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Chapter Twenty-Five
We left the palace under cover of darkness. The four of us took to the skies, me in the arms of Finn, and Alaric carried by Kade and looking wholly undignified. It would have been too simple for anyone to track us had we gone on foot.
They described the place where we headed as modest, but secluded—and secluded was what we needed.
They told Tiernan nothing—against my better judgement, but Alaric said he couldn’t risk anyone knowing where we were going, or even that we’d left at all.
Finn adjusted me in his arms, tucking my legs around his waist. “Comfortable?” he asked me, wrapping his arms around my middle. I was glad I’d accepted Alaric’s cloak before we left, even with it, the chill of the night was almost enough to set my teeth chattering. At least in that position, tucked close to Finn’s expansive chest, we could share body heat, and I sighed at the warmth as it seeped into my skin.
“Much better,” I crooned, nuzzling my cold nose against the bare skin above his vest.
He pressed me tighter into him, planting a soft kiss in my hair, “We’re almost there, look,” he whispered.
I turned but saw nothing that looked like a homestead. We were miles away from the palace now, having flown for nearly an hour. We passed the last sleepy village a while back. Since then it had been nothing but forest.
We were nearing the shoreline on the eastern edge of Meloran—so much different from the western side’s tall cliffs and rocky terrain. The forest broke way to sandy beaches that seemed to sparkle in the moonlight. Waves gently lapped at the shore, and there, squatting in a copse of trees near the water, stood a cottage.
It was small, no more than the size of my parlour back at the palace. Moss covered its thatched roof, which looked to be in need of repair. The structure beneath was made of stone brick, and the mortar looked like it had seen better days. We dropped to the ground in front of the door, and I nearly tripped when Finn lowered my feet to the earth, off balance from the long flight.
“It belonged to my mother,” Alaric said, leading us inside, “No one else knows where it is. You should be safe here.”
The interior was pleasantly surprising, and larger than it looked from above.
Kade lit a fire in the hearth—the task taking him seconds—bathing the room in an orange glow. It was an open space, with a sitting area, a small kitchen, and a long settee pushed close to the fireplace. There were two other rooms, one to the right and left, which meant one had to be a bathing room, and the other, a bedchamber.
I fell onto the settee, a plume of dust rising around me, and leaned in to feel the warmth of the fire.
Kade came to sit next to me, and tugged me onto his lap, “You’re like a damned icicle,” he exclaimed, “Finn, you idiot, you should’ve said something. We could have traded.”
“I’m fin—” I started, but then Kade used his Grace to warm me and I quivered in delight, a sound somewhere between a sigh and a moan sliding out.
“There you go,” Kade said, and tucked one of his hands under my rear, making me gasp at the instant relief from the cold—and the primal desire he was awakening between my legs.
“One of us has to go back,” Finn said from somewhere behind us, “Question Ronan.”
“Kade,” Alaric said, “You’ll head back first, and when you return, I’ll go with Finn and you’ll stay here with Liana.”
“Does he have to leave right now?” I whined, pulling him tighter against me to make the warmth last longer.
Kade laughed, his ochre eyes glinting in the firelight, “I should.” He disentangled himself from me, giving my rear a playful squeeze, “You’re all mine tomorrow,” he whispered in my ear before he stood. My stomach flipped at the promise in his words.
“I heard that,” Alaric scolded, but said nothing more to his sentry before Kade was back out the door, wings spread, soaring back the way we’d come.
“Try again,”Finn said, popping a few more berries into his mouth, “Think cold thoughts.”
But the water stayed water, no matter how hard I tried to turn it to ice. “This is pointless,” I stated, beyond frustrated. It was late morning, and we had been at it since dawn. It was Alaric’s suggestion I used the time we had in seclusion to coax my Grace into emerging without the prying eyes at court. “I can’t do it.”
“Not with that attitude,” Alaric said, entering the cottage with two rabbits hanging limp from his fist. He set to cleaning the animals, getting a pot of water to boil over the fire. Seeing him do such a mundane task was strange and made me wonder what his life was like before he enlisted in the Horde armies, and before I threw him to the wolves at court.
Finn moved behind me, and rubbed the ache out of my shoulders, “Try one more time, if it doesn’t work, we’ll try something else.”
It was hard to focus with Finn’s hands kneading me into a trance, but I tried setting my hands back down on the table next to the clay bowl. I took a deep breath and pulled from within my core, picturing a force like a great ever-spinning ball of ice like Finn told me to.
My chest grew cold, and an electrifying energy sped through my veins, my back arched at the release of power and my eyes flew open. Frost blossomed from my palms, freezing the table—spreading up onto the clay bowl. I pushed harder, forcing the ice from my body. The bowl shattered under the immense cold and water flooded the table. Finn jumped back, and I pulled my hands away, breaking out of the trancelike state.
“You did it,” Alaric exclaimed, rushing over to lift me from the ground in a crushing embrace. “Ice. Your Grace is ice, Liana!”
Ice.I had finally done it. I was Graced. My ancestorshadn’tabandoned me. Relief rushed through me, detangling all the tensed muscles the stress of not knowing had created.
