Yes, hence the urgency. But I didn’t think that telling him I may not survive long enough to do it later would help my cause when I could already feel his fury rolling through the room in waves nearly as powerful as my volatile mana.
“You said it didn’t matter for the Heartstone…” I said.
That muscle feathered in his jaw once again, and another spike of aggravation rent the air, this time edged with a bitterness so strong I could taste it on my tongue.
“That was when I assumed your power was Seelie in nature, and when it hadn’t already tried to kill you once today.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but he cut me off, his grip on my arm tightening almost reflexively.
“Even if I were willing to risk it, risk you, the Hall of Stars is sealed. Only the Visionary can open it.”
Mana jolted through the room again, but this time, it wasn’t mine. His bitterness swelled, morphing into something dark enough to seize the breath in my lungs, a potent blend of panic and denial and… fear?
I had been so consumed with the power threatening to tear apart my body and soul that I hadn’t stopped to ask where the others were.
My stomach gave a violent lurch as I wondered where my sister was. And Nevara… Why the Visionary, who was sworn to protect this Court, hadn’t been out fighting at his side.
More than that, Nevara cared about Draven. She would never abandon him while she still had breath to fight.
I belatedly registered his words and the implication that Nevara wouldn’t be willing… or able to open the Heartstone chamber.
“When you said we had bigger things to worry about…” My voice sounded too small, too far away.
Instead of answering me though, he pulled me into his arms, and we dissolved into frost and darkness.
Chapter 10
Draven
The infirmary was like a tomb.
Death clung to the air from too many bodies dragged in too shards-damned late, too many last breaths already spent. The stench only deepened once I sealed us inside my ice, privacy settling like a lid over a coffin.
Amias bent over Nevara’s unmoving form, his mana reaching into her in careful, silent probes while Noerwyn gently cleaned the blood from her hair. She spoke in low murmurs to Everly, recounting what had unfolded on the battlefield, each word measured, as if sound itself might do further harm.
I stiffened. The space was too crowded with the four of us crammed around the narrow cot.
Then again, perhaps that was only the oppressive presence of my wife’s newly-released mana making regular threats to bury us in ice and darkness. Where it had almost abated in my rooms, it had flared up like a furious beast again at the sight of Nevara.
My Visionary.
I swallowed hard. It was easier to think of her that way instead of as my oldest friend, lying too still on an infirmary bed, no trace of her sardonic smirk or the twitch of her lips that belieda rare bout of laughter, back before our lives and Court had been overrun by monsters.
All at once, I was trapped in a distant memory.
Nevara was clasping her hand over my arm, her mouth doing that quivering thing it always did when she was seconds away from losing her composure.
“Would you care to share what you find so amusing?” I asked.
“You’re the only one who ever notices,” she said with a trace of chagrin.
I sighed. “A lifetime of practice. And you’re avoiding the question.”
Her mouth twitched again. “We’re almost there.”
I narrowed my eyes. “So this has something to do with your impromptu request to go to the gardens?”
Though she couldn’t see the vast array of plants and flowers that the palace groundskeepers managed to coax to life with mana and sheer devotion to their queen, she always liked the smell and the general peace the gardens offered. But her request today had been more urgent than warranted.
