“Farther still,” he continues, “you’ll reach the large wall of the elves’ territory. If you can make it to them, you could plea for an audience with the Elf King.
“They say his heart is made of ice, but you could try and beseech his Human Queen to take pity on you—she might out of fondness for her people, and he might warm out of pity for Aurora. If you can make it to the elves, I believe you would be safe. Conri would never dream of going against the Elf King.”
“This Elf King is that powerful?” I am not keen on dealing with another king whose reputation is a heart of ice.
“He is the descendant of the ones who made both the Veil and the Fade, the barriers of the worlds. His power is monumental,” Evander says with a note of reverence. “In the land of the elves, Conri’s knights couldn’t reach you. And if you have the Elf King’s agreement, he might send an escort with you all the way to the siren. You’ll want his help to cross through the fae wilds, too, given the rumors that they have become as bloody a landscape as the lykins’ plains before our uniting.”
“Midscape seems a dangerous place,” I murmur.
“If the rumors are to be believed…but who knows what’s to be true. Historically, all our peoples would work together, leaders meeting in Evalon for the Council of Kings to exchange information and work for the benefit of all peoples. But in modern times…Midscape is a fractured land. Every people keeping to themselves and deeply suspicious of the next.”
Somewhere beyond the horizon, in a land that’s as full of magic as it is danger…is our best chance of safety, locked behind an elf wall and in the hands of another king. But if there is a human queen then, surely, she too is a witch like me. She would take pity on us.
I might not place much stock in kings after my experiences with Conri, but I would bet on a fellow witch.
“How long will it take to get to the elves? How many days?”
“On two feet? I would guess four—no, five days, at least.”
I bite my lower lip and sink to the ground, pulling my knees to my chest and settling them in the crooks of my elbows as I stare out over the hills, forest, mountains, and lake. Evander sits next to me. Close enough that I feel his warmth breaking through the morning’s chill, but far enough away that there is no risk of us touching. I wonder if he’s still aware of Conri’s attention landing upon us.
“Evander, do you think that there is a chance that, maybe, Conri could help free Aurora?” The question is quiet. Small.
“No.” The word is void of doubt.
“Even if there was a way to keep the lykin strong and united without her?” The conversation from the night prior continues to play in my mind.
“Conri would slaughter half the packs if it meant keeping Aurora’s power solely to himself. He’d be a king of bones before being just another man.”
“It’s hard to reconcile what you tell me with what he says,” I admit.
Evander grabs my arm, pulling my attention to him. He locks eyes with me. “Do not be drawn into him, through charm or whatever honeyed falsehood he espouses. Conri is not someone you can trust. He is not your ally, Faelyn.”
“But he hasn’t hurt me, so far,” I point out.
“Other than forcing you to marry him.”
“Given the position he’s in, it’s?—”
“Do not make excuses for him,” Evander cuts me off coldly. “He is a king; there is always a way for a king to make what he wants happen, if he deems it important enough. He is the one who holds the power and makes the rules. If he wanted you to be free—Aurora to be free—you both would be. But instead he keeps you hoarded like treasures that are for him alone. Ready to kill anyone who so much as looks at you for too long.”
I sigh and shift uncomfortably, keeping my attention over the landscape. “Perhaps what’s happened with Aurora has scared him? Maybe he wants to start fresh with a new way of leading?”
“No. Not Conri.” The words are bitten out.
“You truly hate him.”
“The first thing he did, the moment he got his hands on Aurora’s ring, was demand every alpha in the grasslands submit to him. Those that didn’t were slaughtered. At just seventeen, he killed pups in their dens with his own claws and teeth.” Evander draws his knees to his chest, mirroring me, gripping his handsaround them to the point that his knuckles are white. The flexing of his muscles highlights the scars that cover him.
“He hurt you, as well,” I say softly.
Evander slowly turns to face me. His expression is hollow. Void enough for ghosts long dead to live in those eyes the color of the morning’s fog.
“He took something from me far more precious than my flesh.” His tone has gone quiet, low, slow.
“Aurora told me about your pack,” I whisper.
“Yes, my pack, my history, my father, right before my very eyes.” The shadows over Evander’s eyes darken. “And he took from me the woman I loved.”
