She shook her head, needing the answers more than she feared the pain. Her next question was another raw scrape of sound. “He took the arrow for me and Adelise. Is he?—?”
“Alive,” Alexander said. “He damn well better be. Krystoff’s men took care of him. The healer in Niewberg will patch him up.”
JingYi shifted again, just enough to take in the rest of him. His face bore a shallow gash at the temple, dried blood crusting at the edges. But it was his eyes that undid her—dark, raw with guilt, fixed on her like she was the only anchor he had left.
Her lips trembled. “Adelise . . .?”
Alexander didn’t answer right away. Instead, his gaze flicked toward the opposite bench. She followed and saw Adelise sitting there.
A warm hand reached out and curled around hers, squeezing.
“I’m right here, Sister,” the princess said.
Relief flooded JingYi’s chest, sharp and overwhelming. She blinked through the sting in her eyes.
“Haorán?”
“Injured,” Alexander said. “We managed to stem the bleeding. He’s in the carriage just behind ours with Darion. He’ll also live.”
She let her head tip back against him, eyes closing as she nodded. Her voice thinned. “The Omegas?”
“They’ve all been freed from their cells,” he said. “Lord Reave and his men are guarding them until they can be transported to Niewberg. They’re safe, too.”
“The guards . . .”
“Ill, but alive,” he said. “They’ll be interrogated. Harshly.”
She drew in a shuddering breath. “Conrad?”
“He reached me just in time. He’s recuperating now at the inn.”
Her eyes blurred again. She blinked them clear, though the last question lodged in her throat was the one she dreaded most.
“. . . Tedric?”
The silence that followed told her more than any answer. She felt it in the stiffening of Alexander’s arm around her, the way his breath roughened before he spoke.
“Worry only for yourself now, Wife.” His tone had changed. A certain rawness threaded beneath the words, one he could not disguise. “Just rest. Everything else is taken care of.”
The carriage trundled onward, wheels rolling steady over dirt. Outside, dusk thickened into shadows. Adelise had slumped against the velvet curtains opposite, eyes closed.
JingYi let her head tip back against Alexander. As she shifted, he stiffened and a sharp, suppressed inhale hissed through his teeth.
“Your back,” she whispered, trying to pull away.
His arm tightened, gently but firmly holding her in place. “It’s fine.”
“You fell two stories.”
“You’re here,” he said, his voice rough. “That’s all that matters. Now, stop moving. You’re jostling my leg.”
A poor attempt at deflection, but it prompted her to look down. Her eyes widened at the sight of the bloodied bandage. She made a move to straighten.
“You should be sitting properly. Your leg?—”
“Let me hold you.”
She stilled.
