AllFreeNovel
Share Us
This wasn’t the reaction he’d expected. “You’re not angry?”
“No,” she said. Lily squeezed his hand tightly and then let it go. “I have to find Rowan,” she said, and ran into the throngs of people preparing for battle.
She felt her way to him, calling out in mindspeak, and quickening her pace until she was bumping into people as she passed. Everywhere she looked, scared people were girding themselves for war. Couples were embracing. Children were being separated from parents they might never see again. Friends were exchanging daggers and swearing oaths to look after the others’ families if only one of them came back. Lily could hear it all as she ran past. Her claimed were whispering about their fears and their loves and their losses in her mind.
As she plowed on, seeing the surprised stares she was drawing, Lily finally figured out how he’d always been able to find her. She’d always know where he was because it was where she most wanted to be. Rowan was standing in a clearing surrounded by braves, distributing arms.
He spun around as she skidded to a stop a few feet from him.
“Rowan,” she said.
Everyone dropped what they were doing to watch. Caleb, Tristan, Una, and Breakfast caught up with Lily a moment later and regarded her cautiously while she confronted Rowan.
“What happened?” he asked, his eyes worried, and the sword in his hand drooping by his side.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, breathless.
“Tell you what?” he asked, and then confusion turned to understanding. His eyes flicked to Tristan. “You told her.”
Lily strode forward, her cheeks red and her eyes shining with unshed tears. “How could you keep that from me? Especially after what Lillian did to you?” Her voice broke. Words like “hypocrisy” and “irony” floated around in her head. Instead she inarticulately blurted out, “It’s like . . . the exact same thing only backward!”
She stormed right up to Rowan and he braced himself, like he thought Lily was going to hit him. Instead she threw herself into his arms and kissed him. After one stunned moment he dropped the weapon in his hand and lifted her up against his chest, holding her off the ground as he kissed her back.
“When this is over, you and I are going to sit down and tell each other every secret we’re keeping from the other,” Rowan said when he finally set her back down.
“Okay.” She smiled up at him. “You go first,” she said, winning a laugh from him.
“Ah, guys?” Una interrupted. “So glad you two worked it out, but we need a little more direction here. What’s the plan?”
One quick squeeze that promised a proper reconciliation later, and Rowan released Lily.
“Tristan,” he said, every inch the general again. “I want volunteers who can handle heights and who are good shots with a crossbow to ride the raptors.” He turned around and glared at the rabbit-like stares he was receiving from the ranks. “Step up! If you don’t volunteer I’ll hand you over to Una and she’ll put you on the back of a lion.” He grinned. “If the Pride doesn’t decide to eat you first.”
“You heard the man,” Una repeated crisply as she clapped her hands, snapping the gawkers to attention. “Raptor riders with Tristan, Pride riders with me.”
“Caleb. I need you to coordinate between Alaric and the Pack,” Rowan said. “I’ll introduce you to Alpha, the Pack’s leader. Are you going to be okay fighting with the wolves?” Caleb nodded once. He didn’t like his assignment, but he knew what was at stake. “They speak our language, you know. That’s why I’m putting the Outlanders and the wolves together. I think we have more in common than you realize,” Rowan told him. Caleb looked stunned by this for a moment and then he seemed to rethink it. Rowan turned to Breakfast. “And you—”
“Guard Lily while she’s on the pyre,” Breakfast finished for him. “This ain’t my first rodeo.”
“Exactly,” Rowan said, and turned back to Lily, his demeanor softening. “Reach out to Lillian. Stay linked with her. The two of you are going to have to work as one for our armies to synchronize.”
Lily called out to Lillian.
I’m here, Lily said. My army is in the redwood grove.
I’m climbing my pyre now. Keep your army hidden until I tell you to join us and then stay open to my call. You’re going to have to jump your army out of the blast zone as soon as I tell you to.
Listen to me. You can’t use the bomb, Lillian, and if you’re counting on using it to save you in the battle you’re going to die. Carrick—
Lily felt heat and pain
as the fire rose around Lillian and their connection was severed as all of Lillian’s concentration went into changing heat into force. Lily called her over and over, but Lillian didn’t answer. She looked up at the swaying treetops, unsure if Lillian had understood her. Lillian’s witch wind began to howl through the grove, whispering and moaning around the branches like ghosts summoned to the battlefield.
Lily looked around her, taking this one moment to be right where she was, right at that moment. Rowan was marshaling her army into shape. Men, woman, and Woven were running this way and that. Axes were being put to the trunks of the redwoods and every thump of the metal biting into the venerable wood was like a sin inside her heart. But this was war, and Lily knew that the trees were just the first of many to die this day.
Toshi, Lily called. Where are you?
She caught a glimpse of the streets blurring past as Toshi ran through Bower City.
