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But I chose to trust him, and he knew that. Had he intended to betray me the entire time?
Mist begins to move in, first, little more than wisps over tree roots and loam. My head turns, looking in every direction, before I realized we are in the thick of it. Nyx doesn’t seem to be affected by the fog, following the pack without the slightest direction from Oliver.
“It might help if you close your eyes,” he whispers, almost as if he’s afraid to break the quiet, and tightens his hold to keep me from falling.
I do, and it does help… mostly.
The mist creates an eerie silence that swallows the world. For several minutes, my thoughts roll and repeat. So loud without the company of voices or paws padding around us.
“Oliver,” I say.
“Hmm?”
“I am going to stop Elizabeth.”
His posture goes ridged against my back. After a brief hesitation, he says, “It’s pointless to try saving him now and I will not risk the lives of my people for a traitor.”
I promised Alaric I would go back for him. I don’t even know if he can be saved… or if he wants to be. But he is not the only reason to return to Nightwich one final time.
“She killed my family and left me to die.” I twist within his hold and face him, craning my neck. “With him back under her control, she won’t be satisfied until he is crowned, and his powers are hers.”
Oliver is quiet as he considers.
I know he is thinking about the pack. The risk, the consequences of leaving things as they are, and of acting against her. They attacked Nightwich once, attempting to get to her because there’s no telling what she will do if she succeeds in taking Alaric’s power. We have to try again.
A thought comes to me. Twists my stomach into knots.
“Something happened when she stabbed me,” I say slowly. “If I was close enough to death to break the oath bond, she will get exactly what she wants.”
Oliver’s arm around me tightens, making it harder to breathe. “How can you be sure that is what happened?”
The truth is, I can’t. I prod Varin to ask, but their presence is like a cat curled up on a high shelf, out of reach. I wonder how much of their power they used to heal me. This cannot go on much longer, but it seems we may have less time than I thought. Yet another reason for why this must come to an end once and for all.
“There is only one reason I didn’t die back there,” I say. Varin kept me alive. Without their power, most likely, I would have been dead before Oliver and the others reached me.
Once more, I go over everything Elizabeth said and did, doing my best to avoid getting caught up in the worst of it. There is something important about what happened. A detail, small but vital. If only I could put my finger on it.
“What can you tell me about that perfume?” I ask.
“Why?” The question is slow. Cautious.
“Because I think it’s the key to everything.” I twist in his hold to face him. “During the attack, Elizabeth ordered all humans within the castle killed because she believed it was a human uprising. And in the field, Elizabeth mentioned something aboutifI had brought an army—she thought Alaric and I came alone.”
“If she doesn’t already know the truth, she will know soon enough when your vampire spills our secrets,” he says bitterly.
My chest squeezes in my chest. I cannot deny that Alaric handed her the dagger.
Memories of the new moon festival flash. Whispered words. Caresses filled with desperate need. Was any of it real, or was it all a deception to get back to Elizabeth? The possibility that all of it could have been an act for him when it was real for me pierces like an arrow.
I won’t think of what it means if he chose to deceive me, intending for me to die. The frayed string of hope is all that is keeping my heart from breaking into a million jagged splinters.
We must choose to trust each other.
Despite the evidence to the contrary, I cannot believe he is capable of such heartless betrayal.
“I don’t think he will.”
Oliver scoffs derisively. “He handed you over to Elizabeth and didn’t lift a finger to save you.”
