Page 24 of Of Iron and Moonlight

She stilled. A flicker of grim satisfaction crossed her thoughts. Life among brothers had taught her a few tricks.

She let her body go slack, then twisted, slipping through his grasp. As soon as she dropped to the ground, she snatched a fallen willow branch, jammed it behind his knee, and wrenched it back with all her might.

He merely widened his stance enough to absorb the force.

Frustration flared. Elara hurled the branch aside, scrambled backward, breath tearing from her chest, and looked up at her captor for the first time.

The scuffle had knocked his hood loose. Long black hair spilled over elegantly pointed ears, like an obsidian river, down the two swords at his back. And his eyes—blessed moons, his eyes were violet, bright with a storm’s promise, like thunderclouds on the edge of breaking. He was the most beautiful being Elara had ever seen. Even Leonid would have seemed a dim light beside him.

“What are you?” she managed, unease tangling with fear.

In one quick motion, he caught her again, pulling her into a hold firm yet oddly careful, as if he were handling something fragile, and turned them so his back faced the wagon.

“Be quiet.”

Only then did Elara hear what she had missed in his tone before. There was no anger, no assertion of authority. Against all sense, he had been trying to keep her hidden.

She drew a shallow breath through her nose and gave the smallest nod of agreement his grip would allow.

Slowly, the hand over her mouth lifted. His body remained unnervingly still, save for the slight turn of his head as he checked the wagon over his shoulder.

It had stopped.

Elara’s pulse surged, then steadied. She could not see the cage but realized her captor had positioned himself so anyone looking in their direction would see only a companion turned away among the trees, presumably tending to a private matter.

The wheels began to groan once more.

Her captor finally relaxed, lowering her to the ground.

Elara turned to face him. “I only want my friend back,” she whispered, voice unsteady as she took in his ridiculous height. “Please. You can keep the rest.”

He regarded her in the same way she had once seen her father examine a plank of timber, assessing its grain and weaknesses, whether its worth outweighed its flaws. When his violet eyes locked on hers, something shifted behind them—a passing thought so subtle she might have imagined it.

His hand tightened once around her arm, then loosened. For a moment, it seemed he might leave her where she stood. Then his grip closed again.

“No.” A low growl escaped him, not born of outrage but of visible conflict, as if he were warring against a decision already settled. “You will come with us.”

“What?” Elara blurted.

Without another word, he bent his towering frame, swung her cleanly over his shoulder, and launched into a run. The world tipped. Trees smeared into shadow. Wind tore past her face. Yet the ground beneath his boots gave no protest. No branch snapped. No leaf shifted.

And they reached the wagon.

Her captor ran his fingers across the lock. Gently, in a way that sparked Elara’s irritation, he guided her forward. She stumbled inside, hearing the lock click again behind her.

When she looked back, he was already walking alongside the wagon, expression unreadable, hood drawn over his head as though nothing unusual had occurred. He had clearly taken care to keep his companions from noticing her addition to the captives.

But why?

Elara frowned, then turned to the cage. She saw Lorrain, and the world narrowed to that single, achingly human thread between them. Without a care for their peril or the splinters lodging in her palms, Elara crawled through straw toward her and gathered her into her arms.

“You came,” Lorrain whispered, violet-grey eyes blurry with tears born of disbelief and desperate relief. “I knew you would come for me.”

“Of course.” Elara tightened her hold. “Together was the only way we were ever leaving Jarovina. We promised.”

Lorrain sobbed for a long while, distress breaking free in shuddering waves, and Elara held her until the shaking eased and her breathing slowed. It was the same way Lorrain had once held her when Mother’s shouting had made the world feel too difficult to bear.

Between broken gasps, Lorrain told her how it happened. It had been early morning, before even Hanurath had fully set. She had stepped outside to rescue laundry left out in the rain. That was when she felt a frost creep into her head, an irresistible pull urging her toward the woods. Her body had moved before her will could object. The moment she crossed beneath the trees, hands seized her, and the next thing she knew, she was in the wagon.