My body went cold. “Do you truly think you won’t be able to throw the trial?”
Vaeron lifted his gaze skyward. “The Goddess decides whose actions were true.”
I inhaled, fighting the tremble that wanted to roll down my spine. “You have your own will.”
Finally, he lowered his head so he peered down at me. Agony etched his expression. “No, little fugitive, I do not.”
Vaeron wasn’t the monster I’d painted him to be. These tender moments, this hidden side of him, they wove together to make me believe. To make metrust.
“Will they follow us as we walk?” I asked the birds more than my mate.
“Follow,” he told Ilae. The auravane ruffled his feathers. Ysolthe spread her wings. In one mighty beat, she was airborne. Ilae hovered with her as we picked our way down a path lined with massive palms, the cups of the leaves cradling pools of water. Smaller birds bathed in their depths, chirping and flitting away once they noticed the hunters circling overhead.
Tall trees interspersed the space around us, trunks massive and encircled in staircases.
“Where do those go?” I asked Vaeron.
“Hmm?” he replied, blinking away his distant distraction. I pointed to the trees. “Depends. Some go to platforms, others to barracks. Thalvireth is protected from all sides and all angles since the Demons too possess the ability to fly.”
“I’d like to see Sivy, sometime,” I told him. The bit I’d been able to glimpse upon our approach had seemed magical, with Angels walking along rope bridges among the canopies. Houses built into the forest we called home, both high and low. A heavy sigh escaped me, posture deflating. “But I know I am not allowed out of the palace.”
I hoped Vaeron would take my bait.
The slightest intake of breath and the sliver of guilt through our connection told me he had. “I know, Sylaira. I know. But things will change soon.”
I stopped in the middle of a thick brush that concealed us from any prying stares. “What do you mean?”
He picked up my hands and placed them on his broad chest. The steady thrum of his heart soothed me further. His knuckles brushed across my cheek, and he tucked my silvery hair behind my ear. “I can’t tell you yet, but I have plans in motion for after the trial.”
“What kind of plans?” I pressed, hope taking flight in my chest.
“A way to get you out of here,” he murmured. “I need you to trust me until the time is right. Can you do that?”
There was that word again.
Trust.
Every time I reached for it, it seemed to cut me. But since revealing our mating bond to the whole court, Vaeron had demonstrated why I should believe that his duty to me was now positioned above his duty to his sister and to the realm.
But I’d told him once before that I would rely on him when he was withholding information, and that had led to the unexpected reveal that he was betrothed to another.
He searched my face, his expression pleading. He didn’t barb me with a reminder that I’d agreed before and chosen not to after once already.
And that had to mean something, didn’t it? That we’d been able to progress past much of our animosity. That we’d been able to unite as one now that we shared a common enemy. Teeth raking my bottom lip, I nodded. “Okay.”
He wrapped his arms around me, holding me close again. I inhaled his scent—stormwood and smoke. Let it anchor me. Let it offer me harbor amid the storm.
“But I can’t leave Heraphia. Not while she’s like this.”
Vaeron was probably tired of hearing my worries for her. Instead, he shocked me with, “She is coming too.”
A gasp slipped past my lips. I tipped my head up, chin resting on his muscular chest. “Truly?”
“Truly.”
Relief broke the vine around my ribs.
He leaned down and pressed his lips to mine in a tender, loving kiss. Then, he rested his forehead against mine. “I told you one day that you wouldn’t think the worst of me at everyturn. I am trying to earn that, Sylaira. I will protect you by whatever means necessary.”
