Page 135 of Taken By Shadows

And Kaed was now standing between what his father and brother both wanted and me.

I didn’t want to be the cause of war or pain for anyone.

“Maybe there’s another way—”

“No.” Kaed’s tone left no room for argument.

And yet. “You just said you’d be fighting on two fronts for faebane. Maybe we can reason with your father?”

Kaed whirled on me. But it wasn’t hardness that clouded his features. It was something that made his eyes go wide and pleading as they darted over me, as though he expected to find an injury on me. Like I was some fragile thing.

“My father will not touch you.” His hand didn’t reach for me, but I felt a coil of shadows wind around my wrist and through my fingers.

Denora and Gavrin didn’t say anything in response to Kaed’s declaration of his protection of me over his father’s demands. They didn’t even look fazed.

I didn’t have any words.

Kaed kept talking to the others as I tried to make sense of what he’d proclaimed. We weren’t going to Hayden, not even if Kaed could leave tomorrow. He wasn’t going to hand me over to his father, his Crown. What did that even mean? I was under no illusion that things could have gone entirely differently the day Kaed took me. I could have been subject to torture, to brutal treatment. And maybe that’s what awaited me in Hayden if he gave me to his father.

But Kaed hadn’t told his father who the source was. Was he possessive to the detriment of his Crown loyalty?

And now Tymon was asking for his support should Gallen call.

Gallen was in the intersection of the Southern and Western Corners. Far more south than Shadowfall and the Banes. But the Silmore River flowed from the tip of the Banes right down to Gallen and beyond. It connected the two, and after the extensive hours spent in the library with Audrie, my knowledge of how river runoff and mineral deposits formed had vastly improved. It wasn’t a stretch to consider that the minerals that grew the faebane crystals in the Banes might have travelled downstream over the years to the mines of Gallen.

Tymon took the knowledge of his friend kidnapping the female who stood in front of him rather well. He somehow managed to be unperturbed, or at the very least, unsurprised that Kaed would have forcibly taken a female with him somewhere. What that said about Tymon and Kaed’s relationship and what they knew about each other, I wasn’t sure. Tymon offered me a place to stay in Gallen should I ever tire of being Kaed’s prisoner.

Tymon was easy to like before, but I loved this male now, partially because his offer had Kaed squirming.

“Thank you for the offer.” I smiled at Tymon and took a step closer to Kaed. I felt his magic test the air around us, and a shadow wove its way through my side braid. A tiny flutter rippled through me, and I fought the urge to play with the wisp as if it were a lock of hair.

“But how do we stop Sapphine from moving on Gallen?” Gavrin’s voice cut through the flutters in my stomach, unease replacing the air in my lungs.

“We can’t.” Denora took a step and folded her arms as she paced. “If we move Hayden’s armies to defend Gallen from Sapphine and Gloriya, then Tir will know there is something worth his while in Gallen. He doesn’t know where the faebane is or who can lead him to it. All he knows for sure now is that we found some in the Western Corner.” She looked to me and gave a weak smile.

Tymon’s face was tight, but he nodded.

“But once Gloriya moves on Gallen, surely, Tir will know then?” Gavrin could be rational at times, I supposed.

“Gloriya may not send an army,” Kaed said. “They’ve no reason to”—he speared Gavrin with a look that shut him up before he could protest—“unless we move in first.”

With a half-swallowed retort, Gavrin quieted himself.

“But, if it comes to it, we”—he looked between Denora and Gavrin, and then to Tymon—“will defend Gallen ourselves.” It was a promise without conditions or price.

I wanted to offer to defend it too, for Tymon, but I had nothing to give.

“It is because of me that my father knows about the faebane resurfacing in the Western Corner. I believed it would offer me some peace from his—I was thinking I—” It was strange to see Kaed lost for words. But speaking about his father brought a different side of him to the surface.

“You were thinking differently than now?” Tymon supplied, a glint of a smile somewhere in his eyes.

Kaed shifted beside me. “Faebane resurfacing in Gallen will put a target on your people as soon as anyone gets wind of it. And Hart is searching for any hint of it in the Four Corners. Tir wouldn’t have known had I not been so blinded by my own self-interest.” Kaed’s jaw was locked as though there was a bolt through it.

I looked to Kaed. To Tymon. To all of them.

I felt I was on the precipice of a great wave that was coming to crash into the land and wash away everything. Everything I’d come to feel and know.

It felt more vital than ever to protect my knowledge of the faebane now. With it, anyone could leverage it to start a war. To change the face of the Four Corners, shape it to their will, their decree. Did the king even really need it?