I may have all three of them here tonight, but a shadow still lingers in the doorway of my heart, and I don’t know yet if it’s trying to leave or waiting to be let in.
Chapter 30
Wren
The early morning air feels too still for what’s coming.
There are no birds singing to greet the rising sun. No drifting breeze to combat the growing heat that accompanies dawn.
I hear clipped voices from the surrounding factions as orders are relayed for what I feel like is the tenth time. It feels too loud, grating at my ears as an anxious energy fills me.
I stand in the middle of this chaos, willingly, and yet all I can wonder as dawn greets us is if I made the wrong decision.
Torryn reaches me first, jaw set and eyes bright with steady protectiveness. His palm cups my cheek with a softness that shouldn’t exist in a man ready to murder.
“Stay hidden in your spot, sweetheart. Don’t move unless you have to.”
His lips press against mine briefly, but they’re full of a promise between us to return safely to one another. Then he’s gone, disappearing into the trees with his shifters like the forest calls them home.
Sylvin arrives next, his Winter Court leathers laced in silver thread, hair tied back, eyes wild with battle-readiness. Still, he smiles.
“If I die, little echo,” he murmurs, brushing his nose to mine, “tell the world I went down looking fantastic.”
His kiss is soft and fleeting, and when he pulls back, there’s a shadow in his expression as he takes in my sullen silence. “It’ll be okay, Wren. Whatever happens.”
Then he vanishes with his fae court through swirling portals.
Riven lingers at my side then, and I feel his searching gaze before I turn to look at him. I wet my lips as my fear of the unknown ramps up. His hands are warm when they settle on either side of my face, thumbs brushing along my jaw.
“Darling, if you keep looking like you’re a second away from crumbling, I fear I’ll never be able to leave your side,” he says finally. “What’s going throughyour mind?”
I swallow the lump rising in my throat as I glance back out at the looming human fortress.
In a matter of minutes, everything will change. Blood will soak into the ground as hearts stop beating–on both sides of this battle.
“It’s just the earth’s nervous energy, I think,” I offer, unsure of what else to say before I turn my focus back to him.
“Promise me if it’s too much to watch, or if any of the fight draws near you, that you will retreat,” he pleads.
I nod and his lips descend on mine. The kiss is deeper, with his fangs brushing along my bottom lip, but it ends quickly. He hesitates a breath longer, then turns and strides toward the front line where the vampires wait in formation. They all disappear in a flash of movement.
Azyric appears next to me without warning, shadow forming into flesh just ten feet away. He doesn’t come close or speak.
My lips part and my feet beg to move toward him, but no words or movement come. I can’t be the one to always try to mend the gap.
His silver eyes find mine before he offers a single nod.
The ache that coils in my chest is sharp as he disappears, leaving me alone in the field, but Iswallow it down and take a step toward the spot I chose as my vantage point last night with the help of Torryn’s eyes in the sky.
This is happening, whether I want it to or not, and I must bear witness.
The rising sun spills faintly across the field as I dart toward the edge of the treeline, but it does nothing to warm the dread curling in my belly. The moment my boots press into the thick trees in a brisk jog, my body grows heavy as the earth stirs beneath me, though not in welcome.
I feel a trembling thread of resistance thrumming under the surface like a warning.
I close my eyes, placing my hand against the gnarled bark of an oak. The vibration that greets me there travels up my arm, winding through my chest until it nests behind my sternum.
My breath catches at the weight of emotion that slams into me. The truth simmers through the earth’s core and into me.
