“I delivered something the duke had contracted me for,” Terena said, her voice cool. “Anything else?”
He eyed her for so long, buzzing roared in her ears and beneath her skin as his eyes narrowed on her.
“Was Prince Lerek your lover?”
Fuck.Fuck.
The words cut her like daggers. His name on Daris’s lips hitting her heart hard. It broke open as she struggled for air.
“Gods, what you must think of me,” she laughed sarcastically. “First, Croak. Now you ask me about Le?—”
Her lips clamped shut and she made to move past him when he shot his hand out and grasped her arm. His clear blue eyes searched hers, a look like sorrow or pity filling them before they flashed with something else.
Something that looked like guilt.
Terena had no desire to have him feeling anything for her. Especially not guilt.
But Terena was guilty herself. Because his presence had made her forget—every time—that she had lost Lerek. That she loved him. That she ached and mourned him, the guilt tearing at her whenever she stopped thinking about him.
And thought about the man in front of her, instead.
“Terena—”
Terena was cold, so cold she shook, the blood gone from her face, pooled low in her belly.
She became dizzy and sick. The bile rose in her throat and she turned, looking around wildly.
Her eyes landed on Nyx a split second before she jerked her arm from Daris’s grip and launched forward, grabbing hold of the bridle as she leaped onto the saddle and thundered off. Nyx’s head tossed back, her agitation matching Terena’s as she tried to distance herself from Daris and the guilt she couldn’t escape.
Terena thought she heard him shout out her name, but she did not stop.
They traveledin silence much of the following day. It had been awkward when they’d broken camp, Terena and her friends keeping separate from the Liodari, the battle lines drawn. When she happened to catch Jason’s eye, she only offered a tight smile before looking away.
As dusk settled around them, Croak broke the silence.
“Do you hear that?” he said, tilting his head as he slowed his horse to a stop.
Rydon turned to him, then looked over his shoulder.
“I hear it,” Gabriol said, his voice low.
They all stopped and listened.
Ahead of them, Michael glanced back and called out.
Rydon held up a hand for him and motioned for silence.
Michael whistled at Jason and Daris, and the three of them stopped and turned their mounts back when Michael gestured with his head.
A scream reached them just then.
“It’s coming from there!” Gabriol yelled out and rode off. The others were only a moment behind.
They reached a ravine and Terena leaped from Nyx, pulling herbow over her shoulder as another scream—pitched high like a child’s—pierced the quiet gloom around them.
Terena ran to the ravine edge and dropped to the ground to peer down.
Rydon and Gabriol crouched at her side. Croak cursed over her shoulder as they saw the boy at the bottom, his right leg at an unnatural angle. He was small—from this distance all Terena could tell was he was young, maybe five, and from his ragged screams he must have been down there awhile.
