“So, you’re a spy,” Kit had said.
“I’m an observant person,” Nox had replied.
Zephyr grinned when she recounted their exchange. It faltered when Cedric asked her for more details on exactly what had happened to Belien.
“Perhaps that’s a question better served for...” She turned her head, her gaze landing across the cavern where Elyria leaned against the far wall, one foot propped up behind her and a distant look in her eyes.
“Right, then.” Cedric stood, marveling at how much better his body already felt as he plucked his arming doublet from where it had been folded and set aside. He pulled it on, making a mental note to begZephyr for the ingredients of her magical mystery cure once they were through this.
Stretching his neck—first to one side, then the other—he buttoned his doublet and strode over to Elyria.
She didn’t look at him as he approached.
Didn’t look at him as he took up a spot beside her, touching his back to the wall.
Didn’t look at him as the voices around the campfire quieted, then surged, as if the other champions realized how obvious they were being.
Finally, Cedric couldn’t take it anymore. “Thank you,” he said, his eyes searching Elyria’s face for some kind of reaction. Any reaction. “For helping me. For saving me. Again.”
She drew her eyes from the spot of empty air they’d been fixed on and met his gaze, just for a second.
“Zephyr is the one who healed you,” she said, waving her hand as if trying to dissipate his gratitude.
“But she isn’t the one who avenged me.”
Elyria’s hand stilled in mid-air. Several silent seconds passed between them before she dropped it back to her side. “It wasn’t for you,” she said. “You saw him. Belien had gone mad. The blood magic...He was corrupted. What was I supposed to do?”
“What did you do, exactly?”
“Ask them.” She tipped her head at the campfire and the conspicuous champions who were definitelynoteavesdropping.
“They told me to ask you.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and pointer finger. “I see.”
“So . . . ?”
“So, I stopped him.”
“You killed him,” he said. A statement, not a judgment.
“I did.”
A beat of silence passed between them.
“And how do you feel about that?” he asked.
Her head whipped toward him, so quick that it nearly threw Cedric off balance. “How do you think I feel?” she hissed.
“If I knew, why would I ask?” he said, keeping his voice level. Thiswas not how he envisioned this conversation going.
She released a shaky breath. “I’ve killed many people. So many. Why should this be any different?”
Cedric’s chest tightened at the vulnerability in her voice. Like it wasn’t a rhetorical question. Like thiswasdifferent, only she didn’t understand why.
Because everything in here is different,he wanted to say.Because I feel like I am a different person than the one I was when I walked through the Gate. And I think you are too.
But he didn’t say that.
