“She gave me riddles and headaches,” I muttered. Then softer, “She warned me. I just didn’t understand how bad it could be.”
Lesha’s gaze met mine, soft and clear. “I have missed you.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, tears burning my eyes. “I’m here now.”
Her eyes drifted shut, her breaths going shallow again. Panic flared in my chest.
“Rest,” Keres murmured, gently easing Lesha’s hand from mine to tuck the blankets higher. “She’s done more than enough for one day.”
I sat there a moment longer, watching the rise and fall of Lesha’s chest.
Callan’s face flashed across my thoughts again. His fear. His arrogance. The way he’d said he didn’t want to be his father—and how easy it would be for Heliconia to make him into something worse than Duron ever was.
If she claimed his throne, Autumn would fall. And with it, every fragile hope we had of stopping her before she came for the rest.
I pushed to my feet.
The cave swayed then steadied as I fought off my own lingering exhaustion. Leif’s hand hovered near my elbow as if he wasn’t entirely sure I wouldn’t topple over.
I looked at Eirnan.
He watched me like he already knew what I was going to say.
“How long,” I asked hoarsely, “until we reach Autumn?”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Rydian
Iwoke to the sound of leaves rustling softly. Not dripping water, not the roar of a river or the crackle of fire in a stateroom inside Patamoi’s castle Beneath—just the soft, constant hush of wind threading through branches. For a second, my half-conscious mind insisted it was some new form of drowning, the world reduced to one endless, rushing.
Then I realized I was breathing.
Air, not water.
I dragged in another lungful, greedy and sharp. It tasted like earth and sap and sunlight. My chest hurt with the stretch of it, ribs bruised but intact.
I opened my eyes.
A tent roof hung above me, canvas dyed a deep, moss-green. Light bled through it in shifting patterns, as if the whole thing was tucked under a canopy of leaves. The air was warmer here than it had any right to be after what I remembered last—the frozen valley burning, furyfire rolling uphill, the river’s black mouth opening under my feet.
I was on my back on a narrow cot, boots off, armor gone, stripped to a plain linen shirt and trousers. Flexing my fingers,I patted my body, seeking the familiar weight of swords, daggers, anything.
Nothing.
Panic flared.
I shoved myself upright.
The world tilted sharply. My head spun. My stomach roiled. I braced my elbows on my knees and stayed very, very still until everything stopped pitching like a ship in a storm.
“I was beginning to wonder if you were intending to sleep until winter ended. Which, granted, would be a statement in itself, given current politics.”
I looked up.
Talthis Knuhina stood just inside the tent flap, holding it open with one olive-skinned hand. Sun-dappled forest framed him—towering trunks, sprays of emerald leaves, shafts of light spearing through the canopy.
He wore Lightshore green, but not the formal silks he’d shown off at Aurelia’s almost-wedding when I’d last seen him. We hadn’t spoken that night, but I wondered if he realized I’d seen right through the ridiculous glamour he’d worn to disguise himself. A shifter indeed. His clothes had been far too soft and expensive for anyone to believe it. Least of all my shadows.
