She stared right through me. “Kost was right. You should’ve stayed home.” Pushing herself away from the wall and taking the stairs two at a time, she called down to us without a second glance. “Be ready to leave at dawn.”
“Leena—”
She slammed the door to one of the rooms, effectively ending the conversation.
Red haze seized control of my limbs and I continued after her, each footfall a deafening warning begging my muscles to listen. Control had gone the way of frustration. She was so close. Within reach. I couldn’t let her go. If I did, I’d lose it all over again. Amira and Bowen would come back and beg me to do the thing I’d been fighting since the beginning. Hand outstretched, I reached for the railing to follow her up.
“Noc.” Ozias appeared in a plume of shadows and braced a heavy hand against my chest. “Let her go.”
Someone pulled the strings attached to my body, and I bared my teeth without thought. “Get out of my way.”
“No.” With a forceful push, he shoved me back toward the table. “You’re not acting like yourself. Don’t make things worse.”
I steeled my anger with a slow breath. He was right, of course, but it was so damn hard to control the raging emotions inside me.
Unmoved, Kost sighed. “That could’ve gone better.”
“You could’ve told us sooner.” Ozias folded his arms to his chest, eyes downcast. “Calem too. We’re all here for you, Noc.”
The unbridled disappointment in his low tone deflated me entirely. Red receded to a pale mirage, and I swallowed hard. “I know. I didn’t want to burden you. I wanted that life to stay in the ground. None of it mattered until recently.”
“Then you should’ve told us when it mattered.” Moving toward the stairs, Ozias paused at the first step. “I’m not a fan of who I used to be, either. And never once have you asked me to dredge up the past, so I get that. But when it could affect us, we deserve to know. To help. You’re not the only one who wants to protect the ones they care about.” He climbed the stairs without another word, leaving Kost and me alone to sift through the shattered remains of my lies.
Fourteen
The Frozen Prince
50 years ago
The first thing I saw was darkness. A maelstrom of shadows that varied from slate to onyx to sable, all somehow unique. They were gentle in their touch, and I realized I could feel my fingers. My limbs. My body. There wasn’t any pain. There wasn’t much of anything at all. The total and complete silence was deafening and yet comforting. The sounds of war and death, gone. Here there were no whispers or judgments threading low through conversations.
And then there was a pinprick of light—a pale gray that hinted at smoke. It grew until it devoured the expanse, blanketing out the darkness and bringing with it sounds. A rustling of bodies and hushed words. Voices I didn’t recognize and couldn’t piece together through the veil of mist. And then a fiery heat bloomed in my chest, and my heart, which had been still, beat once against my ribs. Searing pain cracked through me like a hammer battering brittle wood. Light blossomed behind my eyes. Again my heart beat, this time with less anguish but more vigor, and more flickers of light erupted in the gray.
The voices grew impossibly loud, and suddenly I couldfeel. I was flat on my back somewhere, blades of grass tickling my neck. My clothes were damp, as if my body had been soaked at one point and was only now beginning to dry. The cool air was thick with pine, and as I took a staggered breath, the fresh scent of earth and blood skated along the back of my tongue. My eyes flew open. The world of gray traded for an indigo expanse dotted with millions of stars. Treetops towered high like jagged spears against the sky. And darkness. Thin tendrils of shadows unrelated to the night snaked through my peripheral vision, as if they’d always been there. As if theybelonged.
Someone knelt beside me and placed a hand over my chest. A man I didn’t recognize peered down, his curling hair the color of weathered bark falling about his shoulders. Framed by heavy wrinkles, his dark eyes held nothing but wisdom—and perhaps a glimmer of pity.
“Where am I? What happened?” My words were a harsh rasp, and I desperately wished for water.
The man didn’t move. “You’re safe. You’re still in Lendria.”
“Did you heal me?”
“No, I didn’t heal you. You died as you intended, and I merely brought you back.” His gruff voice was oddly soothing, but his words set me on edge. I shouldn’t beback. Prince Aleksanderneededto stay dead to end the war. It was a decision I’d made of my own volition, and apparently it had been ripped away from me without my consent.
Curling my hands into fists, I stiffened in place. “Who are you? Why did you resurrect me?”
“My name is Talmage. I’m the guild master of Cruor. You’re alive because of Kostya.” With a nod, he indicated a man standing to my left wreathed in shadows. Just like outside the camp, he hadn’t made a sound. But this time, I could hear the subtle inhale and exhale of breath, the minute scraping of cloth on cloth as he straightened his tunic. The way his swallow seemed forced. Death had done something to my senses, and the unease in my gut ratcheted up several notches.
“I don’t want to be here.” Anger colored my voice. I hardly recognized it.
Talmage clasped his hands together. “That can be arranged. I won’t force you to live as an assassin of Cruor if you don’t want to.”
I ignored him entirely and glared at Kostya. He averted his eyes, unwilling to meet my gaze.
“I felt responsible for your death. I…I fear my words may have driven you to take such extreme action.” He cleared his throat and gripped the back of his neck. A beat later, he dropped his arms to his sides. “While it may have ended the war, you didn’t deserve to die. I thought, if you wanted a second chance…” His low voice was clouded with guilt, and some of my anger fled. Perhaps his words had been the catalyst, but the decision was my own.
“You chose your death. Kostya found you without armor, without weapons. I can’t say this life will be easier, but it will be new. You can move on. You can forget. We leave everything from our past in the ground.” Talmage’s words hinted at a possible new beginning, at a life outside of the wars I’d grown so used to. But that was the thing—no matter how alluring it sounded, no matter how much he promised my previous life could be left in the dirt, there was simply no way a prince of the realm would be forgotten.
