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“It wouldn’t take much,” Cyara said. Quietly enough, I noted that the human had to strain to hear, cocking his head to where she stood beside Osheen. “If they attack at night, there would be plenty of lanterns and candles. It would be all too easy for them to be knocked over while the other humans fought.”

The other humans. The women and children. Because the night walkers were only men.

The understanding dawned on us. The image of what had happened here… nightwalkers awakening. Feeding on their wives, their loved ones, while they screamed and fought… upending tables, beds… destroying homes. Families.

Veyka stared at the village.

The shadows of doubt.

The Void Prophecy.

Through the bond, the tie between us that at times felt so real I could almost have looked down and seen it reaching from my chest to hers… I felt her pain. Her sorrow.

If she as the Queen meant to fulfill the Void Prophecy, if it was all true, then so were the other parts. The shadows of doubt would come to Annwyn. The nightwalkers.

She’d known. Or at least, suspected.

But the sorrow and pain of realization were hitting her now, hitting her hard enough that I could feel the tremors through the mating bond.

She insisted this was a human problem. But she’d run to their aid.

Another thought tugged at my mind…Twice blessed, the realm of shift and mist, when comes the awaited queen who shall possess ethereal might. With a touch, she will feel the heartbeat of her subjects, and she will unlock the secrets they guard within.

The Ethereal Prophecy. I’d been taught they were separate, but Parys insisted the two prophecies were one. What did that mean for Veyka? Did she possess ethereal might, the ability to read the minds of those around her? Would that power be unlocked somehow, the way our mating had allowed her to access the void power within her? Or did that part of the prophecy refer to another queen altogether?

If these thoughts swirled in my mind, I knew they must already haunt Veyka’s.

My heart ached for her, grasping the extent of her inner turmoil. A private torture I could not stop. Not until we reached Avalon and found answers.

The smart thing to do was to kill Percival St. Pierre where he sat. He’d outlived his usefulness. His only remaining potential was to provide complications. Anywhere else, any other time, I wouldn’t have hesitated.

But the pain beating in my heart, straight from my mate, stayed my hand.

I couldn’t keep her from walking into danger. I certainly couldn’t lie to her again. But I could protect her here, now, from the guilt that would haunt her later. I could lessen it, if only a fraction.

I jerked my chin to Osheen. “Check his bindings again and set a watch to make sure he doesn’t wriggle his way out tonight. We’ll leave him here when we depart tomorrow. If he’s as clever as he thinks, he’ll worm his way free before he starves.”

Done.

I shifted the entirely of my focus to Veyka.

Bath, food, fuck.

Get her mind off of it, distract her. Until she was ready to speak.

I had no doubt our companions were making their own connections, coming to their own understanding of the stakes. Let them work it out.

I caught Veyka on the shoulder, her skin cold through her shirt without the cloak. A twinge of response, a flicker of something through the bond other than pain and sadness. But her face was still devoid of feeling as she turned her feet away from the village, toward the camp back in the forest.

“I can take you to Avalon.”

Veyka froze.

Ancestors. I should have slit his throat and been done with it.

But she turned back to him before I could.

She drew her daggers swiftly, spinning them in her hands so fast they were no more than a blur. I felt—rather than saw—them as they whipped past. Too fast for Percival to move. Moving was useless, anyway.