Good, I think savagely. Feel it. Know what we fight.
I don’t knock.
I shove the door to the sitting chamber open, slamming it so hard against the wall it bounces.
Three pairs of eyes turn toward me.
Jules, silver-streaked hair loose around her shoulders, hand on her swell of belly. Phoebe, fair hair wild, perched on the arm of a chair, a book forgotten in her lap.
And my Shula.
Delia is on her feet already, cloak half on her shoulders, eyes wide and searching for me like she knew I’d be the one coming through the door.
“Thorne?” she breathes, stepping forward. “What is it? Is everything okay?”
I cross the room in three strides and take her hands.
They’re warm. Strong. I cling to them harder than I should.
“No, Shula,” I say, and for once I don’t bother to temper the truth. “It is not.”
Her fingers tighten around mine. “The sound?—”
“The wards,” I confirm, jaw clenched. “The protections we wove over The Ember Vein have been struck. Idris and his ilk are making their play for the Vein.”
Her face goes pale, then flushes with anger.
“I must go,” I add.
“I want to go too,” she says immediately.
Of course she does.
She lifts her chin, eyes blazing, that EMT instinct flaring — the part of her that runs toward fire, not away from it.
It hits me in the chest like a blow.
Gods, she is perfect. This woman was made for this realm—for me.
And that is precisely why I cannot take her.
“No.” The word comes out harsher than I intend. I crush it down, soften my voice even as my flames surge.
“I cannot allow it. Not this time. You don’t know what battle at the Vein looks like, Delia. I need to know you are safe.”
“But—”
Her protest slices at me. I see the hurt flash across her face, quickly buried under stubborn resolve.
My grip on her hands tightens.
“Please,” I say, softer now, roughened with everything I don’t have time to say.
“I go into the ground, into Idris’s shadow, knowing my people fight and die to keep the ore safe. I cannot do that if I’m wondering whether the next tremor I feel is you falling.”
Her eyes shimmer.
Jules pushes herself up from the bed with a little grunt, crossing over to us. There’s steel under her gentleness — I see why Alaric fell.
