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“He needed your brother’s blood,” Alysia replies. “It’s how he’s been reaching you while you sleep. It’s dark magic, twisted magic.” She shakes her head angrily.
“He’s had you this entire time?” Carleah chokes out, and I know what she’s thinking, for it was on my mind, too. All that time we were traveling, all those miles, and all the while, her brother was being held captive and bled out by Patrick.
“The bastard showed up the morning after you left,” she explains. “Slaughtered everyone but the three of us.”
“They’re all dead?”
“Yes,” Bowman chokes out. “And it’s my fault.”
“No,” Carleah snaps. “It’s not.”
“It is,” he corrects. “Because I brought Soreno to us. Because I believed in the foolish code of honor. The same one that led to our family being slaughtered. I was such a fool, Carleah. So wrapped up in my grief that I didn’t see the truth.”
Carleah’s eyes are full as the tears stream freely down her cheeks. I long to reach out. To touch her. But we’re too far apart. “I am so sorry, Bowman.”
“It is I who is sorry. If I could go back, I’d do it differently. I’d marry you and Fort myself and go to the dwarves with you rather than believe in Soreno.”
Carleah’s gaze briefly lands on me, but she looks away quickly. I feel the loss of her attention in my soul. “Brother, you were only doing what you thought was best.”
“No. I was doing what our father believed was best. My gut told me otherwise, and I refused to listen to it. Now I can’t see a way out of this that doesn’t end in death for us all.”
“There has to be a way.” Carleah struggles against her chains. “Lacrae?”
“Alive,” he chokes out.
“The elves and the dwarves are on their way here.”
He looks up. “Affree—”
“She made it out,” she tells him. “We also rescued the elves from Dead Man’s Land.”
Lacrae looks up now, his brow furrowing. “What elves?”
“Your sister and the council sent elves into Dead Man’s Land so they could place the obsidian. Then they were left trapped there until we brought them to the dwarven caves. Salma and the others—”
“Salma is alive?” Alysia chokes out. The amount of emotion in the healer’s voice shocks even me.
“Yes,” Carleah replies. “She’s on her way here with the dwarves.”
Alysia covers her mouth with a shaking hand. Tears mist her eyes. “I cannot believe she’s alive.”
“How do you know her?” I ask.
“She’s my half-sister. She’s why I volunteered to go to the dwarves. I wanted to warn her. But by the time I arrived—” She shakes her head. “There were such dreadful noises coming from Dead Man’s Land, and we could not open the door. I waited for a chance. Searched for an opening, but I thought she was dead.”
“She’s alive and furious,” Carleah replies. “But they’re coming here. And Patrick knows it.”
“Where is Shadow?” Lacrae asks as he leans his forehead against the bars between him and Alysia. She crosses over and sits beside him, reaching through to take his hand.
“He left in the middle of the night before the Soreno guards caught up with us,” I tell him. “I don’t know why, but—”
“He likely sensed something,” Lacrae responds. “The Pegasus are magic incarnate. They can sense motives without hearing one speak. My guess is he left to avoid being seen and to warn the others. If he finds the elves, they will understand there is danger ahead.”
“Why not take us with him?” I snap.
Lacrae shakes his head. “That I cannot answer. I’m honestly surprised he left Carleah at all.”
“I’d been sleeping,” she says. “The Son of—Patrick—had come to me in a dream.”
