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Rion didn’t protest, but when Arianna looked to ensure he agreed, she noticed the way he clutched his wrist to his chest. His face was neutral, a carefully honed mask.

Arianna eyed the fresh dirt at his feet, clenched her jaw, and forced herself to walk across it.

It was ridiculous. Rion was her mate. Her mate, she tried telling herself. Hurting her was the last thing he would ever do.

Arianna reached for his wrist and cursed her trembling hand. Then slowly, as if afraid to startle her further, he extended the discolored joint.

A flash of light and it snapped back into place.

Arianna met that familiar green gaze. His eyes were so warm, yet full of worry and anguish.

She didn’t step back and Rion’s fingertips brushed the underside of her arm as if asking if he could touch her at all. His lips parted, but Raevina cleared her throat.

Right, they needed to move.

Chapter Eighty-one

Rion

Rion remembered his teachers reading old poetry. They were stories about longing and heartache and often ended in tragedy. His young mind hadn’t understood them then. Even as an adult he’d never given much merit to the words penned by those fractured souls.

But Rion understood now.

As they sloshed through the freezing puddles with Raevina’s warriors providing escort. As he watched his mate limping with her head down, defeat written across her weary face. As he dragged behind, feeling as though one slip up, one mistake could separate them forever.

He was the stranger here. So many things had happened since his disappearance. Arianna and Raevina had become unlikely allies, and Talon and Raevina had some sort of complicated history.

The Fiadh warrior still watched him closely, and he wondered if she’d been there the day he had attacked Arianna. She’d likely seen the aftermath, at the very least.

They made the slow climb up the steep, rocky hillside, then walked through an open meadow for at least a mile before they were beneath the safety of the trees again. Raevina followed a seemingly invisible path, and Rion felt as though a hundred eyes watched their every step. Birds of prey, stalking cats, wolves, the bright eyes of foxes.

Were they with Niall? Were they loyal to their queen? Or were they simply animals, curious to see the Fae walking past their dens and hunting grounds?

Raevina had informed them they were indeed in Pádraigín, but that they didn’t need to worry because the countryside was wild and largely untraveled. Something about creatures prowling the roads. Rion eyed Arianna’s uneven gait and wondered if they were the same ones who had injured her.

The rain picked up again, a silent blessing, even if he was tired of being soaked to the bone.

Tired. Of everything. Of pain and heartache and separation and loss.

He was just tired.

He risked a glance at his mother. She hadn’t reacted upon seeing his magic. No fear or shock or disgust. Had she known all along what he’d become, or was she simply too exhausted to process it all?

He sighed inwardly, unsure his heart could take much more.

A mixture of scents told Rion they were close. Most of the Fae were from Móirín or Fiadh, but there were a few others, too. Some from Brónach—likely Saoirse’s warriors—and a handful from Pádraigín. Good, at least some knew where their loyalty should lie.

Saoirse. Rion glanced at his mother again as she trudged along. She looked just as tired as he felt, maybe more so. The rain had plastered what was left of her hair against her scalp, and Talon had taken to carrying Kaylee on his back.

Saoirse was going to see their mother again. Of everyone who’d searched for her, Saoirse had been the most dedicated. She’d mourned the loss of Eimear deeper than anyone else.

Rion wondered how his sister had felt about his disappearance and if she’d looked for him with just as much passion. Part of him didn’t want to know.

Fae emerged from the trees one by one, cloaked in their animal forms, but Raevina didn’t react so Rion remained calm, keeping his magic in check for Arianna’s sake. A wolf joined to their right and a leopard to their left. They both huffed in greeting.

The Fairy Folk emerged then too, popping their little heads up from the underbrush. His mother paused to watch and their entire entourage stopped with her.

One came close and peered up at Eimear, tilting its head as if in greeting. His mother smiled at the tiny creature whose little arms were nothing more than twigs with a few leaf-like hands attached at the tip. One had to look close to see how the leaf separated into five tiny fingers.