“I’m serious.”
His mouth curves into the barest hint of a smile, an edge of approval beneath his usual gruffness. “Good. I didn’t want to sneak out without you.”
I huff softly, shaking my head. “As if you could.”
A beat of silence lingers between us before Mylo shifts, resting his hand lightly against the pommel of his sword. “We’ll leave in three days’ time,” he says. “Right at the full moon.”
And maybe by then, my uncle will have awoken.
I give Mylo a nod, though my thoughts twist and turn beneath the surface. There’s more to this than duty, more than the need to swing a sword. Every instance in which we face the carnoraxis brings us one step closer to taking down the tsar.
And this time, I won’t sit idly by while the moon rises.
ChApter
Three
It’s been two days since Ezra administered the elixir. Two long, agonizing days of sitting at my uncle’s bedside, watching his chest rise and fall in shallow rhythms, waiting for a flicker of change upon his tense features, a slowing of frantic movement behind his closed lids. Of hoping for a shift of breath, for his hand to reach out for mine, anything to suggest the tide has turned.
But there’s been nothing.
Ezra warned me it might take time.“This kind of magic,”he said,“is not a sword; it’s a siege. It doesn’t win with one swift strike. It chips away, softens the resistance, until the body begins to remember how to fight.”His words were calm, meant to steady me. But they couldn’t stop the way hope frays at the edges when met with silence.
As I saddle Thora and check my provisions, I fight the gnawing at my mind, the voice that questions if I should stay. It’s not as if I’m abandoning my uncle to an empty room. Ezra reassured me he would constantly monitor him, journaling his progress or lack thereof. And if I can trust anyone to take necessary measures to improve my uncle’s condition, it’s Hedera’s skilled magister.
That reassurance, plus Nadya’s promise to sit in my uncle’s room as long as she’s got her pile of books with her, is mollifying enough for me to join Mylo on our quest to meet our squad.
I cover my uniform with a long, hooded cape. We leave early enough that there aren’t many guards looming, and we take the hidden path through the forest behind the stables so we’re not easily spotted. Soon, the castle fades behind us, a jagged shadow swallowed by the mist curling through the trees. Mylo rides ahead, his frame solid and unmoving as his horse glides across the path. I keep close, the chill morning air brushing against my cheeks, but it isn’t the cold that quickens my pulse. It’s the freedom.
For the first time in weeks, there are no eyes watching me. No guards shadowing my every step. No suffocating weight of the mourning attire. Just the steady rhythm of my horse beneath me and the open trail stretching wide and endless.
We reach a clearing, and the wind hums through the grass, carrying the sharp scent of pine and distant rain. With every stride, the knots in my chest loosen, the pressure I’ve carried since Torbin’s assumed death easing—if only a little. Out here, no one demands answers I can’t give. No one asks me to sit still while the world teeters on the edge of ruin.
I urge my horse faster, the cool air tearing through my hair as I catch up to Mylo. He doesn’t speak, but when our eyes meet, I catch the glint of shared relief. We’re doing something again. Not standing idly by while the world succumbs to a madman.
A branch cracks somewhere behind us.
I pull the reins sharply, heart slamming against my ribs as Thora slows beneath me. Mylo reacts just as quickly, drawing up beside me, his hand drifting to the hilt of his sword. The air, which a breath ago felt so open and free, now presses in too tightly.
Another sound, closer this time. The snap of underbrush. The whisper of movement cutting through the stillness.
I train my eyes on the edge of the forest, expecting a guard. Maybe one of the men under the command of Farvis—the king’s lackey—sent to drag me back to Ivystone before the king notices I’m missing. Orworse, something unnatural. Something that doesn’t care who I am as long as there’s blood to spill.
I loosen my dagger in its sheath, scanning the shadowed treeline. Mylo shifts in his saddle, his whole body tense as his gaze sweeps back and forth.
A shape emerges from the trees.
My pulse stutters—fingers curling tighter around my weapon—until the figure moves fully into the sunlight.
Broad shoulders. The familiar set of his jaw. And those eyes—burning with something fierce and undeniable as he charges ahead and then reins in his horse a few paces behind us. I should have known Dante wouldn’t let go of me so easily.
A sharp exhale slips from my lips as tension drains from my limbs, replaced by a flood of something warmer, softer, though no less dangerous.
Mylo smirks. “Looks like we didn’t leave undetected, after all.”
“I hardly doubt a man of your size could go anywhere undetected.” Dante’s gaze turns from Mylo to me. “And you truly underestimate my ability to sense when your presence leaves the castle.”
I let out something close to a laugh, but there’s no mistaking the thrum of my heart reacting to his words. He’s not talking about magic. He means this connection we have. It’s the same explanation for the way a room lights up when he enters it.
