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“But—” Alaric began.
I jerked my chin toward the door, “Out,” I said again, more firmly, and he and the rest of them dropped what they were doing with exaggerated sighs and rolls of their eyes to stomp out into the cold.
“What is it?” Alaric asked the moment we were outside.
“Ask,” I said, leveling my gaze him, letting it flit to the others. “I know what you all want—so ask me.”
I crossed my arms. Tried to quell the fire raging to life within my core.
Kade stepped forward, swallowing, “We should be at the front.”
“And I shouldn’t?” I snapped.
“Liana, youcan’t.”
I shook my head, “Why? Because it isn’t safe? Because I coulddie? Well so could any of you!”
“It’s not the same and you know it,” Finn said, a dangerous tone to his voice I’d never heard from him before. It wasn’t longing I saw in him. It was pain. And I knew the only way he’d be rid of it.
Maybe he’s right…but I didn’t have to like it.
“Go, then!” I yelled, “Go, if you want to go. I won’t stop you.”
“Liana,” Alaric said tentatively, stepping in. Reaching out.
I recoiled from his touch, “Ifanythinghappens to any of you…”
“Tiernan will stay here with you,” Alaric said, the commanding tone of captain seeping back into his voice. My blond warrior stiffened, his lips pursing and fists clenching, but he said nothing.
That was it, then? They would go. There wereactuallygoing to leave me.
“We’ll come back,” Finn said, nodding to himself as though it was him who needed the convincing, “I promise.”
“Don’t make me promises you can’t keep.”
I couldn’t say goodbye to them. Iwouldn’t.I took in the sight of them, their polished steel and leather armor covering the taught and coiled muscle below. Alaric’s steel-blue eyes, the color of a winter sky. Kade and Finn’s honey brown eyes that glowed gold when they took flight, or when they used their Graces. The shapes of their faces.
They were the strongest warriors in the Horde. And Alaric was a leader of his own regiment when he was in the Horde army, too. They’d come back, wouldn’t they?
My lungs ached, and my heart rebelled against the thought of them leaving, squeezing painfully in my chest—making my eyes sting with tears.
“Go before I change my mind,” I spoke through gritting teeth, unable to meet any of their gazes. And when none of them moved right away, I clenched my fists and shouted, “Go!”
…and then they were gone, and I collapsed into the dirt, clutching at my chest. The tearing there almost too much to bear. Tiernan’s arms came around me, stoking my back. My hair. Whispering sweet words of reassurance I couldn’t hear.
They would come back.
They had to.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Liana
Killing does something to your soul. Tears it. The damage is irreparable. I knew because I’d killed Thana. And I would carry that scar—thatblack markon my soul forever. Which is how I knew if—no—whenthey returned, even if they didn’t bear physical scars, they would bear mental ones. They wouldn’t be the same warriors who left the small village.
War changed the hearts of men—that’s what the seven sisters taught me. Would this war change me, too?IfI survived long enough to see it through?
I slammed the bucket of water down onto the table, letting it slosh over the sides. Dipping the brush in, I scrubbed at the rough wood-grain of the table. But the water kept freezing, and then boiling, and then freezing again. I threw the scrub brush back into the bucket and rested my palms on the table, trying to catch my breath. The wood froze solid under my fingertips.
