Varian knocked his shoulder into mine. “I’ll take that as a compliment, coming from someone who knows.”
I punched his shoulder. “You…”
Then I stopped, feet catching in the tangled grass.What the fuck was I doing?
Falling right back into this easy friendship, like Blackcastle was only yesterday? Like a hundred years hadn’t passed, filled with a million different miseries? I was here to kill the prince, to find three dangerous artifacts, to get revenge on the bastard who killed my men.
Not swoon over two males who left me behind to die.
I needed to stay detached, not to get sucked into the past. But I couldn’t help the way hurt and yearning tangled into a knife that seemed to carve my common sense away.
“You both left me,” I blurted, “abandoned me to the Shadow King’s soldiers. They took me to the dungeons andfucking broke me, Var, while you lived out your lives.” Those words even tasted bitter.
“You never came back for me, you never…” I pinched my lips together.
What the fuck was I doing, begging him to understand?
“I’m sorry.” Varian’s voice turned heavy as he hiked back toward me. “We didn’t leave you, Lyrae, not willingly. We have our reasons for not being there for you, but…that’s not my story to tell. Ryland has to be the one to explain what happened. When we get to Frostveil, we’ll tell you everything.Everything,and then you’ll understand.”
He reached a hand toward my face, then dropped it. “I’m just so…so goddamned sorry you’ve had to live with this all these years.”
“Sorry doesn’t fix the past, Varian.”
Varian sighed. “If it makes you feel any better, he and I have led shit lives ever since. All this time, you’ve hated him for leaving you after the Maldrake job?”
“I’ve hated both of you,” I corrected. “Why shouldn’t I? He talked me and Ariel into joining his merry band of thieves, then betrayed me. I ended up in the Shadow King’s dungeon, then his army. Then after I became cannon fodder on the front lines, you betrayed me…”
“Lyrae. We already settled this,” he muttered, starting up the next hill. I followed, feet sinking into the soft sand, my thighs screaming for mercy with every step.
“Ariel was sent to the gallows and then…”
“Your sister never went to the gallows. And then?” Varian prodded as we crested the hill.
I paused at the top of the ridge, lungs burning. Nothing but a sea of black sand spread out before us, no sign of a frozen lake or an island. Not a single living thing. Justdesolation, with a few pathetic clumps of thorny trees and withered grass.
“And then I sold my soul,” I whispered, the scar on my arm throbbing at the memory. “The Oracle offered me a choice. She’d free my sister if I agreed to pass information to her. My job was to inform her what the Shadow King’s next moves were in the war, so she and the Fae King could counter his attacks. Not that my information helped their cause.”
Varian’s head whipped to me, eyes wide. “You were a spy for Caladrius?” His hands began to tremble, the pack slipping from his shoulder, hitting the ground with a thump. “You were in Caladrius? In Tempeste?”
“Off and on. I used the tunnels between the realms to pass information from Blackcastle to Tempeste, none of which changed the course of the war in any meaningful way, so I never saw the point. But my bargain bought Ariel a temporary reprieve, which was all that mattered.”
Or so I was told.
“Everything could have been a lie,” I admitted bitterly, crouching down to retie my boot. “The Oracle…she was good at manipulating people. She had the Fae King in the palm of her hand, why not me?”
“I can’t believe you were in Caladrius. Fuck. We could have…” Varian turned his searching gaze to the desolate flatlands. “I wish I would have known,” he said angrily. “You’ve come a long way since our days in the streets, Lyrae. Spy. Assassin. Leader of the Dreadwatch. Working with the fucking Oracle of Tempeste.”
“How do you know Ariel never went to the gallows?” I demanded. “How can you be so sure Ariel is still alive?”
“Because she was captured by the king’s guard, and then…nothing. She was never executed, that I am sure of. Remember I told you I had eyes on the southern road? One of my crew claimed he’d seen her near the Havens, in an all-black carriage, heading south.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sounds like he had too much to drink and was seeing things.”
“Max had no reason to lie,” Varian said evenly. “He was sure he saw Ariel. And the carriage she was in…fortified, protected by a powerful ward, so it belonged to someone rich or well-connected.”
My heart jumped, like it had been struck by a bolt of lightning. This was…okay, not exactly solid intel, but it was something for me to grasp onto, giving me more hope than I’d had in half a century.
“How long ago was this? Did he see anything else?” I asked eagerly. “Like markings, or anything you might remember?”
