“Well, he’s not an actual raven, he’s an amalgam of arcana and the idea of—”
Corben snatched the piece from Amma and began to tear at it, bolstering it between his talons as he swallowed.
“Dark gods, you greedy, little monster. Haven’t you gotten fat enough?”
Amma snickered. “Actually, I have a job for him that might help.” She dug into her pouch and pulled out the ripped-up bit of tunic tied in a bundle and held it like a sacred thing for Damien to see. “Guess what I found.”
His thin brows raised.
“Liathau seeds.”
“What? You didn’t. How? I thought they were a gift from your goddess? Wait, did you actually conjure them? Amma, this is—”
His excitement made her laugh, waving a hand at him to stop. “No, no, I just climbed a tree and got them. There was a snake in it, but nothing I couldn’t handle. Do you think Corben can bring these to the greenhouse in Faebarrow?”
Damien looked as though he didn’t entirely believe her, but nodded, and he threaded a hand back into the raven’s feathers, the other taking hers. The rush of magic that filled Amma then was so like being home, even without Laurel’s voice, that she nearly cried. Corben left them with the small sack gripped safely in his talons, and then when they were alone, the two turned to one another.
“I do hope that was…satisfactory,” said Damien.
She nodded, smile so wide it hurt her face. Just hearing Laurel’s voice, and Perry’s to boot, had brought such a joy to her heart, let alone what she’d been told. “The barony sounds safe, Cedric’s gone, and if the remaining liathau have some time and special care, they might be okay, and you,”—her breath caught as she swallowed back the lump in her throat—“you did that.”
“No, I only assistedyou.”
Amma shook her head, biting her lip, heart racing. There was no use in trying to hide her eagerness for him anymore, and Laurel had said it as plainly as anything anyway. She closed the space between them, no longer needing corked-up confidence. Amma had noticed a change in Damien, but she too had changed in their short time apart, and now she felt truly free. And what good was freedom if it wasn’t put to use?
“Bloodthorne!” a voice called loudly from down in the broken ruins outside, “show yourself!”
CHAPTER 23
TRACKING AND TRESPASSING
If Damien had rolled his eyes any harder, they would have fallen out of his head and bounced right down into the Abyss—at least, that’s what his father would have said.
He was going to kill them this time, pity be damned. Irritating him was bad enough, but the Righteous Sentries’ latest interruption would absolutely prove to be their last, not least of all because the ravenous look Amma was giving him had shifted right off her face at hearing their voices. He could already see the Sentries in his mind, mangled corpses floating in pools of blood in the last lights of the evening down in the ruins below. He dropped the frond and whipped away from the small window in the hut to pull on his leathers.
“How did they find ushere?” Amma was bent at the waist, peeking around the edge of the window. Her skin was still flushed, and she was breathing in that way that made Damien feel like a predator going after a small animal. He almost dropped his armor right there and pulled off his tunic again, but shook the temptation to pounce on her away.
“Oh, who bloody knows? Luck has apparently smiled upon them, but it will prove to be misfortune when I’m finished.” He strapped on his bracer, ensuring his dagger was in place, then paused. Howhadthey found them? The group were little more than bumbling idiots playing at being heroes. They couldn’t track a query in the middle of an open field much less through The Wilds and into the Innomina Wildwood.
“They’re getting a little cranky,” warned Amma, gnawing on her nails.
Damien hopped over on one foot, pulling a boot on the other. She’d moved just enough of the dangling leaves away to reveal the ruins below. That elven mage had called up a ball of fire in his palm, bright and licking dangerously high, the knight’s sword was glowing with that ridiculous, holy light, and their priestess was even looking more confident, the three of them standing back-to-back in the center of the ruins. Predictably, their sneaky one was nowhere to be seen.
Damien yanked the last strap of his armor with a grunt. What if they’d shown up even half a day sooner, before he had come back, and gotten their hands on Amma? He had spent enough time apart from her for a lifetime—no onewas taking her away from him again. He balled a fist and there was already noxscura there, pliable and hot in his hand.
At the edge of the ruins, Kalani appeared, her staff held defensively and glowing at its end. The set of identical witches stepped in from the opposite side, hands empty, but looking menacing with their dead eyes and stiff postures. The Righteous Sentries called out that they were looking for Damien, specifically, and that the tribe of witches was in violation of orders of the realm by harboring a criminal.
“We don’t serve the realm,” called Kalani, and Soot padded up beside her from the shadows, ears back and hackles raised.
Beside him, Amma’s skin was warm as she placed a hand on his arm. He swallowed, looking down at it, then to her. “I don’t want anyone getting killed because of me,” she said, words laced with the same delicacy of her fingers on his sleeve. “No one else, not over a misunderstanding.”
Fuck, why did she have to go and say a thing like that? As if she knew exactly what he meant to do and the power her words held over those actions. “But…” He sighed.I really want towas, perhaps, not the most stalwart thing to say at that moment even though it was exactly what ran through his mind.
The small shake of Amma’s head was all he needed.
“Fine.” He couldn’t manage to keep the drip of disappointment out of his words. “But stay hidden here. I will see to diffusing the situation.”
Amma gave him a wary look but then nodded. He hadn’t proven himself a good negotiator in their history, but before Amma, he’d worked his way out of worse situations. Anger never helped, but cold calculation did, and he paused in the hut’s doorway to collect his thoughts. If nothing else, he needed to find out how the Sentries found them so it wouldn’t happen again. And then, perhaps, reason with them.
