She laughed dismissively. “You don’t know that. What if the reason I was chosen was because it saw the corruption inside me, just waiting to be unleashed? I shed plenty of blood before ever becoming theRevenant. I come from a family who speaks death like a language. My very lineage is darkness.”
Cedric shook his head slowly, his lips brushing back and forth against her knuckles. “I knowyou. I feel it. Here.” He brought their linked hands to his own chest, and Elyria felt his pulse beneath her palm. “You are a good person.”
“You barely know me,” she said, heart clenching as if in protest of the words. “And like the beautiful fool you are, you have a tendency to only see the best in people.”
Cedric dropped their hands from his chest but did not release hers. “Lord Church said something similar to me. About seeing the best in people. I think he meant it as an insult too, but I refuse to see it as such.” His mouth tipped to one side, his scarred lip pursing. “And I regret to inform you that I am unlikely to change.”
“The first and perhaps last thing he and I will ever agree on, then,” Elyria said with a scoff, though her expression softened a second later. “I don’t want you to change.”
“Then believe me when I tell you these things. You are not your father. You are not his dark star, nor Malakar’s darkness. And you are not the things you have done.”
Elyria’s chest felt tight. “If it had turned out that I was responsible for your parents’ deaths, if it had truly been the Revenant who killed your family that day, would you be saying the same thing?”
She felt something like anguish shimmer down their bond, but Cedric didn’t rise to her bait. “It would still be true,” he said, and Elyria’s eyes pricked.
She blinked rapidly, finally pulling her hand out of Cedric’s as she made to stand, turning toward the vined-off archway once more. “Yes, well. None of this is helping us get through that, is it?”
“Very subtle with the change of subject there, Trouble.”
“I’m just trying to keep us focused. And it appears I’m just as nosy as you today, I guess. I want to know what could be so important about this place that it requires these kinds of defenses.”
“Well, if it is the same sanctuary that Audaxus was muttering about, it makes sense that it would be a safe place forsomeone.”
“Yes, but what is it aboutusthat makes it sowe are not allowed in? Especially when it readily accepted all the others?”
Cedric grimaced as he got to his feet, pressing his lips into a hard line.
Elyria’s eyes narrowed. “What was that face for?”
“Nothing, nothing.”
“Cedric.”
“It’s just that, technically,you’rethe one who wasn’t allowed in. It feels very clear to me that the magic at play here is not a fan of your shadows.”
Elyria made a face, but she couldn’t argue with that. “Are you regretting being stuck on the outside with me? The others could be getting answers about Princess Selenae and the crown as we speak. Could be finding out about Malchior, about where to go next.”
“I don’t regret anything,” he said, his tone suddenly so sincere that Elyria’s neck felt hot. “It sounds likeyou’reregretting being stuck out here with me though.”
She laughed. “I trust the others to get whatever information might be helpful. It’s not as though they’re in there battling Varyth Malchior himself. If Elderglade doesn’t likemymagic, I feel pretty damn confident itreallywon’t like his. And as long as I’m the one who gets to bring him to justice in the end, gets to make him pay for all he’s done...” Evander’s vein-stricken face and shredded wings flashed across Elyria’s vision.
She shook her head.
“Elle? Are you all right?”
“Oh, right as rain.” She straightened, tossing a glance back at the archway, the silver trees now luminous in the dying light. And almost as if she summoned it with the words, thunder cracked through the sky. “That was a poor choice of words,” she said, rolling her eyes as the clouds broke open. They were soaked in seconds.
“Think this is fate’s way of telling us to pack it in for the night?” Cedric asked, wiping water from his forehead before motioning toward the tent. “I think it’s pretty clear we won’t be going anywhere tonight.”
“Stars above, I’m so fucking sick of this rain,” Elyria said. Nearby, Fjaethe huffed as if in agreement.
Cedric lifted the tent flap, holding it open for Elyria.
“One moment.” She raised both arms at her sides, letting her wild magic hum in her veins. With precision, she lengthened the leafy boughsof the two trees that the horses were hitched to, weaving them together to form a large canopy that spanned over the horses’ bodies, offering them some shelter from the quickly worsening storm.
She chuckled at the look on Cedric’s face as she moved into the tent. “Eventually, you’re going to get used to seeing things like that,” she said, sweeping past him.
“I hope I never do,” he said, and he followed her inside.
