Page 391 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

“When it counts,” I said with a smirk. “But what I can apologize for is underestimating the value of my allies. Aren held you in high esteem despite your differences for a reason. Perhaps if I had sought out your wisdom instead of forging ahead with my calling alone, this year could have played out very differently.”

“Women are often underestimated by powerful men.”

“If you think I ascended to Alvara Goldman with Freya Porter at my side, and I underestimate women, you are blind, deaf, and likely dumb.” When her lips quirked, I chuckled darkly. “As it is, those women are my life, Reyna. Beyond that, Ally is… the axis on which my world spins, and every moment in her absence has left me yearning for death. Every breath is torture so acute I wouldn’t even wish it on an enemy. Every sacked nest without her in it is a blade to my heart and fuel on the flame of my rage. Something you know far too well—it is that righteous anger I appeal to now. Because you might know loss, Reyna—you knew love before you were robbed of it—but I assure you it pales in comparison to what I have endured the last six months. Layla—hell, even my brothers, Sam and James, even my mortal parents—my love for them is dwarfed by what Ally is to me now. They cease to exist in a world where she suffers.

“So, I call on your anger. I beg you to lend it to a man in need. Because our enemies are warping something beautiful, someone sacred, and corrupting her power, her image, to manipulate both enemy and ally. And I will sooner drive a blade through my chest than fail her any longer. If you think I prostrate myself before you lightheartedly, you are mistaken. I asked for your help, Reyna Gwyne, Commander of Bellaton, because you are the scalpel I need to free the woman who holds my soul in her chest. And now I beg you not to let that request go unanswered for even a minute more. Hear my plea, Commander, and put a desperate man out of his misery by agreeing to help me get her back. Get them both back.”

“And in return?”

“My undying gratitude and the soul-deep satisfaction of doing the right fucking thing. I have nothing to offer that you cannot get for yourself. But that little girl needs your help again. And I don’t think you’ll leave her at the mercy of our enemy.” For a long beat, we just stared each other down until, at last, she forced down a swallow, jerking her gaze toward the window as she blinked away the silver lining her eyes. “Tonight, our enemy had me pinned with a blade to my throat and released me of his free will to relay a message and a bargain. The price was a promise to bring Blythe home. So, I’m going to ask you again, Reyna Gwyne. It isn’t a coincidence that Blythe showed up in Hazelharbor a year after Ahna Thornquist was found dead on your gate, is it?”

“No one knows,” she whispered. “It was just the three of us.”

“Three?”

“Aren—who was given no details. No backstory. He was livid, but the man fell in love with that little girl despite himself and agreed to help.” She yanked the tie from her braid, fingers beginning to unwind the pieces in swift little jerks. “I bartered a favor of his choosing if he would just trust me that she needed to disappear. That he couldn’t leave a trace. I’ll never forget the way he looked at me—like he saw too much and knew too little all at once. But he did it anyway. Made her vanish. It was years before I heard whispers about her—the orphan girls Nathara was raising alongside her own children. He took her from me and gave her to a heathen. My anger was eclipsed only by the brilliance of the plan—because I certainly wouldn’t have thought of it. Our enemies would know that. Hiding her in the inner circle of The Six? Brilliant.”

“And the other?”

“Darius. He found Ahna—rallied the flyers.”

“The captain who was killed by Renown last year.” When her hands stilled, I shook my head. “I catalog data as well as you do, and Freya doesn’t report garbage intel. What happened?”

Wrapping her arms around herself, Reyna walked over to the open window, tilting her chin up as daylight crept across the sky. “I woke to a commotion on the lawn. Flyers sobbing. Darius burst into my room to report the horror of it. Her body was nailed to the gate, her belly branded.”

“Branded?” I asked, the image of the devil’s mark across Ceana’s chest flashing in my mind.

“Vulpes flet.”

Latin? When I said nothing, Reyna turned to face me.

“She was delivered to me with a warning, you see. The symbol of the light wielders was an arctic fox. Their braids were usually in that form. And there, branded over her womb, were the Latin words vulpes flet.”

“I fear I don’t speak much in the way of Latin.”

“The fox weeps, Commander Porter. It was the only indication I had that Anastasia was alive.”

SEVENTY-NINE

A PROMISE AND A PRAYER

BLYTHE

“Well then get me some answers, goddammit. If Freya Porter’s aim had been an inch to the right, the king would be bloody unmoored. Grayshell has no idea the hell they almost unleashed tonight.”

Gods, that voice.

I hated that voice.

I hated that I had to despise the man who wielded it.

Even as I worked down a sawdusty swallow, the image of him standing between me and Moros was clear as day against my eyelids.

No matter how deeply I hated him, no matter how cruel I knew he could be, time and again, when I was on the line, Adrastos came for me. For Mags. It didn’t negate his betrayal, but how many times had this man saved our lives? And maybe it really was all for some overarching, millennia-long plan, but…

He came for me.

“There’s no coming back from that,” Barry agreed solemnly. “They light that fuse, it’s over. Moros will decimate the world without a rudder to steer him.”