And now?
Satisfaction dripped from Ahrun’s mental voice.We are coming.
The wave of relief that coursed through me at those words made every muscle in my body go lax.
Give her this message for me.
I lifted my head to focus on Navya, still lost in her own thoughts. My voice was halting and weak as I repeated words in a different language. One so old I wasn’t sure there were any still living who spoke it. Yet somehow, I understood it.
“After all this time, we finally find ourselves on opposite sides,” I said.
There was a hint of sorrow in Navya’s features as she caressed my cheek. “So it would seem.”
“Ah, dearest. I wish you had listened to me.”
“I could not. You know that.”
“Yes,” Ahrun admitted.
His regret tugged at me.
“She’s exquisite,” Navya said, the brief flash of humanity fading until her features were as still as a glass lake. “I sense a curious mix of power. Along with something lying just beneath the surface that I can’t quite get at. If allowed to blossom, she would have been a worthy successor.”
“She still could be,” I repeated.
“Your words fall on deaf ears. I know you won’t overlook my tasting your yearling. You can’t.”
The silence that echoed down my connection with Ahrun was damning.
“Don’t bother lying,” Navya told me, probably reading the desire in my expression. “I know him too well to believe he’d give me a pass because of our history.”
Navya ran a finger over her lip, catching a stray drop of my blood. She regarded it thoughtfully before her eyes shifted to mine. The darkness in them froze me in place.
A second later, she tore out my throat.
“Consider this my last kindness to you, Ahrun. The next time we meet one of us will die.”
I gurgled a wet sounding protest as Navya climbed to her feet, her gaze cold and remote before she walked away. Patches of darkness threatened to swallow my vision as my life’s blood spilled out of the slowly healing wound. It flowed down my front, dripping onto the dirt I knelt on. My heart stuttered, the beat growing more and more unsteady.
Ahrun had gone silent in my head. His absence a hole in my chest.
Vitus moved out of the shadows at the forest’s edge, looking beyond Navya to me with a furrowed brow.
“I fear I allowed myself to get carried away,” Navya said serenely. “My apologies. I do hope you won’t hold it against me.”
Sophia joined Vitus as Navya disappeared into the forest. “What was that about?”
Uncertainty showed on Vitus’s face as he glanced from where Navya had vanished to me. “It doesn’t matter. As long as she remains our ally, Ahrun and his sons won’t escape.”
“What about her?” Sophia tilted her head toward me. “She’s in no condition to continue.”
Frustration flashed across Vitus’s face before he quelled it. “Although physical torture may no longer be an option, there are other methods available to us.”
The two shared a look.
“I’ll see that it’s done,” Sophia murmured with an expression of anticipation.
Vitus made a rumble of approval as he stepped into the trees.
