Gabriele lifts his palms. “At ease, little man. We’ve just come for our horses.”
The boy lowers his arm, which I notice, shakes. “You’re leaving already?”
I walk toward Furia, my body palpitating as though my heart tore into a thousand pieces and drifted into all my extremities.
“Duty calls.” I’m glad Dante sent Gabriele out here with me because, where Tavo is the open sea, Gabriele is a cove. His placid tone manages to calm even me. Not much, but enough to steady my hands as I strap the saddle around Furia.
Dante, thankfully, doesn’t take long to arrive. He steps around the corner just as I’ve swung atop Furia. I think he’ll ride his own horse, but instead, he bequeaths Tavo’s upon the stunned child and latches onto the pommel of my saddle. He nods at my foot. I remove it from the stirrup, so he can spear his through and climb on.
I don’t make a fuss about having to share, too anxious to head out, and sort of touched that the child got a horse out of all this. “That was nice of you. Giving him a horse.”
“I didn’t do it to be nice.”
Right.He did it because he doesn’t trust me.
“This better not be a trick, Crow,” he grumbles from behind me as Furia leaps forward, woodchips and sand flying every which way.
Thanks to Lore, my stallion knows the way.
There is no give to the circle of Dante’s arms. He may not particularly want to touch me, but he also doesn’t want to lose me because I’m the girl who can free the king, who’ll make him one in turn.
As we gallop through a landscape lacquered in moonlight, I think of Phoebus and Nonna. I hope they’ll forgive me. I remember the disgust in Dante’s eyes and suddenly imagine both my friend and grandmother wearing that same look. Where it hurt coming from Dante, it would destroy me coming from them.
I lift my gaze to the deep-blue canvas of night, spot a flash of gold and a smear of black high above me. The Crow King is wind and shadow with a touch of starlight.
“How long will it take?” I ask over the roar of the waves crashing against the cliffs.
“Several hours.” Dante’s voice is tight with nerves.
“Are you ready?” I ask him.
“For what?”
I turn to glimpse his face. “For all this to be yours.”
His eyebrows hang so low that his irises appear like pools of ink. “Luce won’t be mine, Fallon.” At my frown, he adds, “I’ve agreed to relinquish Monteluce, Racocci, and Selvati to Ríhbiadh. That’s half my kingdom.”
I blink because this is the first I’m hearing of their deal. “Why?”
“Did you really think the sky king was helping me out of the goodness of his heart?”
“I-I—” The truth is, I didn’t actually think.
“Crows are selfish, devious creatures, motivated solely by the lure of profit. He’s only keeping me around because he wants peace with the Fae, and our people—mypeople—would never answer to a Crow.”
“Yourpeople? I’m still your people.”
“Are you?”
“I roused him for you, you pointy-eared dimwit. I roused him so you could sit on a throne, so stop questioning my allegiance!”
He’s quiet for a while. But then he says, “For me?”
“Yes. Hard to believe for a girl who’s part Crow, right? Since—how did you put it?—we’re all greedy and devious.”
His chest rises against my back, his thudding heart fluttering the skin between my shoulder blades. One of his hands lifts off the pommel of the saddle and settles on my stomach. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs into my hair. “Be patient, Fal. I’ve had mere hours to come to terms with all of this.”
I suck in a breath when his thumb begins to draw arcs over my navel. Just as I curl my fingers around his to tow them down, Lore swoops in front of Furia with a cry that makes the stallion stop so suddenly that my heart and body pitch backward. Both of Dante’s hands are on the reins again.
