A terrible turn of fates.
She imagined it would have been worse than heartbreak, to love someone … and see them end up in the arms of your twin brother.
‘Why did she run?’ Ezer asked. ‘If she was betrothed to Kinlear, wouldn’t she want to stay with him? To be with him, when …’
He locked eyes with her, his gaze searching. ‘He told you, then?’
She nodded.
‘She tried to defectbecauseof Kinlear.’ He spat his brother’s name like a poison. ‘When he finally told her about the illness … Soraya changed. She’d fallen in love withhimby then, and she became desperate to save him. She thought she could find the Acolyte. That she could somehow reason with him, beg him to heal Kinlear with the same power he’d used to bring back the others on the battlefield. She was distracted. She stopped praying on Allgodsday, stopped showing up for training. He didn’t see it, for he loved her too much to find fault. But I knew her inside and out.’ His hands clenched into fists. ‘Soraya had changed. By the time I got to her, I think she’d already chosen to lay down her belief in the gods. I think … in her heart of hearts, the Soraya I knew and loved was already gone. She was a talented rider. The best I’ve ever known. But I think shewantedto fall in battle, to get so close to death that the darksouls would come for her and take her to the Acolyte.’
He was breathing harder now, lost in his memories of that night.
‘She wouldn’t let me save her. I begged her. I thought she wasn’t thinking clearly, maybe her head had been hit in the fall, but when I tried to haul her away … she did this to me.’ He looked down at his enormous scar.
And suddenly it seemed a thousand times worse, knowing the woman he’d loved had done that to him.
She’d broken him.
‘The wolves closed in when they smelled my blood. My eagle took the brunt of the attacks for me, but there were far too many of them, so … I flew away. Like acoward,I left Soraya behind.’ He released a shaking breath. ‘My eagle passed from her wounds shortly after. And my magic hasn’t been the same since.’
Gods.
It was too much for anyone to bear.
‘I’m so sorry, Arawn,’ Ezer said. ‘Truly.’
She reached out as if to place a hand on his arm, because no one should have to look so broken. No one should have to suffer heartbreak alone.
But her towel nearly slipped, and she paused, making sure to squeeze it tight around her, not missing how his eyes slid down, then back up to her face again.
She swallowed, despite the dryness in her throat. ‘If you ask me, the gods arefoolsnot to grant your invocations. You did the best you could. It isn’t your fault, what she decided in her heart. What she chose. That fate is hers alone, Arawn.’
‘Sometimes I think they’re punishing me. For not seeing it sooner with Soraya. For not stopping her. I don’t even knowhowthe darkness leached into her soul.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t know what she came across, who she might have spoken to …’
It was a mystery why people disappeared.
Why even a Sacred, created by the gods, would turn to the shadows. But Ezer had seen it with Zey. Subtle signs at first, and even the night before she fled, with how strange she’d been acting …
Ezer still would not have guessed the Eagleminder would be gone by sunrise.
‘You have to forgive yourself,’ she said, meeting Arawn’s eyes.
He looked pained. ‘I can’t.’
‘Not today,’ Ezer said. ‘Not tomorrow. But at some point, you have totry.’
She knew she wasn’t the first to say it, but maybe she would be a part in his healing. A path to someplace better and brighter.
‘For what it’s worth, you’re a fine man, Arawn Laroux. Soraya was lucky to have your heart for the time that she did.’
He blinked in surprise. And then a hint of relief softened his features as he smiled. ‘Was … was that —’
‘A compliment,’ she said. ‘And one I won’t offer again.’ She sighed. ‘Ervos was always good at giving them. Me, not so much.’
Somethingflashed behind his eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. ‘That you did not get to reunite with him as you’d hoped.’
