“Okay? That’s all you have to say?”
“Mmhmm.” His hand fell to the back of my neck. “Like I said, I’m never going to stop you from feeling, I need to you let me in, let me help you carry some of the weight. Can you do that?”
“I’ll try my best.” Emotions clogged my throat.
“But I will say one thing, if you’re going to feel it, use it. Use your feelings to fuel your desire to take down the Vanir, the Panateia, and Adreona. Let it consume you in that way. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“I love you with every fiber of my being, Lennox Adair. I love every single part of you, remember that.”
“Okay.”
“That’s all I get? An okay? I feel like I’m doing my best work here, babe.”
“Babe?”
“Thought I’d test it out.”
“I think I likeSweetheartbetter.”
“Okay, I’m doing my best work here,Sweetheart.”
“Thank you.” I kissed the tip of his nose as I looped my arms around his neck. “I love you too. Until the stars turn to dust,babe.”
“Where do we go from here?” The tent flap fluttered behind me as I entered the makeshift war room, Luka at my side.
We had only returned from the Galtain’s—what had been the Galtain’s a little bit ago.
Luka held me outside the rubble, our combined magic keeping us warm as we knelt in the snow until we were ready to proceed.
Once we were ready, we collected ourselves and sorted through the rubble. Nothing could be salvaged; everything burned to ashes—even the bodies were unidentifiable.
We used our earth magic to crumble the earth beneath the rubble, sinking the aftermath into the earth and covering it with fresh soil.
We took turns using our magic to carve words into a wooden slab we enhanced with magic, ensuring it would stay nice forever.
When this was all over, everyone would know the history of the Galtain family—of the sacrifices they made for Lethenia.
When we returned back to camp, I called a meeting anddirected the tents to be reassembled, we would delay our travel east a couple of days as we regrouped.
“We continue on to the Blood Court,” Declan said without missing a beat.
“What about Adreona’s new ability? How does that change things?” I tried to keep the fear from leeching into my voice, but some of it leaked through. One of our advantages had now been taken away.
Because of me.
“I looked into the spells I have about Ichor magic, there is no way she can transport an entire army. It would take far too much power.” Luciana didn’t look up from the book she flipped through.
“So at least we don’t have to worry about that?” Kara added with an heir of hope in her voice.
“I’ll still be worrying about it,” I said, my voice flat.
“With the threat she could show up at any minute—we always have to be guarding our backs.” Declan straightened his spine, tucking in his wings. “I will task a rotation of soldiers to be in charge of constructing a shield around us—anyone with air magic will have the opportunity to be a part of the team. When the soldiers from the Twilight Court arrive, I’ll talk with them—any that can fly will rotate scouting from the sky, watching for any disturbances in the shield that should alert us to Adreona trying to arrive.”
“Someone’s been busy.” Luka clapped a hand on Declan’s shoulder. The harpy ignored him and continued, without pause.
“Besides that, we continue East. We will stop each night to sleep and check in daily as a group. Each soldier will be assigned a legion and each legion a commander.”
