Grief cut across Rowan’s face like a physical blow. His normally immutable features had worn a look of open entreaty all this time. Now, his brows pinched together, his jaw went slack, and his eyes flitted over Briar, over the ground, skipping across the waves and water, back to Briar. Searching. Probably for the future Briar had just cast away. Almost imperceptibly, Rowan shook his head in disbelief. A twitching, indecisive movement.
“You can’t mean that.”
“I do.”
“Everything between us? It wasn’t just…”
Briar’s Adam’s apple felt like an iron lump bobbing in his throat. He couldn’t say that it was foretold. That Seer Niamh had said so. “This is how it’s meant to be.”
It was horrible to watch Rowan’s conviction shatter. He believed it, and why shouldn’t he? Briar had never lied to him before. Still, he could hardly hold steady at the stricken look Rowan fixed him with, at the way his aura went cold like tea left forgotten, like a long winter that stole too much time from spring.
Briar’s eyes burned, and his throat constricted so hard he thought he’d come apart.
“Oh—” said Rowan. “Oh. I thought… I— Goodbye.”
His voice cracked so the last word came out cloven in two. Already, he moved to pass, in such a rush to be away that his shoulder clipped Briar’s. It was not this, but the pang in his chest that sent Briar reeling back a half step. Every bit of distance put between them tugged and tore him in that direction. He listened to Rowan’s boots tramp up the dock. With one hand, he pressed at his sternum, as if he could reach inside and pinch closed the open seams of his broken heart. Smooth over the cracks like clay.
Rowan’s footsteps faded. Briar stood, paralyzed.
Vatii nuzzled his cheek.
The horn of the ferry blew.
“Briar?” Vatii whispered. Her worry made the melancholy prick painfully behind his eyes.
He had to go.
Briar navigated up the ramp to the ferry, weaving through threads of tourists, avoiding eye contact for fear they’d see how distraught he was and ask the dreaded question,Oh, are you all right?
He didn’t want anyone to ask because the answer wasno. And,I don’t think I’ll ever be.
He found a vacant spot on the sunless side of the ferry, where the wind and the cool shade had everyone scattering for warmer views. Briar curled up on a bench, buried his face in his knees, and let the flood of tears overwhelm him where no one could see. Once the first sobs broke, it was impossible to stop them, sucked under, shoulders heaving. His vision darkened as Vatii extended a wing over his head to conceal him from anyone passing by.
He thought,I’ll be okay. I won’t learn to love Linden, but I’ll get to live in Pentawynn, show at the runways I’ve always dreamed of. Time heals all wounds, so maybe in a year or two, it won’t hurt like this.
But it hurt now.
Knees soaked in tears, he looked up when Vatii’s wing retracted and she pecked at his hair.
“Briar, look.”
Over the rail of the ferry, he could see the houses of Bán Cuain with their bright colors like a painter’s palette smeared across the horizon. The docks were a dark strip stretching into the water. On them, at the end, was a figure too tall and broad to be anyone else.
Briar went to the rail. Wind whipped the tears off his cheeks to join the salt spray against the ferry’s flanks. The figure on the docks didn’t wave or move, or do much more than watch him go. It tugged at Briar so hard he thought he would pitch over if he didn’t hold on to the rail.
Love was a burning brand in his chest.
He wanted to say it. No one could hear anyway. Not Rowan, not the people milling on the ferry, not even Vatii if he said it quietly. The roar of the wind, water, and the ferry’s engine would steal the words if he voiced them.
But he didn’t.
CHAPTER 27
The ferry sailed parallel to the shore, giving all aboard a long look at Pentawynn’s glass spires winking in the sun. Briar had postcards of the skyline from every time of day—amber dawns and starlit nights. The crowning jewel was the Magician’s Council Tower, a spiraling skyscraper like a unicorn’s horn.
It was colloquially referred to as the Horn for that reason, which usually made Briar laugh.
He found it difficult to laugh now, but something exultant filtered through at the view before him. He’d dreamed of it for years, and now he was here.
