He paused beside the door, turning back to glance over his shoulder. And it pained him to say his next words, but he did them anyways.
“Please...don’t keep her away from him. She needs to see him like this. She needs to know what the future truly holds. So that when it happens...because itwillhappen...she’s ready for it.”
He opened the door and found Soraya there. Breathless, with sweat beading on her temples and darksoul blood still splattered all over her face.
The fire had gone out in her eyes. She still looked cold. He took her hand, without reserve, and squeezed it. Bloodstains and all. “He’s alright,” Arawn said. “But someday, Soraya...”
She shook her head. “Don’t.”
He paused.
“Don’t say it.” She snarled. “This isn’t where he’s meant to be. He’s meant to be somewhere else, somewherebetter.”
“Touvre?” Arawn asked. “They can’t heal him there, it’s?—”
“The godsdamnyou, Arawn, not Touvre!” Soraya hissed. She shook her head, and another tear slid down her cheek. “You don’t see. You don’t understand...”
Her voice trailed off as she took a shuddering breath. The kind that came from crying far too many tears.
And then she moved past him, into the room, without another word.
Alaris dismissed herself, placing a gentle hand to Arawn’s cheek as she left.
And Arawn should have followed or gone back to his own room...but he stayed in the hallway instead. Because Alaris had left the door cracked open, just enough that Arawn could see the way Soraya crawled into the bed beside Kinlear.
She laid next to him, her head on his chest, as if she’d done it a hundred times.
And when she looked at him, her hand gently resting on his face?
She hadneverlooked at Arawn like that.
Not once, in all their days.
He knew he should go. He knew he should leave her to lay with him, to understand the truth and process it. But he couldn’t tear himself away.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. That strange book was still in her hand. She held it against his chest, right over his beating heart. “I swear to you, Kinlear Laroux. I will find a way to save you from your fate. No matter what it takes.”
And Arawn should have seen it then, in the set of her jaw, the way she’d hissed the words like a promise.
He should have seen it.
But he didn’t.
He didn’t.
Two days later...Soraya would die for that promise.
And the fault was allhis.
13
He dreamt of Soraya.
She was in her golden gown again, but this time they weren’t in the training room. They were on the backs of the war eagles, breaking through the clouds above the snowy grey sky...and into the morning light.
There was the sun again, a ball of brilliant fire that rose just on the other side of the Sawteeth’s highest peaks.
“Come on, Arawn!” Soraya shouted.
