“How did she know we would be here?” Draven asked at the same time, eyes narrowed in suspicion.
I didn’t entirely blame him.
Back at Wynnie’s estate, the Skaldwings had lured the monsters with… bait. In the form of Seelie fae. Had they done the same to lure the Korythid here, for this meeting?
I darted another glance around, but the air around us was still, and Batty was resolutely silent.
Kaelen shook his head. “She didn’t. She only gave me the message. It was my Seer who told me I could find you here.”
I narrowly refrained from asking if this was the same Seer who believed I would unite the Skaldwings, and if it had taken a great leap of faith to trust her again after that obvious lie.
Right now, I was more concerned about my mother, and why she needed Kaelen to send a message rather than coming herself.
“Is she safe?” I asked.
He nodded.
“She isn’t the one you need to be concerned about.” Kaelen’s voice was grave, something that Batty apparently took issue with since she let out a low warning chirp.
Kaelen raised an eyebrow, but continued. “She’s still the stellari of the Shadow clan. After… that night, your uncle told everyone that the Frostgrave King had come to steal you from our midst, but one of my people told me the truth about what Kyros had planned to do. I only wish they had told me before…”
His voice was pained when he said his brother’s name, less like he was grieving the male himself and more like he was grieving who Kyros had become.
Draven had a predictably explosive reaction to the mention of my torture, his mana crept across the ground, coating the endless ice with another layer of impenetrable frost.
I pushed the memories away, burying my own reaction where I could break down over it later.
“As it was,” Kaelen went on, “I had to pry the information from them. I had already suspected something was… awry. Forone thing, I knew that if your king had come for you, he would not have had to steal you. You would have gone willingly.”
My cheeks colored, though pure smugness radiated from Draven’s side of the bond.
“For another, I knew perfectly well that my brother would never have risen in defense of you as your uncle claimed,” he added bitterly. “Though he might have jumped at the opportunity for vengeance on the male who was responsible for our parents’ death, there was no cause for him to be anywhere in your vicinity to begin with. I… will never be able to apologize for what he did, for using the small bit of trust I had garnered against you, and I understand why you would be hesitant to believe me now, but your mother really did send me.”
“Do you have proof?” Draven asked. His tone was outwardly neutral, but I felt the echoes of… something that wasn’t quite guilt, but was still decidedly uncomfortable, at the realization that Kaelen’s parents may very well be some of the statues gracing the morbid field we stood on.
Did he feel remorse over their deaths, or only that the resulting anger had gotten me hurt? I wasn’t sure why it mattered so much, but there was some part of me that hoped it was the former, that he could look at someone else with wings and acknowledge that they were worthy of life.
Kaelen pursed his lips. “She said to tell you that someone spoke to her through the flames, whatever that means.”
I let out a surprised huff of air.
Soren.I explained to Draven, showing him a brief flash of the emissary’s demonstration.I asked him to reach out, but I assumed he would have forgotten, after…
Draven nodded, as much a confirmation that he understood as an end to the friend he didn’t want to think about when we had no way of knowing if we were out here searching for nothing. If she was already gone.
Kaelen looked between us like he was aware we were having a silent exchange, but he didn’t comment on it.
“She also said that you need to stop trying to reach her. She is doing what she can from where she is, but she can’t help you if Vaerin doesn’t trust her.”
Foreboding crept down my spine. It had been months since I left. Why would she wait to send word now? Certainly not over the deaths of a few Seelie spies that would never have weighed on her conscience the way they did mine.
So what had changed?
I exchanged a look with Draven, who returned pure bitter resignation in return.
“Help with what?” I asked, more because we needed to hear the words than because there was any real doubt.
There was only one thing that would make her risk trusting the Thane of an enemy with the daughter she had faced down dragonfire to protect.
