barely audible, the click of the lock reverberates through me like thunder. Through everyone.
I bite my lip, watching my males gather together a few paces down the uneven slope. The packed-dirt road winds down before us, lined with brilliant maples and ash trees, hidden birds chattering all around. It feels like only yesterday that the five of us wound our way up here, certain we’d be leaving in a matter of days to do as we pleased—not riding out weeks later to dethrone one of the most powerful males in Lunos.
Shade, traveling in wolf form, keeps his distance from the horses, but they stomp the ground nonetheless, huffing their anxiety to get moving. The males’ stallions are majestic in the late-afternoon sun, their heads held high, their powerful muscles vibrating with pride and energy. Just like the males sitting atop them. The males who went to the Citadel for me. Who lowered to their knees and bent their heads to accept runes and trials and humiliations that should have been centuries behind them.
Only now that we are leaving the Citadel do I truly feel the magnitude of their sacrifice.
“Is something amiss, lass?” Tye calls to me over the wind. The cool breeze clears his red hair from his eyes, green and mischievous and tinged with a sadness I can’t crack. The male appeared at the stable only moments ago, giving us all his cocky grin and a simple, “Well, what are waiting for?” I thought the thunder in River’s eyes might bring the building down around us; he’d been readying to search the Citadel himself.
I nod, surveying the rippling treetops and jagged mountains that surround us. And far below in the valley, the green meadows and dense forests spreading across the neutral lands toward Slait. Nature in its raw magnificence. Nudging Sprite up beside the red-haired male, I take his hand and bring it to my face, rubbing my cheek against his rough knuckles. “Tye—”
“Pick up your reins, mortal, or I swear I’ll take you on a bloody lead line,” Coal says, his voice wedging between Tye and me.
I give Coal a vulgar gesture but do take up the leather. With that, River picks up the pace and leads us toward home.
Just a few miles outside the Citadel, River’s other reason for insisting we travel alone through the mountains becomes clear. As we enter the thick forest that blankets the mountain range, Tye reins in beside Coal and swings out of the saddle, handing off his horse to the black-clad warrior.
“Where—”
River shakes his head at me, a worried look on his face.
My chest tightens, squeezing more painfully still when, without so much as looking toward me, Tye disappears into the pines. A few moments later, a bright light flashes between the branches and the rustling of a great tiger loping through the trees reaches our small clearing. The spots of orange amidst the green flash by like stars in a night sky. I stare at the bright spots as they get farther away, realizing I’ve gone rigid only when the horse beneath me dances her discontent.
“Sorry, girl.” Eyes still on the forest, I swing out of the saddle to land on the hard-packed earth, my muscles whining in protest. After not riding at the Citadel, even the past
hour in the saddle has taken its toll.
“Do you intend to walk to Slait?” Coal asks.
“Do you intend to be an ass all the way to Slait, or are you balancing some cosmic normal-being versus horrid-jerk scale that your kiss upset?” I shoot back at him, watching his sharply carved jaw clench at the kiss’s mention. At the dagger-sharp condemnation in the wolf’s yellow gaze, clear even from ten yards away.
Brilliant. Less than a day from the Citadel, and one male is prancing off into the woods without so much as an explanation while another is reverting back to walling himself off, probably in deference to some idiotic “protect Lera from myself” logic. I rub my eyes with the heels of my hands and focus on the gurgle of a nearby river. “Forget it. I’ll go fill the water skins while we wait. Do you want to give me yours?”
Coal snorts. “One, that’s salt water you’re hearing, running from a spring in the White Cliffs. Two”—he holds up his fingers as if concerned I’ll be too daft to follow—“Tye won’t be back for at least a week. And three, either get back in the saddle or walk, but we aren’t halting here much longer.”
“A week?” My mouth dries when River nods in agreement.
“There are few places safe for Tye’s tiger to roam loose,” he says, his attention on the forest. “And he’s gone too long without doing so. I think it might be one of the reasons he’s been so . . . not himself lately. Since we’re out here, we might as well use the time.” He clicks his horse forward, looking back when I don’t follow right away. “Come, Leralynn. The beast will likely stay in our vicinity as we move—roughly—but I want to put as much distance between us and the Citadel as possible before we bed down for the night, in case he strays.”
Now that we’re not within the high walls of the Citadel, I can see River pulling his commander’s cloak even closer around him. We’re loose in the dangerous neutral lands, and the weight of our survival here rests on his too-tight shoulders.
