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“Once this is over, you will never have to hide again,” I assure him.
“Then let us get it over with quickly.” He turns and yells, “Load the boats!”
Elves and dwarves alike climb into the boats. Once they’re full, they push off the shore and begin rowing. Fort and I watch the last of the boats disappear beyond the mountainside before climbing onto Shadow’s strong back. He stretches his wings out, testing them as he raises them up and down.
“Fly safe, Queen Carleah,” Alastair calls out. “And we will see you soon.”
“Travel safe,” I reply. “We will wait for you in Soreno.”
Shadow pushes off the ground and takes to the sky, wind whipping past us. Despite not being airborne for days now, he’s smooth in his ascent, taking us high over the crystal blue waters of the Cerulean Seas and granting the obsidian cage around Dead Man’s Land a wide berth.
Fort’s arms are wrapped around my waist, so I lean back against him, relaxing as much as one can when riding a flying horse. We pass the boats that carry the dwarves, and I’m surprised to see they’ve managed to make it a decent distance. If the wind remains on their side, it’ll still take nearly half a day for this first group to reach the other side of the obsidian. With the two round trips necessary, it’ll be at least two days before they’re ready to march.
I take a deep breath. They’ll only be two days behind us, and with any luck, we’ll have the Soreno army ready to march as soon as they arrive. Then, it’s straight to Navalis. We’ll take back our ice kingdom and prevent anyone from waking the giants.
It will no longer matter who the Son of Flame is because he will be irrelevant.
* * *
We stop to make camp just after nightfall. Dark obsidian directly behind us, it seemed that Shadow was not comfortable even staying on the shores beside it. He sleeps soundly now, lying with his head in the thick, green grass.
Fort sharpens his sword in silence, fire flickering between us. It casts shadows across his handsome face, giving me a chance to study his hard expression. He’s been near silent since his nightmare, speaking only a handful of times since we woke this morning.
I can still feel the tears on his cheeks as I brushed them away. Still hear the pounding of his heart. He’d been terrified, though he’s yet to tell me why. His words have stuck with me all day, though.
“I need you to know that it’s an option. That I don’t fight this war to save the realm or Navalis. I fight for you, Carleah Rossingol. From the moment my father sent me into that mist, I have stood for only one thing: you.”
“Did you enjoy dinner?” I ask, desperate for some kind of conversation.
Fort raises his amber gaze to mine, brow arched. “Yes. And you?”
“It was fine. I miss Genevieve’s cooking, though. Do you remember that night she crafted that pasta from fresh flour and used tomatoes to make a sauce for the top?”
Fort chuckles. “How could I forget? Your father was horrified until he tasted it.”
I smile, the memory such a happy one to revisit. “Remembering them is getting easier,” I finally say. “It still hurts, but it doesn’t feel as though my heart is breaking all over again.”
His expression shifts, and he returns to sharpening his blade. “I am glad to hear it.”
We sit in silence, little more than the crackling of fire and the crashing of waves to keep us company. “What is it, Fort?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Please don’t keep things from me. Tell me what has been on your mind?”
Fort lets out a breath and sets his sharpening rock and blade aside. “We are preparing to walk into the kingdom of a man you were supposed to marry, to convince him to forget about a broken betrothal and march to Navalis with us so that we might take back your kingdom.”
“That has always been the plan,” I say cautiously. Something about his tone is off, and his guarded expression is different from the man I’ve come to know.
“Yes. But the closer we get to fulfilling it, the more I cannot help but think that I am letting yet another Rossingol march to their death.”
I sit up straighter. “Your nightmare—it was about my family, wasn’t it?”
He shuts his eyes tightly. “Alex,” he replies. “And the night I spoke to him about the Tenebris. Then it became something different—he accused me of destroying the Rossingol line. Of letting Navalis fall.”
“Fort.” I get up and move around the fire to sit beside him, but he doesn’t look at me. “It was only a nightmare. Alex didn’t think that.”
“I know he didn’t. But I do. Carleah, I have watched every member of your family die. Even though Bowman survived, I watched him take an axe to his spine. I saw your father’s head on the floor of the kitchen through an open door. Heard your mother’s scream.” He closes his eyes. “And I watched as a man held you to the ground, prepared to slaughter you right there.”
