While we made camp, Aurelia had gone with Keres to wash off the blood in a side cavern where an underground stream pooled. I could still sense her flame faintly through the stone—warmth that anchored me even from a distance.
Slade sat across from me near the fire, whittling at a piece of wood he’d fashioned into a glimfang. I wondered if Keres had seen it. If he’d made it for her. He’d never once spoken of feelings for the female warrior, but sometimes his flirting bordered on something more. I wondered if she’d gut him if she knew he cared that way.
While he worked, his eyes flicked toward the group of Withered soldiers clustered on the other side of the space.
“They’ve been muttering since we arrived,” he murmured. “Some of them don’t know what to make of her.”
“I hear them,” I said, following his gaze.
Eirnan was among them, standing with his usual calm authority, but two of his soldiers—Taron and Brist—were the ones doing most of the talking. Brist’s voice scraped like gravel, thanks to the magic Autumn had drained from him. But I’d heard enough of his words to know there was anger in him. Fueled by fear. And that made him dangerous.
“You saw what she did,” Brist was saying. “Duron at least needed machines and priestess-witches to take our magic. She could drink our magic with a snap of her fingers.”
Eirnan kept his voice steady. “And instead, she saved your life. She saved all of ours.”
Taron spat into the dirt. “For now. But what happens when she decides we’ve outlived our use? She’ll drain us next, same as that monster.”
The murmurs grew louder. A few of the Withered nodded, uncertainty rippling through the camp like an infection.
I rose before I could talk myself out of it. “Enough.”
Every head turned. Shadows stretched long and thin around my boots as I crossed to them. The air tightened, thick with their unease.
“She didn’t drain it because she wanted to,” I said, voice calm, deliberate. “She did it because it was that or succumb to its poison. Because she chose to live and to lead you, despite every reason not to trust anyone with the knowledge of what she’s been gifted.”
Brist met my gaze, jaw tight. “You’d defend her even if she were one of Hel’s own creatures, wouldn’t you?”
“She isn’t,” I said flatly. “Aurelia of Sevanwinds carries the light of the gods themselves. All of them,” I added emphatically. “It’s why Heliconia couldn’t kill her seven years ago. She’s the only reason this realm still has hope.”
Taron laughed, the sound humorless. “Hope’s what our last king promised before he demanded we relinquish every last drop of our own life force. I don’t fight for liars and tyrants anymore.”
Eirnan stepped forward, cutting him a sharp look. “You’ll hold your tongue. She might not be our queen, but she’s the only ruler who gave us the opportunity to fight back.”
“And when she decides we’re no longer useful?” Brist countered. “When she needs an antidote to poison again and we’re the ones standing closest to her? Will you still defend her then?”
“You forget your place, soldier,” I warned him.
He shoved to his feet, Taron alongside him, both facing off with me.
“You forget yours,” Brist snarled.
A snarled curse ripped from me then.
A few hands drifted toward weapons.
I felt the shadows stir in answer to my heartbeat. Reaching for their throats, more than happy to make my point for me. I leashed them but barely.
“If any of you so much as raise a blade toward her,” I said quietly, “you will feel that same blade buried in your own chest before you can utter a word.”
My shadows lashed out, clouding the fire until it was nearly smothered.
They froze.
Eirnan bowed his head slightly to me. “We remain your allies, Your Highness.”
But the others said nothing.
After a long moment, Brist looked away. “We’re only saying what everyone’s thinking. The Furiosities are a darkness none wish to provoke.”
