Elden Kipling was holding his ground against the winged Fey, quickly gaining the upper hand now that he could see. Kit unsheathed his sword, his footsteps inaudible as he crept closer. Behind him, Killian grunted as he lifted himself to his feet, no longer incapacitated by the dark.
Kit had his sword pressed against their opponent’s throat in a matter of seconds, catching him off guard. The stranger froze—
And then he chuckled. “Three against one,” he drawled. “You call that a fair game?”
Something wet trickled over Kit’s lip, the taste of blood sharp on his tongue.
Killian came up behind Kit so silently he hardly realized he’d moved at all. His voice was fierce, his pupils turning to slits as he demanded of the stranger, “What do you know of Sable Erwyn Sylvana?”
41
Sable stared at the four letters carved into the trunk of the Wistwood tree. The wood where Levon’s blunt knife had chipped into it so many years ago remained a deep red, the bark surrounding the letters a gleaming gold. These trees were rare as hen’s teeth; it was why Levon had insisted they carve their initials here. Because their forbidden friendship was just as rare—as hen’s teeth and Wistwood trees,he’d said. She could still hear his sultry purr of a voice, as if it had happened only yesterday.
Hunter Northridge called her name as he strode into the clearing behind her, breaking her train of thought. She listened as tall grass sighed against his pants, and flowers crunched beneath his steel-toe boots. He stopped walking, and the clearing became as silent as that day Sable had first wandered in here, nine long years ago.
“This was where we met.” Her voice was barely a whisper, but she knew Hunter’s ears picked up on every word.
She’d told him plenty about her friendship with Levon—the day they’d met, and the last day they’d ever seen each other. She’d told him how one day Levon had suddenly stopped coming to visit. Every letter she’d sent on a raven had returned to her unanswered, the seal unbroken, and every message she whispered onto the wind went unheard. When she’d opened up to Hunter about everything that had happened, during a moment of weakness while they’d practiced sword fighting in the courtyard, she’d hoped it would somehow ease the pain. And it did, though only briefly. The truth was that she’d never stopped hurting. And she wasn’t sure she ever would.
“You still love him,” Hunter remarked.
Sable snorted a laugh, though humored was the last thing she felt. “I could care less about stupid boys.” It felt like a hole had been punched through her chest, and it took everything she had not to double up and burst into tears right there in that stupid clearing.
“You’re allowed to feel this way, Sable. There’s nothing wrong with missing him.”
Her voice wobbled when she spoke. “It feels wrong.”
“When you love someone, they become a part of you, like bone or blood. The impact they had on you is impossible to erase.”
Sable’s throat felt like it was closing. “I never told him how I felt. Maybe, if I had, he would’ve stayed. If I had tried harder, maybe we would still be friends.”
Flowers and grass crunched beneath Hunter’s boots again as he came up behind her, close enough that she could smell the woodsy scent that clung to his tan skin. “This is the most I’ve heard from you in months,” he said softly. “Talk to me, Sable. It’ll only make it better.”
“What does Balthazar always say?” she murmured. When Hunter didn’t answer, she answered for him. “Keep the past in the past.”
“I don’t care what Balthazar says.” Though his words were sharp, his voice remained gentle, as if he was walking on glass. Afraid that one wrong word or a shift in tone would cause her walls to snap back up, stronger than before. “I believe when you feel pain there is no better remedy than to talk it out, like birds flying through the doors of a cage finally opened. The past will not stay in the past until you set it free, and to do that, you first need to heal.”
A moment of quiet, and then she whispered, “And I am not healed.”
Hunter came to stand in front of her, leaning against the side of the tree. Sable was so close to tears that she couldn’t look him in the eye. “Then talk to me,” he urged softly. “I’m always willing to listen, yet you bottle everything up inside and let it eat away at you.”
Sable took a trembling breath as she cast her gaze upward. Hunter waited patiently, watching her all the while. Sunlight shifted as clouds passed overhead, and shadows dappled her skin and hair. Even if she wanted to speak, she couldn’t. Each unspoken word had flown away in silence—like birds, as Hunter would say.
She wasn’t lying when she said it felt wrong to miss Levon. Every day, she’d secretly hoped he would contact her—a whisper on the wind, a letter secured to a raven’s claw. And every day, she was left disappointed. Did he miss her, too? Had their friendship meant nothing to him? He had left without even a backward glance, and it made her hate herself even more for what happened to Hannelore—because if it weren’t for the friendship that she’d formed with Levon, she might’ve left the clearing sooner. Might’ve made it back in time to save Hannelore, to stop the Wolves before they ripped her to bloody shreds.
Hunter’s gentle voice cut through the quiet. “I don’t think it’s possible to ever stop loving someone. In time, those feelings simply become buried beneath other ones. But once in a while you will see something that reminds you of them, something that causes those feelings to suddenly stir awake. And for one split second, it throws you back to that time—months ago, years ago, however long ago it might be—and you remember. And youfeel.”
Sable’s tears were hot on her skin. “I feel too much,” she whispered, her voice cracking.
“There is no such thing.”
Her gold eyes flashed to his. “If you could feel even half the pain I’ve endured, you wouldn’t believe that,” she said, her voice raw. “I’ve seen snow, red with a little girl’s blood. Royal chambers scorched to ash and a dead mother surrounded by men who’d harmed her in unspeakable ways. I’ve seen babies smothered by fathers because they cannot afford to feed them; children instructed to fight when they aren’t strong enough to lift a sword.” She took a step closer to him. “I’ve seen Death, Hunter Northridge. And Death is not merciful.”
“Yet you do not fear it.” It was a statement.
Sable shook her head. “No,” she confirmed. “I do not.”
“You only fear what it might do to the ones you love.”
