“Soon, Furious.”
“Soon what?” I asked, my breath suddenly short.
“We’ll find somewhere with no interruptions.” His voice dropped to barely a whisper. “And thick walls.”
I swallowed hard, imagining it. Remembering the night we’d had in my room at Grey Oak. The way it had felt to have his hands on my body. And then the rejection of anything more. When he’d told me what vow he’d made to my father. That he refused to get involved when his time was so short.
“I don’t understand. You said you didn’t want to?—”
“I changed my mind.”
My heart leaped. “About what?”
I had to hear it.To know.
His gaze dipped to my mouth. “About everything. You’re mine, Furious. Soon. And then forever.”
Chapter Forty-Six
Rydian
We moved through the forest as the light bled out of the sky. Callan kept up a steady stream of low-grade complaining—about the lack of horses, about the quality of our nonexistent food, about the injustice of his current wardrobe. Aurelia humored him with the occasional jab. I ignored them both and focused on the path only I could see.
The Emerald Forest wasn’t just trees and dirt. It was layers—old roads buried under roots, streams diverted and remade by shifting magic, pockets of wild sorcery that didn’t care whose banner flew on which castle.
The Spring Court had wrapped its camp in some of that wildness. I’d felt it when I’d woken there after Nali’s naiad had pulled me from the river—half-conscious, half-drowned, more shadow than flesh.
We walked until my legs started to feel the weight of the last few days—a battle, a wedding crash, a god-summoning, almost dying—and then kept walking anyway. The moon slid lower between the branches. Shadows grew thicker. The Emerald Forest wrapped around us like a living thing.
In the deepest dark of the night, Callan’s stomach growled—again. When no one answered it, he made a disgusted noise. “Remind me again why I didn’t go north with Slade to meet my own army?”
“Because Heliconia will look there first to find you,” Aurelia said way more nicely than I would have.
Callan was not mollified. “This whole arrangement is deeply offensive.”
“If you have enough energy to complain, you have enough energy to keep moving,” I told him.
He scowled but did as I said.
Brat. I had no sympathy for him.
Heliconia was out there, sitting on the throne of her stolen court and dreaming of the god-magic imbued into that throne. She’d turn the realm upside-down for Callan. And if that didn’t work, she’d set her sights on the next victim.
We had one shot to convince Spring not to be next.
I didn’t care how badly that goal inconvenienced Callan.
By the time the first gray hint of dawn brushed the horizon, Aurelia was swaying on her feet. Callan’s steps had lost their kingly swagger. Even my shadows dragged a little.
It hit me then—the exhaustion I’d been outrunning.
Not just in my muscles. In my bones. In the place beneath my ribs where the Furiosity rune burned low and steady, like banked coals waiting for a gust of wind.
I pressed my palm flat over it.
“Not today,” I muttered.
The god who’d branded me didn’t answer. He rarely did unless I forced him to.
