My heart ached as I repeated the names of the people whose lives were lost because of me.My list. My mind chanted them, like a quiet, damning prayer keeping beat with my blackened heart.
Morwyn. Aeriden. Eira. Oslo. My father. The list continued to grow.
Lives I’d taken myself or was just as much to blame for. All among the countless ashen I’d slaughtered at the Battle of Odessa. The ones we didn’t thinkcouldbe saved. Their deaths were on my hands. Hatred clawed at the thought, and I let it sink into the shadow smothering my soul.
Ti nudged me from behind with his big head, but his voice remained quiet in my mind. He knew my grief. Could feel it himself. And unlike the others, he didn’t try to justify it. He was part of me enough that he knew I deserved this guilt. Tofeelit.To let myself feel it because it kept me tied to that small bit of humanity I so desperately clung to.
I tensed as Ronan placed a hand on my shoulder and stepped forward. “I suppose we have more to investigate,” he said calmly. “Where is the body?”
Kresida’s smile was enough to curdle my breakfast. “In the Gulley. What’s left of it,” she replied, eyes flashing. “It’s being prepared for the Beyond.”
My stomach tensed. The elven menders stripped bodies of flesh as they prepared them for the Beyond. Life after death, as they believed. The bones were then burned to ash before a wind whisperer spun the ashes up to Aelius, god of the sun. The more I learned of the ritual, the more my heart broke for Bayne and Nerissa, whose father had been executed by drowning in the Juniper Sea. Whose bones would never be burned, never sent to Aelius, a fate bestowed on him by Queen Antares.
“How are we supposed to investigate a murder if the body’s gone?” Ronan cut in, outrage threatening his composure.
My head whipped to the side as a grunt escaped Vander’s lips. Two War Slayers had him by the arms, the tips of his boots dragging in the dirt as they hauled him toward the entrance of lethal vines.
“Not my problem.” Kresida smirked, turning to follow her team.
“Vander didn’t do this,” I said, turning back to Ronan.
“I know,” he replied, keeping his eyes on the backs of the War Slayers as the twisting thorns of Pyracantha snaked open, allowing them to haul the half-conscious Vander inside. “But if someone from the Risingisresponsible for the elf’s death, a shit storm is coming our way.”
The Rising forces were anxious enough. The elves were distrusting enough. Centuries apart had cleaved a deep riftbetween the two races, and we were on their soil. If a Rising soldier had killed an elf, tensions would only grow.
“Bayne won’t be back for another few days…” I murmured.
He’d gone north with Aquila. Queen Antares granted him leave to visit the Waters of Ascendiel, the sacred mountain spring that sat in the north of the continent. The waters were said to open the minds of the elves to a line of sight and possibility.
“We’ll need Nerissa.” Ronan nodded as he turned back to me.
“We needevidence,” I stressed.
“Rising healers won’t even get a chance to examine the body before all that’s left are bones, and they’re sent up in flames,” Ronan muttered, shaking his head. He turned to where his Lotrennian mount stood waiting near the trees.
Bones.
The revelation hit me like a stone wall. Maybe I could fix this. Or at least stall it long enough to free Vander.
“What?” Ronan paused mid-stride and his gaze caught mine. “You have a look.”
“What look?” I blinked.
“The look all you scholars get. You’ve figured something out.”
“Bones, Ronan.”
His brows pinched together, eyes brightening as he sorted it through. They darted between mine. Ronan’s light curls bobbed as he nodded his head.
“You’ll need to hurry.”
