“It struck you,” he murmured, “and you sent it back.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I unleashed a bolt,” he said quietly. “It should have hit you dead on, but you reflected it. It struck me in the chest.”
My lips parted. If he were right, I had no idea how I’d done it.
Those were no seerling powers I knew.
“Did it hurt?” I wondered.
He gave a short laugh, eyes bright with disbelief. “No. It felt… good.” A pause. His brow furrowed, his voice dipping to a near whisper. “Calming, even.” He seemed confused, as if the word didn’t fit.
A sudden pulse of longing rippled through me, echoes of the wild hunger to finish what we had started in the woods. It throbbed between my thighs, desire calling from low in my belly. Him standing this close was enough to awaken every dangerous memory of his touch, every warning that he could shatter me without effort.
But he released me instead, turning to scan the desolation. “Is this what you’ve been chasing these past weeks?”
I exhaled hard, grounding myself. “Yeah. It all comes from higher up the mountain—some kind of blight. And those creatures we fought? They’re proof it’s escalating. I’m afraid?—”
A shift of movement behind him cut my words short. Kael spun, drawing a dagger from beneath his shoulder cloak. A flash of red, a hiss of steel, the dagger met the edge of an elven sword, then fell to the ground with a muffled thud.
The tip of the blade came to rest beneath Kael’s chin. Its wielder, a woman elf with long, braided red hair and tanned brown leathers, stared at him, anger burning in her green eyes.
She was slim and athletic, a forest-green cloak clasped to her cuirass, a quiver crossing her chest, and a bow hooked at her back.Golden-brown skin gleamed beneath the light, and dark vine tattoos curled along her face, marking her as one of the Forest Fae, the wood elves. High cheekbones sculpted her into the kind of beauty only their kind possessed. I could not guess her age. She looked no older than me, yet she might have seen a hundred winters.
Then, her expression shifted. Recognition softened her gaze. She lowered the blade and smiled. So did Kael.
“Bror…” she breathed, voice warm and tremulous. She stepped close, wrapped one arm around his shoulders, and pressed her forehead to his. “What are you doing here?”
Concern shadowed his face. “What happened,systr?”
Panic flickered across hers. “The darkness came to Vallûne. In one night, it killed many and burned the homes. We fled to the caves.”
“Where is Mauriel?”
“Mother is dead, Kael.”
Kael hissed sharply through his teeth. He lifted his gaze to the sky, jaw tightening, fury trembling through him. He cursed the forest, the mountains, the gods that had abandoned them all.
I stood like an invisible bystander, watching as if through glass. Questions crowded my throat, but none seemed mine to ask. Seeing him stricken like this, grief laid bare, pulled something deep inside me taut. I wanted to touch him, to steady him, but the moment was too fragile, too foreign.
Then his eyes found me, as if he’d just remembered I existed. “Evangelina,” he said, motioning toward the elf. “This is Naila, my sister.”
Sister?
Kael had an elven sister?
The questions crashed through my thoughts like a storm, each louder than the last.
Naila gave me a graceful nod before sheathing her sword. “We should not linger here. Night comes fast. Follow me to the caves. It is safe there.”
Kael inclined his head, and we followed her into the woods, silent as ghosts. He whistled once, and Grison came loping through the trees to his side. They walked together as though this forest still remembered them. I realized then that I would not be returning to Befest tonight. It was too far. Too perilous.
Through the thick weave of poplars and cedars, Kael’s hand stayed clenched. I could feel his anger coursing like thunder through his veins. Perhaps the lightning mark had bound us, tethered our senses in ways words couldn’t. I couldn’t explain it, just like I couldn’t yet explain whatever had happened in that blighted village.
Night had fallenby the time we reached a lake bluer than the skies of Sud. We had circled the mountain pass and descended the far side of the hills, into a valley carved long ago by ice. A river wound through its heart, leading us to its source, a lake fringed by a scatter of caves.
Torchlight flickered from within the rock. Voices drifted through the night, low and musical, speaking in Elvish I could not follow. Kael walked ahead toward a makeshift stable where he left Grison. Elves emerged to greet him, men and women dressed like Naila,pathfinders, or so I’d learned, their hair shades of russet or brown, their skin glowing like polished bronze. They touched foreheads in solemn greeting, eyes closed, their murmured words heavy with grief. With the little Elvish I understood, I knew their prayer meant, “May she rest in peace.”
