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It was a special kind of villainy to promise to save her, knowing I might as well be taking her to her death. But there was no other path.
Now, we could only hope I had done enough.
“She will be in the forest nearest to the wedding bed.” His voice came from behind me as I turned, sheathing my sword in preparation to run. “You must take her far away from here. If you are going to save her… take her away… as far as you can.”
“I will do what I can.” It was all I could say, after all, I had no intention of taking her anywhere but right to the queen’s side. Besides, if what that woman had said before was true, everything was going to begin after the wedding.
I was down to minutes.
But first, I had to find Elara. Thankfully, I had enough time to do that, and if not, I could find more.
I ran, the shade’s last words nearly lost in my retreating footsteps as I pulled that icy power back to me. I was sure I heard him anyway, it was the same as last night when I had heard him make promises that no one could keep.
Promises that I was sure she would not hear.
“Tell her I love her. I always have.”
Chapter 48
Elara
The line on my arm was deep red, the color almost indigo as I stared at it for the first time. I had seen it before when the Boy would change my bandages, but it had always been caked with blood seeing as we had no way to wash it. Now, there was nothing obscuring it, the last of the dried blood having been scrubbed away by the priestess in my bath.
The line ran from my wrist to past my elbow. The bones ached, every movement sending pain from finger to shoulder. Slices of agony ran over that line of dark skin, where my mother had drilled into me. Where the skin had split apart.
I wasn’t even sure how I had survived that.
She will do it again.
That man had come from nothing and vanished as quickly; his words roared through my mind and I attempted to turn, if only to make sure that the priestess who was tying my corset was, in fact, a priestess. She tsk’d and pushed me forward before I could see her face, but I suppose that was answer enough.
I had no idea where the man, that Fae, had come from, or where he had gone, but his words played on repeat, not that they made sense.
Releasing light, words I had apparently given him… and that word written on the wall.
Caspyn.
It was all nonsense. I had lost a lot of blood, perhaps I had simply hallucinated it all.
I stared at the long raised wound as the woman with a voice like wind tied the long corset bindings on the long pale blue dress. I looked like the sky to match the clouds that I walked through.
“Are you ready, miss?” The priestess asked in little more than a breeze before she turned toward the door. She hadn’t even waited for an answer. I didn’t get a say I supposed, not that it mattered. It was time for the ceremony, Aeinya and my brother were to be wed.
Then I would leave.
I hadn’t planned to make my escape in a pale blue silk dress with no cloak, but hopefully when I convinced those pilgrims to take me in and hide me I could convince them to give me some new clothes. After all, the sale of the dress would more than make up for any expense.
With how they had glared at me when I walked past them, their eyes wide at the sight of the blood, I was sure there was no way they could refuse.
In a few hours I would be free, the Boy would meet me where we had agreed, and we would run. Now, if I could only chase away the last of the nerves that were tangling their way through everything from my throat to my gut.
Thinking about freedom eased them, if only slightly, the sensation settling further with the dream of lifting that veil and seeing the Boy for the first time. Heat rippled over my skin, that familiar wave of magic raging to life at the thought.
The ice that had swathed me every time my magic flared over the past few days did not come, it was only the burn of heat that rattled through my bones, twisting as if I was being swept away on a furious wind. I flexed my hand, the bracelet there seeming to glow faintly.
I could feel it there, somehow stronger than before without the ice to chase it away.
“The bind on my magic,” I whispered as a tiny spark of flame waved over the surface of my skin.
