She shook her head so softly he almost missed it. “If… if we survive this war, we’re going back home. We’ve been afraid to go back—we weren’t sure who set us up as children and sold us to Havlands, but… it’s time.”
That was it? He almost laughed.
“So I’ll come with you,” he declared. “There won’t be anything here for me if you’re not in this realm. I’ve traveled far and wide before. I’ll do it again.”
The urge to laugh vanished with the tears in Pellie’s eyes.
“I… I don’t know if you should.”
Heat started racing through his veins, and not the pleasant kind like before.
“Why not?” Kerym felt like an angry child, but he didn’t understand what this little witch was talking about. Of course he’d fucking come with her. He belonged to her now—perhaps more than he’d belonged to anyone.
“I think you need to go home,” Pellie said in her soft, beautiful voice.
“I don’t have a home,” Kerym snapped. “Home will be wherever you are. Don’t you understand that?”
“Have you tried siphoning anything other than people before? I mean, apart from the book yesterday?” Pellie stepped closer to him again, her head tilted.
“No. But what does that have anything to fucking do with you leaving?” Kerym knew he needed to calm down, but it felt like this beautiful woman was slipping between his fingers, and he didn’t—he couldn’t—be left by another person he loved. He wouldn’t survive it.
“There is magic in everything, Kerym,” Pellie whispered. “In the trees and bushes and the ground and the water. In Fae and shifters and in witches.”
“So? Pellie, I don’t care about that magic thing possessing me or whatever it did! I’m fine now, and I want to go with you.”
Her smile was so fucking sad he felt like punching the tree, but he made himself only rip a damned leaffrom the branch closest to him, squeezing it in his hand.
“The magic chose you for a reason, and I was too worried about you—and, truth be told, too awestruck by what happened—to see why. Soria, on the other hand, knew immediately, and we’ll confirm with the old man, but…”
“But what?” Kerym asked, his insides twisting and turning when she let go of his hand.
“Look around you.”
Kerym didn’t want to tear his eyes from hers, but as he followed her order, his jaw dropped.
Leaves all around them folded and unfolded as if they were winking or waving at them both, the sound of the fibers rubbing together whistling through the night. His eyes dropped to his hand, and Kerym realized he was pressing and unpressing the leaf just like?—
He dropped it immediately. And the leaves around them settled into their usual shifting in the wind.
“What—” Kerym just stared at Pellie.
“You’re an earth wielder, Kerym.” Pellie blinked slowly as she focused on him again. “You’re an Oakgards’ Fae.”
Chapter 27
Raine
His head hurt so fucking bad.
Raine tried to reach for his forehead, but something stopped his hand, and he groaned when the frown that formed across his forehead made the headache worse. Blinking, he tried to get his limbs to cooperate, but as he managed to get his eyes to focus in the dim light, he realized he was bound with heavy rope.
What the?—
Raine whipped his head up when he smelled her, and a harsh, grating growl ripped through his chest as he took in the scene before him.
Frelina’s head was slumped between her shoulders, her arms and legs fastened to a chair with thick white rope—probably taken from the mast of this damned ship—exactly like his own were. Around them were several more bound Fae and humans, and by the deck to Frelina’s left, in the shade of the towering black rocks surrounding their ship…
Fuck. Frecco looked barely alive, his body so broken that Raine guessed his back had given out, and the blood pooling beneath him didn’t reassure Raine one bit.
