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“We will get to them, Lacrae, I promise.”
He closes his eyes, and a tear slips from his cheek. “They’re my people, Carleah. They’re all my people. And they died. I wasn’t there to protect them.” He breaks, tears rolling down his cheeks in fast succession.
My heart breaks because I know his pain. “They’re not dead,” I tell him. “They’re going to be okay.”
“No,” he says. “Too many were lost.”
Alysia and Fort race into the tent, and Shadow barely flinches at their arrival. Alysia hardly notices the horse though, her attention far too focused on Lacrae. “What happened?” she demands as she falls to her knees beside the cot.
“Tenebris attacked the elves,” I tell her. “Lacrae was found as he was trying to return here.”
“The elves?” she asks him.
He closes his eyes tightly and looks away. Alysia clears her throat and begins to look over Lacrae’s injuries.
“This is the worst of them I think,” I tell her as I remove my hand. Blood pours from the wound in his side, and she mutters a curse.
“You’re trying to get yourself killed, elf, but I won’t have it.” But the tone of her voice betrays far more worry than I imagine she realizes. I step back, and Fort wraps an arm around my shoulders as Alysia opens her kit and begins applying a salve to Lacrae’s wounds.
Minutes tick by that feel like hours, all while the storm continues to rage just outside. By the time Lacrae’s torso is covered completely in her herbal remedy, he’s sleeping soundly, thanks to the tea she forced him to drink. Alysia straightens and faces me. “You need to get to the dwarves and warn them.” Her expression is serious, her tone a warning.
“Lacrae said the same thing. But I don’t know how I’m supposed to go anywhere when Soreno marches for us as we speak. He’s expecting—”
“I don’t care what Soreno is expecting,” she snaps. “The dwarves need to know of the threat.”
“If the Tenebris haven’t already found them,” Fort replies. “If they have access to the elven archives, is there anything that will lead them to the dwarves?”
“Yes.”
“Then why do you think they’re still alive?”
Alysia shakes her head and glances back at Lacrae before returning her attention to us. “Because if they aren’t, then our war for the realm has already been lost.”
Her words so closely mirror Lacrae’s that it grows the knot that’s been in my chest ever since Bowman told me of his plans to force me to marry Patrick. I’m once again torn between what I feel I should do and what is expected of me.
I turn to Fort.
“I will follow you anywhere, Carleah. You should know that by now.”
“Doing this means turning our backs on Navalis, Fort. It means breaking an oath sworn to our king. To my brother.”
“My only loyalty is to you,” he says as he reaches up and brushes hair behind my ear. I can see his hesitation, though, his fear of turning his back on the kingdom that offered him freedom from the chains his father forced upon his wrists.
“If we leave, Bowman will not be happy with Lacrae,” I warn Alysia. “And my brother is not thinking clearly.”
“I can handle your brother,” she replies. “But only you can make it to the dwarves in time. Even on Shadow’s back, it will be weeks before you arrive. And that’s if you make it at all.”
“We will make it.” Fort reaches down and offers me my pants, so I dress quickly then belt my sword around my waist. As I prepare, the weight in my chest grows even heavier because, this time, I am choosing to walk away from the only remaining family I have left. Doing so feels like a betrayal, especially since I only just got him back.
“I need a piece of parchment.”
Alysia reaches into the bag she brought and offers me one as well as a quill and ink. I kneel and use my knee to brace the paper as I write my brother a message I hope he receives as the Bowman I once knew, and not the man forced to be king.
Three letters will have been read today.
All of them containing the power to shift the course of our futures.
Bowman, I do this for Navalis and the good of the realm.
