“I’m so sorry for knocking you out. You were?—”
“I know.” A sigh shook its way out of Hedda as she tried to sit up. “It’s like a nightmare. Like I was trapped inside while someone else controlled me. The things I said?—”
“Weren’t you.” Lunara steadied her as she swayed. “There was something in your tonic I can’t identify, but we’ll talk about that later. How are you feeling?”
Hedda snorted. “Stupid question, Sorcerit.” She pulled away and scrubbed both hands over her face. “Where are they?”
“I sent them off to give you space.” Lunara sent a pointed glance into the trees. “Brand was particularly displeased with me.”
“Males usually are when you try to tell them what to do, especially those ones.”
“Would you like to see them?”
“No,” Hedda answered. “Not yet.”
Lunara felt more than heard Brand’s sharp gasp of disbelief. She tried not to feel too smug about it.
They stayed like that for a long time, Hedda staring across the sun-dappled camp as Lunara held her hand. Even the birds seemed to realize it was a moment for mourning, their calls distant and subdued.
Hedda drew a deep, sharp breath and said, “I think I’m ready as I’m ever going to be.”
Lunara had barely detached herself before Brand was there, dropping to his knees beside Hedda and wrapping his arms around her.
That was when Hedda lost it.
Heaving sobs wracked her body as she clung to him and poured out her agony. Lunara tried to look away, but it was too beautiful, even in its misery. Exactly the kind of thing she’d been missing out on all her long, lonely life.
It’s just as easy to cry on your own, without the awkwardness of dealing with another person when you’re done.
But being held… Knowing they felt the pain too and that she wasn’t alone in it… Talking to someone other than herself…
Complicated. Unsafe.
It was the strangest thing, but—watching Brand and Hedda in their rocking embrace, hearing his whispers and how theycalmed his Second Commander little by little—it was easy to ignore what she’d always thought was the wiser part of herself. To realize, for maybe the first time in her life, her heart wasn’t threatening to pound its way out of her chest at the prospect of someone knowing her. That she was perfectly content to sit there and take them in and wait for whatever came next.
Madness.
A large hand appeared in her periphery. “Come on then, witchling. Up you go.”
Another unexpected turn of events. Magnus had been kind but wary, up to now. Apparently, saving his life had softened him towards her somewhat. He might even be a friend.
Fool.
He helped Lunara to her feet and offered his arm as support while they retreated to the far side of camp, where Thaddeus was waiting.
“We need to get moving as soon as they’re done,” Magnus murmured. “The day is wearing on, and we’ve got a long while before we’ll see any rest.”
Lunara inwardly cringed. Every inch of her already ached, her bones weary to their marrow. “I’ll gather everything up.”
At least manipulating her pocket of the ether barely taxed her power. It was the work of a moment to clear away their abandoned bedrolls and blankets, the empty pans and remnants of stale food, trying and failing to ignore the fact that everything was exactly as she and Brand had left it the morning before.
She wasn’t the only exhausted one, and they still had the trek to the portal before they made it back to Straelon. Back to its Demon King, and the unavoidable task of informing him that his cousin was dead.
Shite.
“Think my da is back home or still with Lyriat?” Thaddeus asked from his perch on the ground, shredding the green bark off of a sapling stick.
Magnus snorted. “I think he’s wherever he suspects you’re most likely to show up, knowing you’ve sat there and tried to figure out how best to avoid him. Accept it, lad. You’re in for a lashing no matter which toll you throw into the portal.”
