“Would you tell me if something had?” he asked.
“What do you think, hm? That I had sex with him? So what if I did? What would it matter?”
“Don’t try to dismiss this,” he said. “Wasn’t it bad enough that we had one Elf Prince to deal with, but now two? Brothers no less. What are we going to do?”
“Just as we planned,” she said, tying the wrappings a bit too tight. “Go to the Spire. Lay claim to our family, vie for Radiant if need be. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“And you’re going to allow an Elf to come with us?”
“No one knows that Kaelan is an Elf.”
“It seems to me that quite a few people know.”
“Assuming that anyone from Froenz’s hall survived the battle and the dragon attack, do you really think they would cross all the way into Pixie Lands and to the Spire? No one needs to know who he really is.”
“We know.”
“You’re right. We do. He’s a Prince. He’s willing to help us. We need him, Damion. You know that.”
“You are afraid to fight,” he said, shaking his head. “What has happened to you?”
“I forgot who I was,” she said.
The scars on his face twitched and curved as his jaw clenched and worked. “Clearly.”
“Have you lost faith in me, coz?” she asked.
His mouth pressed tightly, and his arms dropped away from his chest. “No... but you’re right.”
She finished the other wrapping, retrieving her knives, incomplete as they were. She stepped back, holding her arms wide. “Well?”
He looked her up and down. “You’re starting to look like your old self again.” His face softened. “If you need more rest...”
“No,” she said. “I mean, yes, I do. I need a lifetime of rest, but we should go. The longer we stay, the more chance there is that Lavana will convince the Crown to make her Radiant before the year is up.”
She retrieved the Enneahedron from the pile of discarded clothes and slid it securely between her breasts where it would be hidden and its energy could flow straight into her chest. At once, her bruised heart and its limping pulse picked up strength and rhythm. All of her doubts drifted to the back of her mind like shadows fleeing the bright light of the sun.
Crouching, she picked up the tattered and dirty clothes.
“What are you doing with those?” Damion said. “You don’t need them. Leave them.”
“Out here?”
“Where else?”
She frowned, but he was right. There wasn’t a trash can or even a rubbish heap here. Not that she wanted to throw them away. But she couldn’t bring them with her either. They were filthy and they stank.
She laid the clothes back down at the streamside, her tattered sneakers on top.
“Let me just check the pockets.”
Damion grumbled and tromped up the slope.
She dug her hands into the gritty and stiff fabric of her jeans. In the back pocket, she found the ichor-gold glove. The intricate mail was light and cool in her hand. It seemed years since she’d escaped Lavana’s dungeon. In fact, it had only been a few weeks.
She stuffed the glove inside her vest, secure under the lacings that wound around her waist. Hero came plodding along the bank. She held her arm out and he climbed up onto her shoulder.
Standing, she gave her old clothes one last look, wondering what would become of them. If they’d just rot there, if the stream would flood and sweep them away, if some enterprising creature would find them and put them to use.
