Page 34

Chapter 32

Morgana

E ryx still needs to be helped onto his horse the following morning, but I’m glad to see him awake and only slightly more grumpy than usual.

“I’m sorry about your leg, Eryx,” I say, handing him a flask of water.

He grunts, eyeing the bandaged limb resentfully as he tucks the flask into a saddle bag, and Hyllus hands him his reins.

“Next time you want a friend rescued, try to do it somewhere closer to a decent healer, alright?” he grumbles.

I nod soberly, hiding a relieved smile. I was worried he’d be genuinely upset, but he seems to be at his usual level of grumpiness, no more.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I say, turning to share a wink with Stratton. He’s distracted though, failing to give me one of his cheeky grins in return. I wonder if everyone is now feeling the effects of yesterday’s fighting. I woke up feeling worse than I have in a long time, plagued with all sorts of aches and pains from our run-in with the Temple.

Only when we’re all assembled do I notice the missing person.

“Where’s Alastor?” I ask as we set out from the inn.

“He’s running an errand,” Leon says, but he doesn’t offer any more details. When I raise my eyebrows at him, the prince shrugs. “He’ll catch up with us further down the road.”

As the hours slip by, I start to miss the riverboat. I forgot how tedious this endless riding was. Even having Tira to talk to doesn’t make me feel much better. I try to catch her up on some of the things that have happened since we last saw each other, but I’m too exhausted to get into it all just now. She seems flat too, and I guess that her decision to leave her family and Otscold might only just be starting to sink in.

The day gets worse from there. We get caught in a shower Leon refuses to let us shelter from, shouting about needing to press forward to the border. Then, shivering and miserable, we have to hide for an hour in a small copse when we think we hear a patrol nearby. It just turns out to be a group of rowdy farmers’ kids.

Plus, the longer the day draws on without Alastor joining us, the more nervous I get. Leon seems certain he’s alright, but I have a weird nervousness in my gut.

By the time the sun is starting to sink in the sky, I’m telling myself it’s just the impending separation that’s getting to me. I’ve spent so long with the fae, under their protection, that the idea of leaving them behind is filling me with dread.

I’ll be glad when this is all over, and Tira and I can move on.

“We’re here,” Leon says. There’s a tightness in his voice, a pain I’m surprised to hear. I look around, but it looks like the rest of the road to me. There’s a small stretch of woodland to our right and a milestone indicating that the border is just an hour’s ride away.

I look around as Leon and the other fae dismount.

“Is this where we’re meeting Alastor?” I ask.

“Yes,” Leon says. He walks over to me, offering me his hand. I frown, a little confused, but take it.

Once I’ve dismounted, I can see his expression better, and I’m shocked to realize he looks sad. And then I understand what’s happening. This is it. It’s time to say goodbye.

“Ana,” he says. Even though we’re surrounded by his soldiers, he cups my face in his hand and presses his lips to mine.

The kiss is both tender and hungry at the same time, sending a familiar heat through me, but there’s something new in it too. The ache is different this time, making my chest tight. When we part, I can still feel the touch of his mouth on my skin, like a firebrand.

“Ana,” he says again, his brow furrowing. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” I breathe. “What for?”

But he doesn’t answer. Instead, I watch as his expression changes, his face dropping into a cold mask, his deep gray eyes shuttering. He takes a step back.

“What are you sorry for?” I repeat. The knot in my gut twists as I look around at the other soldiers. None of them will meet my eye.

Then I notice movement in the trees.

Two figures emerge from the woodland. One of them is Alastor, but the other is much shorter, her green hair shifting slightly in the wind.

Etusca.

Her face crumples when she sees me. “There you are, dear. I’ve been so worried.”

I’m too shocked to answer her, my brain trying to understand how she could possibly have found us.

“Why is she here?” I ask Leon. When he doesn’t answer, my voice gets louder and higher. “What’s going on?”

“Ana…” Tira says, her voice loaded with warning. She looks as confused as I do, but frightened too.

“I’m so sorry, Morgana, for making you take the potion all those years and not telling you what it really was,” Etusca says. She steps toward me, her hands outstretched. I retreat from her, glaring at Leon. Is this some kind of weird attempt at reconciliation? Does he think he’s giving me a gift? He knows how conflicted I feel about Etusca.

“You lied to me,” I point out to her, the rage burning in my voice.

“I was doing it to keep you safe,” Etusca says. A tear trickles down her cheek, but I don’t want to hear it.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I say. “I don’t want to speak to you.”

But the dryad keeps talking. “I had to do it, otherwise they would’ve killed you, Morgana. Your parents didn’t want you to die, and neither did I, so I took an oath to keep you safe. I still have to keep you safe,” Etusca says. “I owe it to them.”

“That’s why you need to come to Filusia with us,” Leon says.

I stare at him, feeling like I’ve lost my mind. “What are you talking about? That was never the plan. Is that why you brought her here, because you thought she would be able to convince me?” I shake my head. “Wow, you really don’t know me at all.”

“I do know you,” he says. “I know that once you had your sights set on going north, there’d be no convincing you that the best place for you was in Filusia, by my side.” He takes a step toward me, reaching out, but I flinch back.

Taking me, a solari, to Filusia is a crime. But of course Leon doesn’t care about that. He doesn’t care about anything except his own interests. Still, if he thinks he can just force me to do whatever he wants, I’ll remind him that he made me stronger than that.

I reach inside myself to grab hold of my power, anticipating the golden glow?—

Except it’s not there.

Nothing. No heat, no pull. Just an emptiness, vast and yawning.

An icy horror ripples through me as my eyes fall on Etusca, and I remember my dream from last night.

It had been so real. The feel of Leon’s skin against mine. The taste of the food and that wine. I was sure I could taste it on my tongue when I woke this morning…

“What have you done?” I ask Leon. I still don’t want to believe it, the idea that he found Etusca and got her to make more of the potion, that he’d slip into my dreams as he fed it to me last night at the inn?—

That he’d take my power, just to get his own way.

“I did what I had to,” he says, not a flicker of remorse on his stony face.

The weight of his betrayal comes down on me so hard it drives the breath out of me. He was supposed to be the one who made me strong. Not this .

I turn toward him, reaching out before I can think about it and slap him as hard as I can. “I’ll never forgive you for this,” I say, my voice shaking with rage.

“Ana—” Leon begins.

“No,” I spit out and swing my arm again, but he stops me. I jerk out of his grasp. “You’ve lost the right to call me that ever again. How dare you ? How dare you take this from me? You’re just like them.”

I want to weep at how stupid I’ve been. How once again I’ve thrown away my chance at peace—stolen from me by the same man who took it from me at Tira’s tavern.

“Ana!” Tira kicks at Stratton’s horse, trying to urge it toward me. I understand what she’s thinking—we could fight still; we could run. But as I lunge toward her, Leon grabs me, and Damia wrestles a kicking Tira off the horse.

Without my magic, we don’t have a chance against these people.

I stare into their faces, letting each one of them feel the heat of my glare as they bind our wrists. My heart breaks when I see Tira’s dimane bindings. I saved her just to land her in a new kind of prison.

They give Etusca my horse, shoving Tira back up behind Stratton and trying to lead me to Leon’s horse to ride with him.

“You might have taken my magic, but I still have teeth and nails, prince,” I snap. “If you make me ride with you, you’ll regret it.”

Leon says nothing, which only enrages me more, but the fae lead me to another horse, seating me behind Phaia instead, who gives me a sympathetic look.

Etusca’s still crying, the sound hardening my heart with every sob as we set off again toward the border.

For your safety , she’d said. It turns out that’s what they all say.

But I won’t let them do this to me again.

I will be free.