Beathan and Lyall hadn’t wanted him to go.
“It’s a trap,” Lyall had muttered, placing a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Don’t walk into it.”
“Both queens promise ‘safe conduct’,” Roth had replied tersely. “The Half-blood shall not be harmed.”
Silence had followed these words. ‘Safe conduct’ was a bond, a formal promise of immunity. One that wasn’t taken lightly by anyone in Albia.
Eventually, Beathan spat on the ground at this. “Stick your safe conduct up your arse.”
It had gone on like that for a short while longer before Alar had finally spoken up, cutting Beathan off mid-insult. “Very well.”
Beathan and Lyall had still tried to put him off as he removed his weapons and handed them to his captain.
“There’s no such thing as safe conduct in Albia,” Lyall had warned him. “Not anymore.”
“Maybe … but it’s a rare thing for Marav and Shee rulers to unite on anything,” he’d replied. “I’m curious to see what they have to say.” It was strange indeed for the two queens to be traveling together. The two races were like frost and fire—they rarely shared the same space. The fact that they did now suggested that they had a problem, and he needed to know what it was. It could be something that affected them all.
“Your curiosity will end when your wife stabs you in the balls,” Beathan had muttered, but Alar had merely shrugged. They were wasting time bickering.
And so, here he was, making toward their camp.
“How is Lara these days?” Alar asked Roth then.
The captain cut him a glare. “You will refer to her as the High Queen.”
Alar caught something in Roth’s voice then—jealousy perhaps. Aye, he’d marked the way the captain looked at Lara sometimes a year earlier. They were stolen glances, but Alar was adept at reading people. He’d seen the longing in the man’s eyes.
He wondered then if Lara had turned to Roth for solace in the past turns of the moon. If they now shared the furs.
His gut twisted. Painfully.
Stop it.
“And why is she here with Mor?” he asked, changing tack.
“You’ll find out soon enough.” A muscle flexed in Roth’s jaw, his fingers tightening around the reins. “Make no mistake. If it were up to me, I’d cut you down where you stand, you treacherous piece of shit.”
Alar smirked. Roth’s threats didn’t scare him. Like a loyal dog, the man would follow orders.
They approached the pines then, and Alar spied the glow of torches amongst the trees. The daylight was fading. The days had grown short. Summer was now a memory that would have to sustain them until the following spring.
The sharp scent of pine filled his nostrils as he followed Roth into the trees. Up ahead, the outlines of cloaked figures became visible.
Lara was waiting.
His heart started to kick against his ribs then.Ashes.He needed to leash himself. Lara had gotten to him all those turns ago. She’d cut through the tough cloak he wrapped himself in. On their last night together, he’d been on the brink of giving it all up for her.
All his plans. His reckoning. The justice for his people he’d fought so long and hard for.
He’d been ready to turn his back on it. For his wife.
But sanity had prevailed. And despite that the victory he’d sought had ultimately felt hollow, he needed to find that place again. He had to go before Lara with a cool head.
The Shee and Marav stood in a semi-circle waiting for him.
It was an incongruous sight, seeing both races together like this, and his step slowed.
Two regal figures stood at the center of the horseshoe. One was Shee: tall, slender, and dark, with a raven hunched on her shoulder. The other was Marav: small and pale, wearing a jade-green fur-edged cloak.
