I crouched in front of the children and smiled when one of them peeked from behind his mother. Their mother angled her body in front of the youngest, whose curiosity had him stepping from behind her protection.
I bit back a sigh at the scent of her fear, and when I spoke, I made sure to keep my voice low and calm. “I have three little girls back home. They’re a couple of years older than you, but maybe you can be friends with them.”
The little boy looked up at his mother in question, and she ran a hand through his messy hair while he squeezed his gloved hands together.
“That would be great,” she answered, and I stood as she chewed on the side of her chapped lips. “Thank you for taking us in, and I want you to know I’m sorry about . . .”
I shook my head before she continued. “We’re not talking about that right now,” I said with a brittle snap.
Not when I was leaving my people behind to help someone whose husband had aided in abducting them. I didn’t know their living conditions or if they were getting enough food or rest, but I did know the longer I left them exposed to iron, the sooner each of them would meet their death.
And I was walking away from them.
It was wrong.
As if he’d heard my thoughts, Alastor said, “I’ll leave Koa and Agthor to watch the compound. What would you have them do if the humans move your people?”
Kill them, I wanted to say.Take out any human responsible for harm or discomfort done to the fae and rescue my people.
But . . . “If the lirio act without us, it’ll alert the soldiers that we know where they are.” I bit the inside of my cheek, hating the words I had to say. “Right now, we have the element of surprise. The lirio can’t do anything except watch, but if the soldiers move them and the lirio follow them, at least we’ll know where they go.”
Working with the lirio was strange. While I’d originallybeen reluctant to rely on them, they could go undetected and gather intel, both of which we desperately needed.
If Nalari were here . . .
She wasn’t, so it didn’t matter. I tried not to think about my Guardian.
It was foolish of me to reach out to her, knowing her half of our connection would be empty. Even expecting it didn’t lighten the agony that pierced through my soul when the emptiness met me.
She’d been my Guardian for eight years, and she’d left me, proving what she’d always told me. We weren’t friends. She’d been my Guardian, and I her ward, and she’d left me because her duty to me had vanished once we learned the truth about the dragons.
I wanted to hate her for it, but there wasn’t any room among all the pain that festered and grew inside me.
When Sebastian’s wife turned to talk to her sons, I saw the bump that rounded her stomach. I sniffed the air to confirm the obvious and almost laughed at myself for not hearing the extra heartbeat.
“You’re pregnant.” It came out gentle with a reverent tone I couldn’t hide.
But children were rare in Niev, and few couples were able to conceive. And too many of those awarded such a special gift never made it to full-term.
She peered down at her belly and gave it a gentle rub. “I am.”
My throat bobbed when I focused on the unborn babe’s strong heartbeat.
“We’ll make sure you see a healer in Niev,” I told her. “They’ll monitor you and your babe’s health.”
When the youngest of the two boys started shivering, I ushered the family closer to me.
“I need each of you, including the young males, to hold on to me so I can take us to the tear in the veil,” I told them.
It wasn’t the same tear I’d created at the food bank Teddy had worked at in Colina Verde, but one in the surrounding woods of my old region, where we could travel unnoticed by the military who still guarded the area.
Creating tears in the veil was a rare form of magic that only the dragons possessed, but as a royal, my parents, uncle, and I had been gifted the ability after reaching maturity at the age of 119. Any one of us could create a tear with a slash of our hand joined with our magic. I simply needed a beacon of sorts to focus on, and I could go to any realm I chose.
While Alastor and the two lirio going back with us touched my shoulders and arms, Sebastian and his wife hung back. They wore similar cautious expressions.
“We’ll go first,” Alastor said, also taking them in. Shadows skulked from him, my toes going uncomfortably cold when they slithered over my boot. He called his shadows back, restraining them beneath his fingertips while they pressed against his skin. “We can scan the area before you get there.” It came out impassive, but his shadows trembled with his irritation.
With how dark the night was, neither Sebastian nor his wife noticed.
