Page 89 of Death Will Follow

“I remember the first time I saw you.” Bryn leaned back on her hands and stretched her legs out in front of her. “Well, I’d seen you countless times after you entered Aemoria. I was tracking you, after all. But the first time I truly saw you was at Schadwen Mountain, after you’d escaped from Idrian.

“You were this wild, feral thing. Blood-spattered. Crouching on your hands and knees. Your fingers digging into the sand. It occurred to me then, you were a fighter. A force. I suppose I despised you in that moment. But, as I continued to watch you training with your uncle’s Guard or visiting the shops in the city, it dawned on me: The gnawing feeling in my gut wasn’t hatred, it was envy. In you, I saw a glimmer of who I once was. A ghost of someone gone so long I could scarcely remember her.”

Bryn went quiet, and Nova glanced over her shoulder at her friend, finding the Wyldling swiping the back of her hand across her eyes.

“You may think you saved me the moment you broke the enchantment tethering me to Omen, but you saved me the day I recognized myself in you. Because somewhere beneath the fog of your father’s thrall, I heard a voice that sounded like my own. It was a brief thought—no more than a single breath drawn by someone drowning before they sink back beneath the surface. But it was mine.”

Bryn sat forward again, mirroring Nova’s pose with her forearms resting on her knees.

“You did that for hundreds. You gave them the gift of their own minds. Not everyone survived, it’s true. But the blame for that rests with your father. Not you.”

Nova stared straight ahead, pressing her lips together and nodding as tears welled in her eyes, overcome with gratitude for her friend who’d understood the fears that plaguing her without her having to voice them. Bryn had never shown any indication of being someone partial to embraces, but she laid a hand on Nova’s shoulder and squeezed.

Nova?

Her uncle’s voice echoed in her mind, his tone curious but mildly concerned. Nova dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve and stood, dusting the sand from her cloak before extending a hand to help Bryn up.

“Let’s go,” Nova said, clearing the last remnants of emotion from her voice. “My Lord summons me.”

Thirty-Seven

After her adventures around the Realm, returning to her small study in the Silvergard Estate felt akin to returning home after a pilgrimage. Every aspect of her life, even the most challenging, suddenly seemed trivial. With a sigh, Nova began to sift through the stack of correspondence on her desk.

As the Emissary of Silvergard, she grasped, more than most, where the Lunar Court stood in the eyes of the other territories. Nivali, Tundara, and Sonnend had acted as faithful allies, fighting valiantly alongside Silvergard in the battle against Omen’s Enchanted. Under Lord Arthur’s fickle rule, Maedwen would likely cooperate going forward. With Omen defeated, the Wyldlings would don an agreeable smile, but with the point of a blade always concealed beneath the table. At least, Nova thought, it seemed she could rely on Riven.

Lifting the last letter she’d received from Lady Estrid more than a month past, before . . . everything, she read the elegant, looping text. The tone of the missive chiding, but warm. Nova doubted she would ever speak with Lady Estrid again, let alone receive such a letter from the Noble. She tossed the parchment onto her desk and flexed the fingers of her right hand before curling them into a tight fist. Evander, his parents—they all blamed her. Nova chewed her bottom lip and drew in a steadying breath. Fawn lived. That was the important thing. She’d likely never speak to her friend again—Evander would see to that—but she lived. That would have to be enough.

Sensing Callan’s presence on the other side of the door, Nova straightened in her seat, her lips lifting in a faint smile as she awaited his knock. He, too, wore a smile when she bid him enter, but a nervous energy clung to him, permeating the room.

She stood to meet him, and Callan embraced her, his anxiety easing greatly once she was in his arms. Nova buried her fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck, scratching lightly in a way she knew he found pleasant.

“Are you well?” he murmured.

The question had become a common refrain in the week since she’d been raised from the dead. Not only from her mate, which was to be expected, but from her uncle, her lady’s maid—gods—even the stable hand who’d readied Shade for a recent ride into the city.

Though Nova appreciated the kindness behind the question, it served as a constant reminder of what she’d endured. Everyone, it seemed, had taken to treating her like a priceless glass vase: fragile and, perhaps, best kept upon a shelf.

The lore surrounding her brief death had spread through the encampment like wildfire. Those who heard the tale carried it with them when they returned to their own Courts, like grains of sand stuck to the hems of their cloaks. Lunar folk regarded her as if she were Illora made flesh, their eyes dipping to her chest where her scar lay hidden beneath her clothing. She’d taken to wearing a delicate glove on her right hand to cover the markings Kinslayer had permanently etched on her palm and fingers.

When folk saw a scar, they often asked questions without regard for the pain behind the mark. The life-altering circumstances that had caused it. As someone who’d spent her life keeping others at a distance, it unnerved her to no end that strangers knew the intimate details of what she’d experienced.

Only Lucan still handled her roughly. The commander pushed her to resume her training alongside the Guard immediately upon their return. He challenged her during their sparring sessions, sparing no thought for her supposedly delicate state and pushing her to fight with everything she had within her. She relished the exhaustion that followed, the ache in her muscles proof that although she had been broken, there was both beauty and strength in how she was putting herself back together.

“I am well, my love.” She laid her hand on his chest, the rapid beat of his heart thumping beneath her palm. “Are you?”

Callan forced a thin smile, taking her hand in his. “I must leave for Nivali.”

Nova lowered her eyes and nodded. Following the battle, Callan’s parents had been both weak and confused. While his mother seemed to recognize him, his father remained entirely unaware of the world around him and unable to speak.

“Your parents have improved, then? That’s wonderful,” Nova said. “You must go to them.”

“Whether I wish to or not.” Callan blew out a sharp breath and flexed his wrists as if the markings there pained him. “My mother has summoned me. I’m bound to appear before her.”

“Of course.”

“I don’t want to go.”

“You must,” Nova said absently. “You’ve carried the weight of their deaths upon your shoulders for far too long. It will ease your burden to see them. To say what you’ve always wished to say.”