Because she realized I wasn’t going to leave if she did not.
Everyone seemed intent on me moving on. On leaving Arran.
Fuck all of them. Fuck all of it. Arran was my mate. Leaving him was a betrayal. I’d promised to wait a thousand years.I’d wait that and a thousand more. Eternity. That’s what I’d promised to Arran—to myself.
And we’d pledged those years together to Annwyn.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
My heart was going to break. Ice or no. It wasn’t going to be enough to hold it together. To hold me together.
You can do this, Princess.
A tear slipped down my cheek.
I knew it wasn’t real. That it wasn’t really Arran, that he couldn’t speak to me through the tattered bond, in that enchanted sleep. It was my deluded mind, my broken heart, conjuring his voice in my head to give me strength. But I clung to it nonetheless. If I’d still believed in praying to the Ancestors, I would have beseeched them for strength and courage. Prayed for that voice in my head to be followed by a growl, a growl to fill me up.
But the ice remained, uncracked. Unthawed.
Morgyn and Isolde were close enough to hear their words clearly. Isolde’s, at least. My perfectly neutral sister didn’t speak at all, keeping her own counsel as always. But I had a plan for that too, I realized.
I blocked them out as I stood, refused to let their voices intrude on this moment. It belonged to me and Arran.
He might have been sleeping. Hewassleeping, I reminded myself. But he did not turn into my hand as I stroked my fingers along the side of his face. After a fortnight, he should have had the beginnings of a beard. But the stubble along his chin and throat was unchanged from that awful day. He was as frozen as me.
I leaned down, pressing my forehead to his. His skin was cool, none of the eternal warmth I’d come to cherish. It was all so wrong. But I did not pull away. I inhaled deep, filling the chasms inside of me with his scent of earth and spice. And though itnearly broke my heart to do it, knowing he wouldn’t pull me close or respond to my touch, I pressed my lips to his.
I let one more tear fall.
And as I rose, the wall of ice inside of me thickened.
10
VEYKA
It was farther than I’d ever jumped before in a singular use of my power. But I did not even pause long enough to wonder if I’d make it. Maybe part of me didn’t care if I did… a secret hope that I’d be caught in the void, that I’d find some remnant of Arran there.
But I landed on the ground with my own two feet. Alone.
To find Lyrena and Cyara completely unruffled. The latter spared me a glance only long enough to confirm that it was indeed me who had appeared at the edge of the campsite.
Lyrena was dressing a hare, blood and discarded entrails at her feet. She paused in her gruesome task to say one word, “Avalon?”
I jerked my chin in confirmation.
The golden skin of her throat bobbed in response. “What now?”
“Isolde will stay to watch over Arran.” I’d explain the rest to them later. I needed to move now, or I would start second-guessing my decision and wouldn’t be able to move at all. “If we are to battle the succubus, we will need allies.”
Cyara lifted her eyes to meet mine, their turquoise depths looking into me in that keen way that was slightly unnerving, and yet comforting. She saw what I couldn’t yet say… was ready for what I did.
“We are going to Eilean Gayl.”
Lyrena’s inhale was sharp, her gaze cutting from me to Cyara. My handmaiden held my gaze as she reached behind her and lifted her pack from the ground. Her tent was rolled and affixed to it. In the corners of my vision, I realized all the tents were down, the debris and laundry we’d scattered over the last weeks tidied. Everything was already packed.
It was time to go.
11
