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With my hand still unsteady from exhaustion, I rest it on his leg. “What are you really afraid of?”
His gaze is on the forest. With his hair tied back in a knot, I can admire his chiseled jawline and the way the sunlight catches free tendrils of his hair, illuminating them to a warm chocolate brown. “I’m afraid of the unknown. What the rest of the prophecy holds. The other savior comes from the First City, a place brimming with torture and darkness. The thought of you working with a demon drives me mad.”
I squeeze his leg, trying to reassure him. “And you’ll be with us. I can’t imagine fighting the soldiers of Avren or the Miscretes without you by my side.”
He forces a smile, still looking straight ahead. He clasps his hands between his knees, lost in a different world. “Yes, of course.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
That evening, we all sit around the common room, lost in our own pursuits. Levi and Bastian play a game of dice at the table, Evie provides a sullen ambience with the melancholy tune coming from her fiddle, Grayson reads, and I am on the floor by the fire, sketching out my ideas for the Kindred Few’s new fighting gear. In my plans, it’s sleek, breathable, and reflects each of our personalities, while brandishing our common symbol of five interlocking circles on the sleeve.
Grayson perches reading glasses on the edge of his nose and sets his book to the side. He clears his throat to make his big announcement. “We leave tomorrow.” As if expecting protests, he adds, “We’ll continue Mari’s training along the way.”
The tune from Evie’s fiddle stops abruptly, with a squeal of the bow against the strings. It’s clear our tactical leader didn’t bother to inform his girlfriend of his plans.
Levi jumps up from his bench at the table. He signs wildly, “Impossible. She’s not ready to stand before Cirrus.”
Grayson buries his fingers in his hair and leans his head to the side. “I spoke with Matthias today. The Council knows. They’ve ordered a group of twenty soldiers to move in on the cabin tomorrow.”
“They know what?” I close my sketchbook. Icy tendrils of fear creep through my veins.
Grayson leans forward, tenting his hands. “Matthias is my informant among the soldiers. One of the few friends I have left in the city. Somehow, they know you’re the one the prophecy speaks of. This was their worry about releasing more Undesirables into the wilderness. They sit on their high thrones, sentencing their own people to a life outside the city, trying to control them with the anklets so they can watch for the rise of the savior.” He slips down from the chair onto the floor beside me. “You know what they’re like now. How Lady Raven and her lackeys don’t care about the people. Our whole lives, we’ve grown up thinking they’re gods, incapable of fallacy, because they hide the truth in a neatly wrapped package of Avren’s beauty. Anything and anyone outside of this is discarded without a second thought.”
“We can take twenty soldiers.” Bastian opens the weapons cabinet. “Bunch of weak, pretty boys.”
“If we can avoid conflict and attention when they show up and Mari’s not there, they might leave us alone for a while.” Grayson pulls a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolds it. “We’ll spend a couple of nights in Tenny Rocks to prepare. It’s the Equinox Festival, so the streets will be crowded with visitors.” He holds up an advertisement for the festival.
Evie sets her fiddle on the table with a bang. Her gray eyes are ablaze in the firelight. “And why am I finding out about this with everyone else?”
Grayson rakes his fingers through his hair again as worry lines crease his forehead. Making decisions where four other lives are at risk can’t be easy on him. “I only found out this afternoon. I’ve spent the last hour thinking it through. If we could stay, I’d keep us here, but the wards only protect against Supes.”
“And what if the soldiers follow our trail?” Bastian straps two daggers into his cloak and reaches into the cabinet for more. “Can we kill them then?”
“We’ve got to be careful with our trail. Word will get back to Avren if we kill a bunch of their soldiers.” Grayson looks to Levi. “Maybe a bit of fae glamour?”
Levi can use glamour?
“I think I can arrange something.” He shoots me a guilty grin. “We’ve got to protect the savior at all costs.”
What will it cost Levi to use the magic of his people? I don’t have time to ask. Everyone gets up and heads to their rooms, probably to pack for our trip.
When I enter our room, Levi has a sack open. He stuffs in his green cable-knit sweater. He appears different from this afternoon, during our training session by the falls. Despite Bastian’s comments from the day before, Levi was relaxed and provided me with a wealth of information about fae customs and traditions. It was as if we had all the time in the world, so we took a break to swim in the pool beneath the falls, laughing as we splashed each other with water. Now, his face is drawn, his lips set in a firm line as he places two candles in the sack.
I close the creaking door, which doesn’t alert him to my presence. It’s only when I step into the space near his bag that he looks up. “Do you think this is a mistake? Do you think we should stay and fight so we have more time to prepare?”
Having faced Quinn Malum and the soldier in the woods near the entrance to Avren, I don’t want to fight the fae or the humans.
Levi rolls a long-sleeve shirt, stuffing it in beside the sweater. “We need to trust Gray’s connections. He wouldn’t ask us to leave unless it was necessary.”
That night, I lie in bed staring up at the ceiling and wondering if this will be my last night in the cabin. As much as this entire experience has felt like someone has thrown a whole bucket of ice water in my face, I’ve begun the process of acceptance. These people are my family, and this place is my home. In the three weeks I’ve spent in the wilderness, I’ve experienced more than I ever did in my eighteen years in Avren.
Three weeks.
I must be eighteen now.
Happy birthday, Maribel Nexis Windsong-Barellis.
A silent nod to the long-lost father keeping me from being a true orphan.
