We emerged into the same garden as before, where Vaeron had cornered me and said he loved hunting me. That he’d only let me run again if he knew I wanted to be caught.
The end of the summer hung in the air, heavy with humidity. Immediately, sweat dotted my skin. But I didn’t care. Not asI closed my eyes and inhaled something other than sickly sweet smoke.
Decadent orchid notes banished the lingering scent. Birds chirped and sang overhead, their melodies mingling into the sound of the forest.
“Better, little fugitive?” my mate purred, coming behind me and wrapping his arms around my waist.
Yet instead of relaxing into the posture, tension still threaded his muscles, like he expected someone to pounce on us at any moment. We hadn’t spoken much about the trial by light, but the anticipation of it never left his mind.
Or mine.
How was it that I’d gone from loathing Vaeron to now fearing the outcome, the consequences? For no matter which house the Goddess sided with, there was no winning for him. For us.
Danger lurked around every corner, hidden behind courtly smiles and gilded walls.
“So much better.” At least out here, it was open. The bars of my cage didn’t thicken. But I wasn’t foolish enough to believe that the relief was permanent. No, it was merely borrowed time.
Of which we had so little already. My mate fell into bed late into the evening, dark circles growing deeper by the day. We scarcely had a moment to speak to one another from dawn until dusk, both so focused on the tasks before us. Even at night, he only managed a few words before drifting off.
Vaeron rocked me like tides under a ship, and yet my shoulders refused to drop away from my ears.
The Seers had been pressed for more and more each day. The screams were so loud now that I didn’t have to strain my hearing to produce a false prophecy.
Echoes of my friend’s earlier torment reverberated in my mind. The blood that had dripped from her nose by the end ofthe day stained my vision. Heraphia was frail, shaky, her dresses draping looser every day. Food remained untouched on her plates.
She’d even lost enthusiasm for our plan to figure out a way to end the war. During our stolen moments of peace, she barely had the energy to convey what she’d Seen of the Koron and Korona. And we hadn’t discussed more than that, our efforts grinding to a halt when my co-conspirator could scarcely hold herself upright after a session.
What nipped at my nerves went far beyond worry for her. Heraphia was going to burn out, to die like the other Seers had, if the Korona didn’t relent. The demands she placed on us were grueling. Quotas for visions, a secondary power we couldn’t directly control, was cruel, and if we didn’t offer upsomething, we weren’t allowed to leave.
I wasn’t under any illusion that it wasn’t a punishment directed at me. Vaeron’s absence was penance. Everyone and everything around me was unraveling, thread by thread.
A low hum filled the air, and I opened my eyes, finding a crystalline falcon gliding our way. I squinted, trying to make out Ilae’s distant, blurred form. Only to spot a second ghost gliding just beneath his wing.
The auravane clicked as he swooped down, landing on a perch a short distance away. With a delicate flap of its wings, a smaller one landed beside him. My breath hitched as its silver eyes collided with mine. Not an it—a her. This was Ysolthe, Ilae’s mate.
“Come on,” Vaeron murmured in my ear, taking my hand and leading me toward the legendary birds. I hadn’t seen Ilae since we arrived, nor had my mate spoken of him.
“Hello,” I cooed. He ducked his head, allowing me to reach up and stroke the spot just behind his antlers that Vaeron had shown me. No sharp feathers sliced intothe pads of my fingers.
To my shock, Ysolthe did the same. I glanced at my mate, brows dipping.
“Go on,” he encouraged.
Tentatively, I reached out, stroking the back of her head. She clicked, the sound similar to the one Ilae made when he was content.
An image slammed into my mind. One of a clutch of eggs atop a mountain. Of my mate, younger than his current age, hands raised in surrender. Of Ilae, placing himself between his family and the intruder.
With a gasp, I jolted back into myself. Ysolthe picked her head up, eyes unblinking. A series of clicks and hums rumbled out of her, and somehow…I understood what she meant.
That mates were sacred. That they protected their own. That they stayed through difficult moments.
I tilted my head to look at Vaeron. “Does this mean what I think it means?”
“That Ysolthe chose to bond with you?”
I nodded, unable to voice the words.
“Aye. I wanted you to have her, to have them, in case something should happen to me.” He looked away, jaw tense.
