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Galantia swallowed audibly beside me, running her palms over the train of her dress. “How… how much of these shadows do you want me to absorb?”
Malyr tossed the carcass of his meal into the underbrush behind him. “A kingdom full.”
Nodding slowly, Asker gave a long, drawn-outmm-hmm. “Yes, her void is very deep and strong, indeed. The idea has merit.”
“You want me to… lift a shadowy curse from an entire kingdom?Me?” Galantia’s breathing quickened along with her heart, which had her placing her hand to her chest. “I’ve never even lifted the damn lid on my privy.”
Malyr’s gaze fell to her fingers, watching how she nervously massaged her aching bond before he lifted his eyes to hers. “Lorn and I will help you by controlling the shadows there, funneling them into your void.”
“Presume it is worth trying.” Asker sat up straight, his glistening gaze losing itself somewhere in the forest’s darkness. “By all the stars out there, it would be a fine thing to patrol the Tarred Road once more. I have seen many places in my life, but none as beautiful as our Valtaris.”
“Malyr said he wants you to try; he didn’t say he expects you to succeed, and especially not right away.” I combed my fingers through Galantia’s strands, tattered from the wind, letting whatever shadows I currently had at my disposal stream into her void. Not much, not even enough to get her to lower her hand. “It’ll be a good opportunity to test your void beyond what you’ve been doing so far, hmm?”
She nodded, albeit slowly. “I think I’ll try to sleep now.”
“Get some rest, child,” Marla said, then looked at me. “Sebian?”
“Hmm?”
“In my satchel on the nest,” she started. “Get the salve from there. It’ll help with her soreness.”
“I’ll be right with you,” I whispered to Galantia. “Wait in your tent for me.”
ChapterTwenty-Three
Galantia
Present Day, a copse of trees
Ilet the shadowy flap of my tent fall closed behind me, my pulse still rushing through my veins. Malyr wanted me to remove those mysterious shadows I knew next to nothing about.A kingdom full.
How large even was Vhaerya?
I undid the laces of my dress, let it pool by my feet, and stepped out of it, clad only in my undergown. What if Malyr was mistaken, and my void wasn’t nearly deep enough for that?
But what if it was?
It might return the Ravens—us—to our home. And wasn’t that what Marla said my birth mother might have wanted? For me to fix this? To come home? Valtaris was home, was it not?
Sebian stepped into the tent, its darkness interrupted only by the orange hue that drifted through the fabric from the nearby fires that crackled throughout the camp, the tub of salve Marla had mentioned sitting in his palm. “No doubt you’ll wake sore regardless, but this should help some.”
“My arms and back are killing me.” I sighed, reaching to the black ties on the front of my shift. “Still, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Being up there in the sky, drifting over miles upon miles of land. It’s… magical.”
“Here. Let me do it.” Sebian stepped in front of me, one hand skillfully yanking the ties wider, his eyes fixed on mine. “Sit on the blankets. More comfortable.”
I slipped out of my shoes, then let my toes search for the cushiony edge before I lowered myself into the ocean of thick shadowcloth. “Why do most of you sleep in these… nests?”
Boots abandoned, Sebian kneeled on the cushions behind me, shoving my shift down on one shoulder. “For the nestlings, sweetheart.”
I almost moaned at the way he gathered up my hair, twirling it around his hand before he rested it over my other shoulder. “Nestlings?”
“There’s just no telling when a baby will shift for the first time.” His thumb spread some of the salve down along one side of my neck, pressed deeper into my skin around the shoulder, then worked the tight, tense muscle. “Even a fall from the height of a bed could seriously injure nestlings if they start hopping around.”
“That makes sense.”
“You did well today,” Sebian praised, his heat blanketing my back. “Never forget to keep your eyes open and always watch the skies, even the winds above you. Too many predators up there.”
I let my head drift sideways, mind numbing at the pleasure-pain of his touch. “Falcons.”
