Page 35

Alina

“GRANDFATHER, NO! WE HAVE TO go back! We can’t leave him!”

Grandfather sits beside me on the driver’s bench, wrapped in a simple brown cloak. He doesn’t wear his crown, and instead, the hood of the cloak is pulled up over his head. If one didn’t know better, they’d think him an old merchant just passing through. He guides the horse as it trots down the winding road, lanterns swinging from the wagon, just barely illuminating the wooded path.

Overhead, the clouds are thick, and the dark of night feels almost impenetrable.

I twist around on the bench, staring back the way we came. I can’t see anything through the swath of darkness. But somewhere behind us, Raelan is blinded and bound in chains, and my grandfather willingly handed him over.

“Grandfather! Please! ”

“He chose this,” my grandfather says. His voice is strained. I don’t think he derives any joy from this. “He wanted to exchange himself for you, Alina. He would’ve done it whether I permitted it or not. It was the only way... He did it for you.” His eyes meet mine, swimming with a concoction of sadness and rage.

My heart thrums in my chest. Then a spark of hope flares to life inside me. “His chain. Did you remove his chain?”

Grandfather gives a small shake of his head. “I tried. He wouldn’t allow it. He felt it would endanger you.”

I let out a cry of frustration and collapse back in the bench. “Then he’s powerless!” I struggle with the shackles around my wrists, trying again to call to my magic, but it’s still dormant. If only I were free of them, I could go back, I could try to use my magic to help Raelan get free. “Get me out of these!”

Grandfather gives me a deep frown. “I’ve got guards stationed at the bottom of this road. Once we’re there, they’ll have what we need to free you.” He gives the shackles a disgusted look, then lets out a heavy sigh. “I’m so sorry, Alina.”

I clench my fingers into tight fists. As soon as Grandfather helped me up into the wagon, he wrapped me in a thick woolen cloak. It smells of home as I pull it close, but it brings me very little comfort. I slump forward, eyes filling with tears of frustration.

“He’s going to be okay,” Grandfather says. His voice has a harder edge now, though it’s not unkind. “We both know what he is. And if anyone can escape the Veiled Hand, it’s him.”

I sniffle and glance up. “They were with the Hand? ”

Grandfather gives a single nod in confirmation.

“So, who are they working for? Who actually wants Raelan? And what do they want him for?”

The Hand are known to work for whoever has pocketfuls of money, and more often than not, that means they’re the shadowy extensions of nobles and monarchs, politicians and lords.

Someone wants Raelan for their own purposes. The realization makes my stomach turn, and I suddenly wish I hadn’t eaten the soup and bread the man I once knew as Tristan brought to me. It’s no longer sitting right. Add that to the long list of other bad decisions I’ve made recently.

“We don’t know,” Grandfather says. Then his pale eyes cut to me in the dark, illuminated by a thin beam of moonlight that manages to slip through a break in the dense cloud cover overhead. “But whoever it is, they’ll be dealt with. You don’t attack the family of Ravenscroft and get away with it.” His lips press into a firm line, and I see the king who wears my grandfather’s face, the man he is when he’s not enjoying tea with me before the fire or reading the silly stories I used to write for him when I was a girl.

I see King Jorvick Ravenscroft.

My anger with him slowly slips from my shoulders, and I allow my body to slump against his, my head finding his soft shoulder.

“Promise he’ll be okay?” I whisper into the dark.

Grandfather turns to press a kiss to the top of my head. “I promise. Whatever happens, we will get him back. We’ll bring Raelan home.”

IT IS SOME TIME DOWN the winding dirt road before the faint call of a mourning dove drifts through the trees. I sit up straight, my gaze going to the woods along either side of the path.

Grandfather lowers the reins and cups his hands over his mouth, letting out a similar mimicking call.

Immediately, the woods swarm with life. Soldiers of the King’s Royal Army step from the trees, and in moments, we’re surrounded. Torches are lit, illuminating the narrow section of woods, and one of my grandfather’s most loyal knights, Sir Larsen, reaches up to help me down from the wagon.

“Your Highness,” he says, his eyes sweeping over me in what appears to be a quick assessment of my well-being, “are you hurt?”

“No.” I shake my head. “But I need these off. They’re dampening my magic.” I hold out my hands.

Sir Larsen regards them as my grandfather climbs down from the wagon. “We should be able to pry these open,” he says, then sends for another knight to fetch him what he needs.

I pay little attention as he gets to work loosening the hinges of the shackles, instead searching the bits of dark sky I can see through the trees overhead. Perhaps Raelan will escape, perhaps he’ll make his way back to me, perhaps—

One of the shackles pops open, freeing my wrist. I shake it out and try my magic again, but even the single cuff is enough to keep it held dormant inside me. Grandfather finishes speaking with a few of his knights, then joins us just as Sir Larsen frees me from the second shackle.

Immediately, my hands tingle with magic, and I test it out. Frost glitters across my palms and up my wrists, then melts as I call a tiny spark of flame into each hand. My elemental magic lessons are paying off.

And finally, I’m free.

The relief I feel is so palpable and overwhelming that it leads me right back to thoughts of Raelan. How can he live like this day in and day out? How can he bear to keep his magic trapped inside when it longs so badly to be unrestrained?

I don’t want him to live in shackles any longer. Somehow, I have to free him.

“Let’s move out!” Sir Larsen calls, my open shackles hanging from one of his hands. “Take these,” he instructs a younger knight passing by. “We’ll take them back to the Shadowfall Court, see what they make of them.”

The knight takes the shackles and nods quickly before hurrying off into the swarm of soldiers.

Grandfather reaches for me, wrapping an arm around my shoulders.

“He’s going to be okay, Alina,” he whispers, trying his best to comfort me.

But again, my gaze goes to the sky, searching unceasingly for Raelan.

Searching for my dragon.