“This will guide you through the woods. It will guide my heart to yours.”
“That’s not the spell I wove.” I shake my head. “It’s not?—”
“It’s the spell I wove when I tied it to your finger and wished, with all my might, that someday you would be my bride.” He leans forward to kiss me, daring the display of affection despite anyone being able to walk in. It’s foolish, but I savor the brief second his mouth is on mine. My breath hitches. Evander releases me after, the risk too great for us to dare anything more than what we already have. And we have already dared greatly. “I will find you, Faelyn. Nothing will tear us apart, so long as you wish for us to be together.”
I nod as his confidence makes room in my heart right alongside my love for him. He’s right, we will find a way. There is no greater power than love.
“Right, then, what next?” I ask, refocusing the conversation away from my fears.
“I’m going to speak with Conri.” Aurora stands. “Evander will escort us to him, and when we arrive, I’ll inform Conri that I’ve sensed a threatening force coming from the western edge of Den.”
“I’ll insist that I be the one to go off and check,” Evander says, picking up on the plan. “It’ll also help reinforce that I am not too attached to either of you by being so willing to leave.”
I’m seeing where this is all leading toward. “I’ll wait till you’re gone and then, when we’re assigned another of his knights, go off to collect supplies for the ritual he’s wanting.”
Evander nods at me.
“I’ll ensure I stay at your side,” Aurora adds. “That way when the time comes, we’ll be ready.”
“We can claim that we want to stay together to maintain our strength. And I can say that Aurora will help me identify the best supplies for the spell work,” I say, and they nod along. “But when do we slip away?”
A moment of pensive silence. Evander says, “I’ll keep the patrol out until dusk.”
“I don’t think the return of the patrol will be enough of a distraction,” I am reluctant to say.
“I agree…” Evander murmurs, rubbing his jawline and lips in thought.
“What about a bonfire night?” Aurora suggests. “If the king is thinking he will be taking his future wife to bed to sire an heir, it would be cause for celebration.”
“He did say that he wanted the other alphas to know that I was willing—to reassure them. Why not make a display of it?” I add, somewhat eagerly. The circumstances still fill me with nausea. But the hope that we might have a path forward is winning out. I can see our path out of here. “Moreover, I could tell him that it would help empower the magic.”
I’m already running through the lies I’ll fabricate for Conri. I could say that the fire represents new life and that I must witness it build, my powers and fertility swelling with it. Or that I need to have a ritual of the elements combining—fire, water, earth, andair—the building blocks of existence—to help foster life within me.
Yes, I can come up with something.
“All right, then I’ll distract him during the return and try to draw as much attention as I can onto setting up for this bonfire,” Evander says. “And that’s when you two will slip away.”
We all nod and spend another moment of silence thinking through everything. It will be enough. It has to be.
“Then let’s not waste any more time,” I say with more confidence than I feel. No more falling apart. I have to be brave for both of them…and for myself. “We leave tonight.”
CHAPTER 41
The day is a blur.
I’m a walking contradiction from the first moment we spoke with Conri to the late hours of the afternoon. On the outside, I am serene and wear a blissful expression. My voice is a level tone that verges on excited from time to time. I work to play it off as enthusiasm for what is to come for me in the night with Conri. This seems to please him, and he is all too eager to begin planning the bonfire as Aurora and I set out with a knight I barely recognized by face at first and now know as Farkolf.
Despite outward appearances, inside I’m all jitters and a stomach that is so tightly knotted that I have to force myself to eat for the sake of filling it as much as I can before we make our escape. My hands tremble from time to time as I gather things like thread and waterskins, all under the pretense of spell work for fertility. But everything I take is something that’s going to make our journey easier.
We have the knight escort us back to the king’s chambers as the sun begins to set. Conri is in the main hall, still arranging things for the bonfire. We pass by a mountainous stack of wood on the way in, arranged just outside the primary entrance to the great hall. It will no doubt be lit to coincide with the moon rising.
Farkolf takes his position where Evander would usually stand—right at the entrance to the king’s chambers. But, unlike Evander, he keeps his back to us and remains at attention. He doesn’t lean against the wall, arms folded. He doesn’t angle himself inward, looking for me. The differences are a reminder that Evander isn’t here with me.
Nasty thoughts drift through my mind of Conri having overheard us earlier. Of him knowing our plan and hunting Evander after he left. The images of the deep scars on Evander’s back create strips of phantom pains between my shoulders. Evander could be dead on the ground, ripped apart by Conri, and I wouldn’t know. I might never know. He?—
Aurora’s hand closes around mine. We’re in the bedchamber, sorting through our meager items by candlelight and repacking only what’s absolutely necessary. I shift my attention to her.
“He’ll be fine.” She squeezes my fingers. “And so will we.”
