“Do you think he is sleeping?”
“I cannot say,” Ruairc replied, voice hushed. “How long will the tincture last?”
“A few hours, at least,” I said, confident in my assessment. “Perhaps through the night.”
Searching for courage, I rose, nearly tripping over my skirts, legs aching from kneeling so long, and left the shelter of the undergrowth. With hesitant steps, I neared the fire and squinted, assuring myself Nox was sleeping. When his chest rose and fell heavily, the tension in my muscles ebbed.
I bunched my skirts to keep from tripping over them, scaled the short slope, and fell to my knees before Neirin. His eyes shot open.
“Evera.” He rasped my name, and beside him, Calix woke too.
Warm relief coursed through the bond, sweet and thick. Eagerly, I cupped Neirin’s face and pressed a kiss to his lips, tears welling at my eyes. When I pulled back, I drew my dagger from the scabbard at my waist that Ruairc had lent me.
“I’m going to cut you both loose,” I told them.
Behind me, steps sounded. I turned briefly to meet Ruairc’s eyes as he scaled the hill, his smile broad, satisfied.“Thank you,”I mouthed, and he blinked his acknowledgement. Immense gratitude welled up in me, swirling with the relief of finding Neirin and Calix unharmed.
Past Ruairc, my eyes fell to the fire, to the two huntsmen’s shadowed forms lying in the grass. Against the tree, Nox no longer slept. He stood, a crossbow drawn. The huntsman’s hands trembled, their shaking clear even from this distance.I sucked in a breath, and when the arrow loosed, I saw its trajectory, the spinning arrowhead cutting the air.
47
EVERA
As the pointediron bolt of imminent death approached, time slowed. A slick horror flushed through the bond. I was faintly aware of Neirin lashing at the ropes that bound him behind me. I tried to move, but my feet had frozen. A drop of rain fell to my forehead and dripped along the curve of my brow to my temple.
Just as I drew my breath, my last solid breath, a figure jumped in front of me, then a great impact sent me to the ground. My head throbbed, and I gasped. Air rushed out of my lungs, but I was still breathing, uninjured aside from the impact of a rough fall.
Pushing past the ringing in my head, I rose to my elbows. A weight lay heavy on my legs. Nox held my gaze from the bottom of the hill, stark panic rounding his eyes. The huntsman dropped the crossbow and took a step back, bumping into the tree. And then he was gone, retreating into the shadows.
“Evera.”Ever-ah. Ruairc rose to one arm beside me, and I sucked in a breath. Mottled brown feathers, white at the tips, held my attention. Three of them, too perfect, too beautiful to be attached to the arrow that was embedded in Ruairc’s back.
He coughed, and blood splattered my arm, mixing with the speckling of my freckles.
No.
He lay half on top of me, his legs holding my lower half in place. I tried to rise, to pull from beneath his weight, but my head spun and the world tilted. A throbbing where my head had struck the earth pinpointed my pain, nearly pulling me to unconsciousness. Blinking away the fog from my vision, I rolled to my side to face my friend and cupped his cheek with my palm. A tear fell across the ridge of my nose and caught in my other eye.
Beneath my hand, Ruairc’s jaw flexed. His breathing was uneven, but there was a calmness to him, a depth to his eyes, a warmth. My lips quivered, and deep inside I knew—knew—he was going to die.
A drop of rain fell to his cheek, and I wiped it with my thumb. Another fell and caught on my lashes.
The breath I drew ached at my lungs. Blinking back my tears and fighting to still the trembling of my hand as I traced my fingers along the coarseness of Ruairc’s beard, I hummed my mother’s lullaby.
The melody was choked, broken by my emotion even as I tried to stop my tears. The rain came down harder, darkening Ruairc’s sandy-blond hair and slicking it to his brow. I combed it aside with my fingers, then leaned in to him.
The shuddering of his breaths fogged between us as I hummed. When his shaking ceased, and he exhaled on a sigh, I bit down on my lip. Seconds passed, the stillness consuming. The iron taste of blood met my tongue, and I scrunched my nose, burying my fingers in the hair at the back of his head. The tune of my hum faded with his breath until only the pattering of rain in the leaves of the oak’s canopy remained.
48
NEIRIN
The rain came down,wetting my knuckles where they clenched the ropes confining me. Thick, heavy loss came with the storm, and I sat unmoving. Just beyond my reach, my mate, my love, my world lay entangled with a man I’d spent the last fortnight despising. Yet as I sat, immersed in the moment, grief for the loss of his life held me.
In the clearing, the fire hissed. Its faltering light flickered, silhouetting the shaft of the arrow protruding from the cobbler’s back. From Ruairc’s back. The arrow he’d taken in Evera’s stead.
I sought to form words, but they fell away with the rain. There was no comfort, no solace that words could bring. I yearned to go to Evera, to embrace her, but my bindings held me back. And, even if they hadn’t, a heavy knowing told me she needed this moment as it was, without me. Needed to hold the man who had sought her heart and offered his aid to ensure her safety despite knowing she would never be what he wanted her to be.
Another unforgivable truth. Another casualty to my cause, to my search for redemption.
