Even if he got her back, didn’t he know the chances she could save him were next to none?
His eyes landed on her and he took a short, quick breath, something flickering in them before he turned to Callahan and narrowed his eyes. “You will return my wife to me this instant, and I will forgive you the lapse in judgment and forget about this as a favor to her.”
Callahan crouched in front of her, one hand out as though Taiyo was something she needed to be protected from. “And all the lies you told her? Keeping me from seeing her and destroying my letters? Was that a favor to her too?”
Taiyo’s jaw clenched and his horse pawed at the ground. He wasn’t denying it. He looked away from Callahan and locked eyes with her. “Hellebore, do you want to go with them?”
She started to move forward, opening her mouth, but Callahan grabbed her and pulled her back. “Taiyo—”
“If I wasn’t going to let you take me, what makes you think I’d ever let a creature like you have my niece?” Palladia brought her steed between Taiyo and the wagon, hand in one of her belt pouches.
The softness that had entered his expression vanished as he laid eyes on Palladia. “You have tested the limits of my patience and my mercy for the last time, Palladia. Give her back.”
It was sunrise, so Taiyo’s strength would be returning, but he’d nearly died trying to rescue her from Callahan and Emerson four months before. He was weaker than he’d been then and he would have to fight Palladia too.
“See, I don’t think so. Looking at you now… I think I just have to wait a few more days and then you’ll be dead, and my niece will be free.”
“This isn’t about Hellebore or any goodness in your heart. If you really just wanted that, you wouldn’t have taken her from me days before the eclipse. You’re trying to take everything from me again.”
Hellebore stared at Palladia’s back. Had her aunt always been this way?
Had Hellebore been that way?
She needed to get out of this.
“That would require her being yours in the first place.”
Hellebore could see the words pierce him right in his rotting heart.
She opened her mouth again, but Callahan clapped his hand over her mouth. He hissed in her ear, “Stop it. Let me and Aunt Palladia handle this. You’re too emotional and easily manipulated by him.”
Taiyo’s voice darkened. “Enough. If you will not release her to me willingly, I will be happy to take her back by force.”
Palladia grinned. “How romantic, but I have a better idea. I have something you want even more.”
Hellebore stilled, slumping against Callahan, whose brow furrowed.
“The only thing you have that I want is my wife.”
“Really? See, you don’t look well, elf. And given how determined you are to get an alchemist back under your control… I think I know exactly what you did.” Palladia pulled out a glass vial and held it up to the light.
Taiyo blanched, eyes widening, and Hellebore startled even as Callahan kept her in his grip. Within the vial was a dark red liquid, and Hellebore knew the formula etched into the glass well.
Blood.
Taiyo’s blood.
Palladia tilted it back and forth, watching the liquid shift. “Which means I know how invaluable this is to you. Let’s make a deal. You leave and never set eyes on my niece again, declare her dead or something in an attack on the eclipse, and I give you this little vial and your healers can use it to save you. You’ll have no need for an alchemist anymore, and I’ll graciously call us even.”
Taiyo’s expression twisted into a deep scowl. “You heinous—”
“Ah! Is that any way to speak to the alchemist holding your only hope of survival in her hands?”
“You think I’m foolish enough to trust you now? After you have revealed yourself to be a duplicitous snake three times over?” Taiyo’s grip on his reins tightened, and she could see them shaking.
“Don’t blame me just because you didn’t measure how much you gave me in the first place.”
Hellebore’s mind was spinning. What were they talking about? Had Taiyo given Palladia his blood when they’d been engaged?
