“But I didn’t.” Witch-fire eyes stare back at me. “I told you I’d bring him back.”
Putting my hands on either side of her face, I tilt up her cheeks and slam my lips down over hers. A startled noise sounds in the back of her throat, her body tensing before it softens.
Shesoftens. One hand moves to the back of her head, cradling her, before I rip myself away and shove my finger into her face. “Don’t youeverfucking think that you’re expendable again.”
She staggers. Blinks. “What?”
“You heard me.” Bending, I sweep my arm against the backs of her knees, catching and lifting her. She sucks in a breath before her hand swats at my chest. “I can walk. Put me down.”
“No. You might run off and steal my horse again.”
I catch Eldritch’s eye as I storm through the courtyard, tilting my head in silent request to put him back in the stable. He looks as if he might be holding in laughter. Lyra humphs, and I stare down at her. “Don’t pull your attitude with me, witch. I’mthisclose to putting you over my knee.”
When we reach my bedroom, Eres is leaning over a sleeping Darian. “Put her down here, so I can check her over.”
His voice is cool. Markedly so, and I feel Lyra tense before I place her down on the bed, my hands smoothing back the stray strands of hair from her face. She looks over at him. “I’m not injured.”
“Would you even tell me if you were?” His movements are jerky as he steps over to a tray he must have asked for. He pours her water before thrusting it at her, not looking at herface. “Would I have even known if you’d died out there, or would I have had to have ridden out to find your body in the snow,again?”
She stares at the cup, uncertain.
“Take the damned water and drink it,” Eres snaps. He turns away from her startled face, his hand rubbing at his chest. “I’d tell you to rest, but you won’t listen. Do what you want.”
Both of us stare at his back as he retreats into the bathing chamber and slams the door behind him. Her hand is still gripping the cup in mid-air. “I don’t understand.”
She looks genuinely bewildered.
“He was scared.” Her eyes slide to mine, brow furrowing. “For you, Lyra. He was petrified that you’d die out there before we found you.”
She takes a sip of the water. Another, draining the cup before she sets it on the side. “Excuse me.”
My hand captures hers as she tries to walk past me. “Is it so hard to think we might care what happens to you? That we might want you to be safe?”
“Maybe,” she says after a moment. She gently tugs her hand from mine. “Nobody ever did before.”
Eres
My harsh breathing fills the room as I tip up the pitcher, filling the bowl and yanking off my shirt. I feel covered in cold sweat. Sticky with the scent of my own fear, and I want it gone.
When the door opens, I stare into the water, I continue scrubbing at my arm. “Not now, Kae.”
Her hands wrap around my bare stomach. Pausing, I feel my jaw grow tight before I keep scrubbing. Lyra rests her cheek against my back. “I’m sorry.”
Dropping the rag, I brace my hands on the ends of the table. “No, you’re not.”
“I am.” Her lips press to my skin. “I need to tell you something.”
I wait, my head bowed as the words spill out against my spine. The prophecy. Her father. All of it, in soft, stumbling words as my head bows and I try not to let her feel my rising anger.
“Kaelen knows,” she says finally. “I told him earlier. But… I’m trained, Eres. Well trained. And I knew I could get him back.”
When I turn, Lyra tries to step back. My hand snaps out, wrapping around her wrist. My words feel like ice, cracked and cold and frozen. “Do you think knowing that makesanydifference to me?”
I knew there wassomething. I knew when I found iskra leaves sewn into her dress, the small packet barely noticeable until I’d ripped it out. When she’d shown no fear, even in the face of Kaelen’s anger, and when she’d volunteered herself for torture to prove her innocence.
“You could have trained for a hundred years, Lyra, and I would have reacted the same way.” My thumb rubs against her skin as I hold her still. “But you knew best, and you didn’t care to listen to anyone else. Do you know how it felt to watch you walk out of that room? To know that you might not come back?”
Her eyes flicker in the low light, burning with flame. “Kaelen said you were… scared. For me.”
