My stomach plummeted.
The dragon had already sent everyone to a completely different realm because I’d been so desperate to get them out that I’d forgotten one small detail—me.
Vaeris gestured to the sky. “Magnificent, aren’t they?”
I took a step back, then another. My heel slipped on loose stone and a jolt stabbed my heart.
“Easy.” He raised his hands, stepping over a wooden beam. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
Cold flooded my limbs.Run.
I crept toward a street that led directly to the human quarter. Runecloaks moved through the rubble. Some gawked up at the dragons, their faces slack, while others knelt beside the fallen.
I still had friends in this city, people who hated the fae.If I could reach them, maybe I could hide until Kairos returned for me.
Vaeris smiled wryly, sauntering closer. “You’re thinking about the weaver’s shop with the false cellar, aren’t you? Or the tanner’s daughter you’re friends with?”
I gritted my teeth.
He sighed. “You can stop looking at me like I’m about to cut your throat. I’m not here for that.”
I edged backward, boots scraping over broken stone. The mouth of an alley gaped behind me. Three doors down, Odessa’s flower shop—the garden bled into other streets and courtyards. He’d never find me.
“You enslaved me. You used my sister to corner me and my body to get what you wanted. You pushed me into breaking a palace and nearly killed me doing it. Every time I cross your path, I end up bleeding.”
“Yes.”
That landed like a slap.
“Yes?” I glared at him, bristling. “That’s all you have to say?”
He tilted his head, studying me. “Would you prefer an apology? I could give you one.”
I backed deeper into the alley. Ten paces to Odessa’s. The shadows swallowed me, but Vaeris kept coming, unhurried.
Armor clanked on the cobblestones.
I glanced over my shoulder. Runecloaks poured into the far end. Six of them. Fanning out, filling the narrow space.
No.
I spun back. Vaeris had stopped walking. He didn’t need to chase me anymore.
I stumbled backward until my shoulders hit wood—adoor, the wine shop. My fingers found the handle and twisted. Locked.
“I would do it all again.”
My hand slipped into the fold of my dress, groping for a dagger. Small, barely more than a letter opener, but sharp. My fingers closed around the hilt.
“I have no regrets either,” I said.
Vaeris approached me. “No?”
I shook my head. “Even now, standing here with you.”
His mouth curved as he leaned against the door, and I searched for a gap in his armor. There, near his hip.
“Leaving me in that cell to rot was the best thing you ever did for me. If you hadn’t, I never would have methim.”
