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Nightfell,andstillCreon didn’t return.
I spent all of dinner in silence as the others talked around me, defending and accusing, their voices tight with tension even when they eventually agreed to wait at the temple until the next morning. Which should have been good news … but even if Creon was back by sunrise, how on earth were we going to continue this journey with any semblance of cooperation and peace?
Tared pulled me aside after our meal to tell me I shouldn’t blame myself for this mess, which was kind of him, and also useless, given how clear it was who he blamed instead. Then I wandered around the house and the courtyard for the rest of the evening, hoping for the quiet whoosh of wings but finding only rustling leaves and the murmur of my travel companions’ voices around the kitchen table.
Where was he?
Anger soon gave way to worry, thick and nauseating. Should I not have exploded at him? Was he wandering around a dragon-infested forest, blaming himself for everything wrong with the world, convinced I hated him after all? After all these months, he really had to know better – but then again, why else wasn’t he coming back?
Maybe he was hunting dragons. Maybe he was finding Zera on his own. Maybe he’d been wounded more severely than I’d realised and lay bleeding out under a tree somewhere right now, and I’d never see him again, and …
I resolved to stop thinking before my thoughts could spiral any further.
But it was hard not to spiral with nothing else to focus on. Beyla was vehemently whetting her swords and didn’t look in the mood for company. Lyn was a little thundercloud between her piles of books, twirls of smoke rising off her whenever Creon’s name was mentioned. Tared had gone to bed to give his shoulder some rest, his wounds not healed perfectly due to my inexperience with blue magic, and Naxi slurped hot milk from a mug and giggled out loud whenever anyone glared at her.
I doubted any of them could tell me how to bridge the gaping chasm between my love and my family. If anything, they’d probably tell me there was no bridging a gap that wide.
Which meant I had to make choices, after all.
In the end, I dragged myself to bed early, unable to stand the circles of my own thoughts a moment longer. But even in that strange and ancient bedroom, while I lay staring into the dark until I no longer knew whether my eyes were open or closed, the words on that sheet of parchment kept spinning through my mind.
Does Lyn know you think of her as senseless?
Both a threat and a declaration of war. I could feel that treacherous little sentence burning in my gut until my dreams finally seeped into my fretful thoughts.
I was … flying.
The thin old mattress had disappeared from beneath my back when I drowsily emerged into the world of the living, woken by a whisper of cold autumn air stroking up my spine. I appeared to be floating through the pitch black night, bundled tightly in my blankets and carried along by …
Arms.
I awoke to the reality of the situation with a start. Arms. Someone wascarryingme. Someone was smuggling me out of my safe bed in the depth of night, so quietly I had not even heard the sound of footsteps. I tried to shoot upright, tried to claw at whoever was holding me, and found I could barely move my hands, wrapped in an abundance of wool and soft linen like a swaddled child.
With a sharp inhalation, I parted my lips to cry out.
But warm breath brushed over my face before I could make a sound, smelling like …home. I froze, my sleep-fogged brain unable to figure out what was happening for a moment – and then supple lips brushed over my forehead, a kiss like a lullaby. The air rushed from my lungs in an instinctive and inevitable surrender.
Creon.
Back with me.
Every muscle in my body slumped in his arms as relief surged through me. It lasted no longer than a heartbeat. Then I remembered why I’d panicked before he left, remembered Tared’s blood-drenched shirt and the angry sparks burning on Lyn’s skin all night, and stiffened up all over again.
‘Where in hell have you been?’ I hissed.
I regretted the question as soon as it left my lips; in the impenetrable dark, there was no way for him to answer it. He merely sighed, his chest rising and falling against me.
I bit my tongue as we slipped out of the door and into the temple garden, where the plant wall obscured all but the shine of silver moonlight. Only after we rounded its thorny, viney corner did the pale green glow of the temple gate become visible, as well as a small fire crackling at the edge of the courtyard, casting a fickle golden glow over the shrubbery and marble walls.
There was no other living soul to be seen. He must have returned to find only Naxi awake and sent her to bed before waking me.
Today’s only bit of luck – that he’d walked into the one person not currently furious with him.
That thought was enough to rekindle the fire of my anger, no longer hindered by the fear that had held my heart hostage for most of the night. I twisted around in his arms to better see his face in the shadows and snapped, ‘Maybe you should allow me to walk by myself? Then at least you’d have your hands free to tell me what you werethinkingto wound him like that and challenge him like that and … and …’
Creon didn’t let me go. Quite the opposite; his arms curled around me even tighter as he walked on towards the fire.
‘And to write him those stupid letters!’ My voice cracked. ‘You knew exactly how hard I was trying to keep the peace all this time, and meanwhile you were throwing yourself into some useless pissing match? Without eventellingme? What am I going to find out next – that you’ve secretly been chucking Lyn’s books into fireplaces for months?’
