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“I know exactly how you feel, princess. I know.”
* * *
By the timemy legs would hold me up, Zor had dressed and gone to check on Tristan’s progress. I didn’t know where Tavion disappeared to, but Raz promised me as soon as he found a shirt, he’d find the wolf.
After that last bout of lovemaking, I was still boneless and a bit shell-shocked. Not that I regretted a second of what we’d done. But we had to get moving.
My stomach growled and Raziel winced, rustling around on the other side of the room, then coming back with a sad little apple and a small hunk of cheese. “We saved these for you. There’s no food here; we’ve looked. Once we get up into the mountains, we’ll hunt something down and then you can eat, but until then…I’m sorry, this is all there is.”
Gods, none of us had eaten? For how long?
“The good news is, Tristan heated the bath while you were asleep; the water should still be hot.” Raz dragged his gaze down my body, his eyes darkening.
“You’ll have to make it fast. We leave as soon as Tristan finishes saddling up the horses. I expect he’ll be a cranky bastard since he didn’t get to sleep in like the rest of us.” A wink and he was gone, shutting the door behind him.
I limped to the bathing room, stiff from…everything, I supposed.
I sank into the steaming tub, savoring the heat.
I replayed everything while I scrubbed off days’ worth of grime, picking apart each and every debacle, looking for all the things I’d done wrong. Like losing the keystone, for starters.
I had to be the world’s worst guardian of important relics. Obviously, I couldn’t be trusted with anything powerful, and yet I’d ended up with this magic that everyone seemed to want, except for me.
Maybe I could lose this, too, like the stone, and go live happily on a farm where no one could ever find me and wars and magic would be a thing of the past.
I was getting out of the tub when I froze at my reflection in the mirror, realizing why my arm felt strange. I got a good look at the raised tree that had somehow appeared on my arm overnight, enough to make out branches, a trunk, and the fact that the marking was white.
What in the name of all that was holy?
Even worse, the tree appeared to be glowing. No, more like glittering, as if every branch held the light of a million tiny stars.
And why did I have two marks when everyone else only had one?
I toweled myself off.
Maybe I was just lucky. I snorted. “Right.Because luck has definitely been something I’ve had in abundance my entire life.”
50
ANARIA
Water was still dripping down my back when I stepped into an empty bedroom, which was too bad because I was freaking out over this glowing tree etched into my arm.
I wished Raz or Zor were here.
Even Tavion’s wolf would have been preferable to suffering through this meltdown alone. But Tristan was yelling the horses were ready, and I didn’t have time for my freakout, not when I needed clothes.
Something told me the mark had something to do with Adele’sintense secret, just like something told me I wouldn’t like the explanation of why I had this godsdamned thing on my arm. I picked through the pile of dresses, obviously laid out with care, obviously by Adele, rejecting every single one.
I missed my leathers.
A foolish thing to worry about, but I did.
Most of these would fit me well enough, and warmth filled my chest as I pictured Adele picking them out one by one, bringing them in here, setting them out for me. Having a mother wasn’t something I’d ever allowed myself to wish for, but now that she was part of my life…
I blew out a long, shaky breath.
Now I had one more thing to lose. Because this cruel world gave with one hand and took with the other and I couldn’t allow myself to hope for better.
