Vel’s mouth twists. “I saw them leaving the inn. Alleria and the maid. They walked to the edge of the village like they didn’t have a care in the world. Not an hour after the King’s Guard rode through.”
I wait.
“I thought—” She stops, then starts again. “She’s been looking for a way to contact her father. That’s what I thought. Every day she’s here, every day she doesn’t try to escape, I keep waiting for the knife in our backs. So when I saw her walking out of the village with the maid, I thought?—”
She breaks off. Her hand is shaking where it’s pressed to the arrow in her shoulder.
“I thought I was finally going to catch her betraying us.”
The words hang in the air between us. Vel, who has argued from the beginning that Alleria would destroy us. Vel, who warned me again and again that humans couldn’t be trusted. She followed Alleria into the woods expecting to find proof that she’d been right all along.
“They stopped at the edge of the clearing. The maid started crying.” Vel’s laugh is bitter. “Alleria kept trying to calm her down.”
Her voice shakes, just barely. If I didn’t know her so well, I’d miss it.
“And I was standing there in the trees, watching, waiting for the moment when she’d signal the soldiers. Waiting to finally have proof that I’d been right about her all along.” She meets my eyes. “The soldierswerehiding in the trees. I was right about that part. I didn’t see them, though. I was so focused on watching Alleria, that I missed them completely. One of them walked out to meet her. He was at the Dell. The one who was with her.” She pauses. “That’s when I understood. The look on her face when she saw him. She wasn’t meeting them. She didn’t know theywere there. The whole thing was the maid’s doing.”
The one who guarded her. I think back through everything Alleria has said, looking for a name.
Brennan.
“I should have moved then. The moment I realized what was happening, I should have been running. But I hesitated.” She stops again. “I’ve spent weeks waiting for her to prove me right. And for one second—one fucking second—I couldn’t make myself believe I’d been wrong.”
She isn’t just telling me what happened, she’s confessing something that’s been eating at her since the moment she went down.
“By the time I moved, the archer had me in his sights. I went down before I got within ten feet of her.” She glares at the arrow like she wants to rip it out. “By the time I got back up, they had her on a horse. She was unconscious, and they were riding away.”
Silence falls, broken only by the sound of her breathing. Then she looks at me again.
“Three hundred years in a cage.” Her voice is quiet now, stripped of its sharp edges. “Three hundred years of humans treating us like animals. And I let that turn me into someone who couldn’t see past her own hatred long enough to protect an innocent.”
I’ve seen Vel angry. I’ve seen her cold. And I’ve seen her lethal as death. But I’ve never seen her like that, overtaken by guilt.
“I was wrong about her, Cairn. I should have listened to you. And now she’s gone because I was so focused on waiting for her to be the betrayer that I missed the real threat.”
“That arrow needs to come out.” Therin cuts in. “The longer the iron stays in the wound, the worse it’s going to be.”
“I know.” Vel lifts her head. “Do it.”
Vessara moves behind her sister, wrapping both arms around her to hold her still. Therin wraps his fingers around the arrow shaft.
“This is going to hurt.”
“Everything hurts.” Vel’s teeth are clenched. “Get it over with.”
He doesn’t warn her again, just braces himself, and pulls.
Vel screams, writhing in Vessara’s grip. The shaft has caught on something inside her. Muscle. Bone. The barbs doing exactly what they were designed to do.
“Again.” Vel’s voice is a rasp. “Don’t stop.”
Therin adjusts his grip. I move to Vel’s other side and take her hand. Her fingers clamp down on mine.
“You’ve suffered worse. You can do this.”
“Have I?” She laughs. “I’m not sure anymore.”
Therin pulls. Her body arches against Vessara’s grip, her fingers crushing mine. The arrow comes free with a wet, sucking noise. Blood follows it. Vel slumps against Vessara, her breath coming in harsh, ragged gasps. I release her hand and place my palm over the wound, letting magic flow through me to slow the bleeding. It’s not a full heal, iron wounds don’t heal easily, but it will hold her together until we get back to the village.
