Chapter 28
Rykr
We found the Bellwether Inn within minutes—a three-story building that reminded me of Volker’s. Wooden beams traversed the plaster and stone facade. Window boxes with flowers decorated the large amber glass windows by the doorway.
Lamps smoldered in the windows, their candles burning steady and bright—yet the wax never melted. Enchanted light.
Ciaran stood abruptly as we entered and Amahle gave us a withered, weak smile, sagging into a bench in the dark foyer below the main stairway.
Seren gave Ciaran a deep frown. “Why are you here?”
“Because I didn’t have anything to do with what you accused me of. Ask yourself if I’d be here right now if I were lying.”
Seren crossed her arms then frowned at Amahle. “I had to watch,” Amahle said, closing her eyes.
Seren scowled back at Ciaran. “Why did you let her?—”
“I didn’t,” Ciaran snapped, running his hand through his red hair, the seam of his mouth making a flat line.
Let her what? Amahle wore her exhaustion like she’d been fighting in dueling pits.
“I only watched until you left the keep,” Amahle argued, leaning her head back against a stained-glass window behind her.
“Watched?” I raised a brow.
“She can spirit glide into other places,” Seren explained tersely. “But it drains her, and leaves her completely vulnerable to being attacked while she’s in that state.”
“Ciaran was here to protect me,” Amahle said, trying and failing to sit straighter. “And I was worried. It’s not every day my best friend gets dragged to Emberstone in a prison wagon.”
I peered closer at the dark-skinned beauty. Spirit glide? That seemed like an incredibly useful craft. “So, you can glide your mind to any place, whenever you want?”
Amahle shook her head. “Not anywhere. I can only go where someone I know is.”
Ciaran bent beside Amahle and helped her stand. “You need rest.”
“Food will help. Besides, we should celebrate.” Amahle mustered a half-hearted smile as we moved toward the tavern beside the inn. “Seren and Rykr are free to wander Emberstone. I was worried they’d end up in the dungeons.”
“That’s not really cause for celebration, though, is it?” Ciaran cast a look back at me as we went inside. “They still have to face the Skorn.”
Seren dropped into a chair at a table, across from Amahle and Ciaran. “Yes, but Haldron gave us complete freedom for a couple of days. We need to use that time to our advantage.”
Ciaran lifted his grey eyes to mine. “And if he’s just trying to test whether Rykr’s a Lirien lackey?”
Seren frowned. “Ciaran?—”
But Ciaran continued looking at me. “We’ve never heard him deny it, or explain why he’s here. Who’s to say he’s not?”
Fair enough. I’d irritated him before, and now he wanted to take his shot.
I sank into the chair beside Seren, stretching my arm out along the back of hers with deliberate ease. “Have you bothered to ask me yourself?” I gave Ciaran an unaffected smirk.
His nostrils flared, a few beats of silence between us. “Skinwraiths attacked our encampment. That’s never happened before you came along. And you convinced Seren not to tell anyone that Giulia was turned into a skinwraith, too.”
“Is that true?” Amahle’s jaw dropped open.
“Neither Rykr nor I had anything to do with Giulia. She attacked me,” Seren told Amahle. “And yes. Rykr and Tara thought it was better not to say anything. For good reason, apparently. Look what happened.”
Ciaran still wasn’t convinced. “If you had said something, then we might have stopped the attack.”
