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CHAPTER TWELVE

“W E NEED MORE FIREWOOD .” I turned to Gerarda. “You can help. We’re the only ones not injured.”

Gwyn straightened. “I’m not injured!”

“We don’t know what you are.” I crossed my arms. “But haven’t you done enough for one night?”

Fyrel had the good sense to pull Gwyn back to the ground and passed her some of the nuts and dried meat Elaran had found left at the back of the cave.

“Gerarda.” I pasted a smile on my face that I hoped was natural enough to avoid suspicion.

She pocketed her knife and stood. “I doubt we’ll need two armfuls to make it through the night.”

I raised a brow and looked down at her small frame. “Your arms aren’t long enough to carry a full load, are they?”

Gerarda jumped into the air from a standstill. She flipped over my head and grasped my shoulders, using the momentum to pull me to the ground as she landed on her feet.

“They’re long enough to do that.” She smirked and held out her hand to pull me up.

I grabbed for it, but she pulled it back with lightning speed and her smirk grew. A chorus of laughter covered my grumbling as I marched out of the cave. I didn’t say anything to Gerarda, but she was on me as soon as we stepped out of earshot.

“You’re a terrible liar.”

I raised a brow.

Gerarda leaned against one of the Elder birches that hadn’t been burned in the fight with the waateyshirak . “You wanted to get me alone.” She nodded in the direction of the cave. “You’re not that easy to take down. You let it happen.”

I lifted my chin.

Gerarda flipped a thin blade through her fingers. “Why?”

I took a deep breath. “I need you to get Gwyn and Fyrel back to Aralinth. Wait until morning to leave and take your time getting back.”

The knife stopped. “You’re not staying?”

I swallowed and shook my head.

Gerarda’s eyes narrowed until they were thin blades across her face, too sharp and too willing to cut. “What is so important that you need to risk another encounter with the shirak to make it there before we do?”

“You know why.”

Gerarda shrugged. “I don’t see—”

“You’re not a fool.” I took a few more steps from the cave and lowered my voice so only the trees would hear us. “You know exactly what crossed through Elaran’s mind when she saw Gwyn’s eyes and hands.”

Gerarda pointed her knife at my belly. “El is not a threat!”

I held a hand up to Gerarda’s lips to silence her. “She thought it just as you did. Just as I did. Because that is what we are trained to do.” Gerarda’s shoulders relaxed, and she lowered the knife. “But Gwyn is young. Young and na?ve enough to run into the woods with half a plan and no care for the consequences. She has no idea the fights that will be drawn over this. The tensions and the opinions—I will not let desperate people turn that young girl into a pawn for this war.”

Gerarda leaned back. “What’s your plan? Go back and get Feron to make a glamour for her to keep the truth a secret?” She huffed a laugh. “Such secrets festered so well the last time.”

My heart raced. Even though part of me wanted to grab Gwyn and hide her away until this war was over, I knew that wasn’t possible. Gwyn would never hide, and she deserved to fight as much as the rest of us if she wanted.

But she didn’t need to be an experiment to be poked and prodded, pushed beyond her limits.

That I could prevent.

“This is a matter for the Elders to decide. I need time to gather them all, and then you can sneak Gwyn into the city. Late afternoon while people are still resting.”

Gerarda’s mouth turned into a sympathetic frown. “What if the Elders do not care? What if they are more than happy to turn Halflings into soldiers to get rid of the Crown for good?”

I looked down at my hands. The same ones that had taken so many lives. I remembered every one, every decision I had to make to not save someone in hopes of saving two on the morrow. Those decisions had marked me in so many other ways than the scars along my body.

This felt the same. This new power festered under my skin, not as a gift but as a curse. Instead of running a blade through the Halflings myself, anyone I turned into a Fae would be reborn with a sword in their hand and a target on their back when the battles broke out. It would be someone else’s sword that took their last breath, but my hand would hold the blade either way.

I took a staggering breath and leaned into the tree to hold my weight. “I don’t know,” I said.

And for the first time, Gerarda looked scared too.

I made it to Aralinth as the suns began to rise. The watery veil between the two twisted trunks in the garden no longer shimmered with silver light but gold. I didn’t transform; instead I soared over one of the large canopies and snipped off a dew rose with my beak. I dropped it into the small pool of water along the twisted branches from above and dove through the veil a moment later.

The trail to Myrelinth was just wide enough with my large wings. I soared silently, banking along the last curve. A group of Elverin on patrol jumped back as I came through the end of the trail. I let out a low call in apology and curved left toward my burl.

Riven wasn’t in his. No faelight hovered in the window, and a thin layer of dust covered the twisted branches that framed his bed.

He hadn’t been here at all.

I spread my wings and dove through the center of the Myram. Panicked shrieks followed by immediate laughter echoed through the hollow tree as I evaded a group of Halflings climbing to the burls on faelight.

I soared through an opening and flew into the grand hall. Hundreds of Elverin looked up at me, apparently no one had felt safe enough to sleep with the shirak on the loose. I tilted my wings back and forth as I flew over a group of children, their giggles calming the room as I disappeared down the tunnel toward Killian’s chambers.

The flash of light as I transformed made up for my lack of faelight. I knocked on the door, chest gasping from the exertion of my long flight.

Riven pulled it open. One hand on his sword, the other pulling up his boot.

Mumbled voices echoed down the tunnel.

“Quiet.” I cupped my hand around his mouth and pushed him back into the room, letting the door slide closed behind us.

I didn’t move. I stood on the tips of my toes waiting for the voices to pass.

Riven’s jade eyes bore down on me. The heat in them only grew as I slid my fingers away from his mouth.

“Sorry,” I said, more to say anything than to apologize.

Riven’s lip twitched upward. “You can push me into a dark room anytime you like, Keera.” Riven let his gaze trail down my body. “You never need ask.”

His regret still hung from him, obvious in his wrinkled clothes and the dark circles under his eyes. But there was something devious in his smirk. Something light and playful too. It was new and familiar all at once.

The face was Riven’s. But the mischief and wit in his eyes was all Killian. It was so obvious now, how the prince had watched me the same way Riven had. Just without the pain of his magic. And now without the pain of his secret.

Riven’s smirk faded when I didn’t speak. His jade eyes glinted as if the magic he had lost was only resting under his skin. My fingers tingled.

Maybe it was.

“Keera, what’s wrong?”

I gulped down my panic. There was no time to lose myself in the comfort of Riven’s arms even if that’s what I wanted. To go to bed and pretend that the world outside of this room did not exist.

“Something happened to Gwyn—”

Riven charged for the door but I grabbed his arm.

He lifted his hand to my cheek. “I’m so sorry, diizra .” His whisper was even softer than his touch. The sweetness of his name for me sent a warm wave down my skin, soothing the onerous itch.

“She’s not dead.”

Riven’s thumb stilled. “How injured is she?”

“She’s not injured either. Not really.” I took a breath trying to find the words that would make sense of everything that had happened, but the only ones I found were simple. “She’s Fae.”

The stillness in Riven’s hand traveled up his arm until his whole body was rigid.

I held up my hand in front of him. I didn’t dare call that newfound power forward—I wasn’t even certain I could control it—but I saw the realization settle into the hard lines of Riven’s eyes. “I made her Fae.”

I leaned back. Riven’s reaction was slow like ice melting until he could finally move enough to ask. “Elverath gave you the power to restore the Light Fae.” There was a hint of worry in his awe. I didn’t know if that was for himself, for me, or for Gwyn.

I shook my head.

Riven recoiled back. “Her eyes turned violet?”

“Amber.” I lifted my chin to meet his gaze. “Her eyes turned amber just like her Halfling blood.”

Riven looked down at his own hand. The same thought passed through our minds and we both ignored it.

When he looked up, his jaw was hard and his eyes determined. “Tell me everything.”

So I did. I told him about the panic when I realized that the girls were missing, and Riven grabbed my hand. He grabbed the other as I described the attack of the waateyshirak . By the time I had finished, his arms were wrapped around me and my cheek was pressed against his chest.

“We worked so hard to get them here.” I sighed into the warmth of Riven’s body. “I know my magic is meant to be a gift, but this …” My voice trailed off. I didn’t even want to imagine the decisions that were to come.

Riven tightened his grip on me. He knew there would be bloodshed too. I leaned into his comfort. The anger was still there, but I had to let it go. At least for the moment. Worry broiled at my throat, and if I didn’t lean on someone, I would drown my anxieties in wine.

Riven’s muscles flexed as if showing he had the strength to help. “What do you need from me?”

I looked up at him. Until that moment, I had been holding the weight of this all on my own. Trusting others still wasn’t habit. But whatever else had happened between us, I knew I could trust Riven with this. And in that moment, that was enough.

“I know I said we can take this day by day, and I meant that.” I pulled back so Riven could see my entire face. “But today I need you to choose me like I chose you. I need an ally in that room. I need to know someone else is there to protect her.”

Riven caressed my bottom lip with his thumb. “Done.” He pressed the gentlest, softest kiss to my forehead. “We only have today. And today I choose you, diizra .”

Those words were enough to slow the hammering inside my chest.

I pulled back and kissed the tip of his nose.

Riven’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “There’s another choice you need me to make?”

I tugged on his collar as I lowered myself to the flats of my feet. “Think of it more as a favor.”

He raised a brow.

“I need you to talk to Syrra.” My jaw pulsed. “I need her to leave the crypt.”

Riven let out a long, cold breath. “She might not go willingly.”

“She must be there.” I fixed my cloak against my shoulder. “I don’t have time to drag her out myself.”

Riven swallowed but nodded. “Which Elders will you ask for support?”

My hand instinctively wrapped around the hilt of my dagger.

“All of them.”