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Their captor followed them for a bit, then silently left their side, leaving them too afraid to speak. She ran over their options the entire way back, which couldn’t have taken long, yet it felt like hours under the circumstances. Every time she had the thought to run, all she could picture was his body manifesting out of the shadows covering the forest floor.
He could be anywhere.
The flow of the river drew Luka to a sudden stop.
“He can’t take us away!”
Lily exhaled, kneeling to his level. “Luka—”
“I thought you didn’t want to go back to Rimore.”
“I don’t.”
“Then why aren’t you doing anything?”
Because he threatened your life, and I won’t take that risk.
“Lily!” Luka’s yell jolted her from her thoughts.
“I don’t know what to do,” she blurted. “If Dr—” She drew back. The act of speaking his name out loud seemed like it would confirm her suspicions.
A light appeared in the dark, illuminating the shape of the cabin through the trees. “If he is taking us back to Rimore, then I think the best thing is to go quietly.”
Returning to Rimore wasn’t exactly the conclusion she was hoping for. It didn’t matter to Amalia how many had to die for her to realign the Primordials’ Pantheon, and she was set on the necessity of the Wraith’s involvement. Death was fading from the empire, and after living there, Lily couldn’t argue against that. But she didn’t think turning the entirety of the civilization to dust and rebuilding like it never existed was what was best for Eizreth.
“What if he’s lying?”
Lily returned her focus to Luka. “What?”
“How do you know he’s telling the truth? What if he’s lying to us?”
There was no way to know, was there? Not until they reached Rimore with a scowling Amalia heralding the arrival of her missing pet.
Gods kill me now. Furious wasn’t a strong enough adjective to describe how she’d react to Lily’s homecoming. The Wraith had spent the majority of the last eight years living among the very people Tyrsia believed were destroying Eizreth. Returning with a Hazevale incarnation—the bloodline responsible for shattering the Pantheon—would be like rubbing lemon saturated salt into the wound.
So why in all things drenched in darkness did she send—Lily shuddered—Draven all the way to the peninsula to retrieve her?
Hope slowly inflated within her chest. If Amalia was willing to overlook Draven’s history, maybe she’d be more forgiving of Luka’s. If so, he could be safe in Rimore.
“I don’t. But…” Another detail emerged while pondering, one that had her certain this was a reunion with the Gnaw. “He knew I was here,” she told Luka, who simply blinked back at her. “The empire thinks I’m from Markoth. Only Tyrisa knows I was born on the peninsula; that there was even a possibility I would be here. There’s no one else he could’ve got that information from.”
Only time would tell, but there was no denying she couldn’t run this time. Not with another life at stake.
“Let’s see where he takes us,” she said, a little calmer. Luka grabbed her arm as she stood. “If he isn’t nice, I’ll kill him, and we’ll go somewhere else.”
Luka wavered before shrinking behind her, nodding tightly. Lily sucked in her nervousness, imagining she blew it out with a jittery exhale when she pushed through the foliage.
Draven was on one knee near the cabin’s entrance, inspecting a soaked stem from one of Luka’s propagation bottles. She didn’t notice they’d been knocked over in the commotion.
He rolled the stem between his fingers. “By all means, Evelian, dwindle my patience further by dragging your feet.”
Lily kept her posture tall, bluffing her confidence as much as possible. He stepped out of the way and let them inside without any more verbal displeasure. Lily took in the cramped space, noticing the oil lamp she snuffed out that morning, lit. She shut the door and sank against it.
“By the way—”
Lily gasped, straightening to find him on the opposite side of the cabin where the shadows were darkest.
Draven’s emerald eyes flashed. “I’ve taken the liberty of packing what you find most favorable since you are keen on wasting my time.”
