Soft footsteps approached from my left. Garrick was a wall of heat on my right.
He pressed a kiss to my hair and then faced forward again, eyes on the Peace Gate. He couldn’t truly give me privacy here. But he’d let me have my space while still standing at my side—just like he’d promised, again and again.
There was still something between us that was not quite right. A piece that I had not been able to hand back to him. Maybe I had never given it in the first place. But those thoughts were for later. For now, I let myself sink into the warmth he offered, the anxious power in my veins calming at his closeness.
Tomin was silent once he arrived at my side. He wore his customary emerald robes, his wild mop of dark curls creating a boyish halo around his head. But he seemed older. He did not immediately smile. Guilt curled in my stomach.
“I thought you might be avoiding me,” I said quietly. Garrick would hear every word. But Varian, with her human hearing, was not entitled. “Or angry with me.”
Varian had been the one waiting at the door of the temple. She had served Alize, Garrick, and me meals around the blood fountain and later showed us to the dormitory. There were just two rooms, with one bed each. Garrick and I shared. Tomin had only appeared this morning, at the rear of our procession.
The corner of his mouth tracked up, but not as far as it had a few months ago. “Not angry. Worried. You were gone a long time.” He exhaled. I recognized the careful control behind it. He was trying to master his emotions and his features, the same way he had taught me to do. “There are no other priestesses or acolytes here. All of the preparations fell to us.”
I chewed the inside of my lower lip. I did not bother trying to hide my emotions. What did it matter now, here? “It was not my choice to stay away.”
“I guessed that.”
Tomin did not turn his head, but both of our gazes slid past the Peace Gate to a copse of evergreens. Beneath them, a sinister group waited. The Midnight Coven—Maura, Elodie, and Auri. The fae royal family—the fae king, Queen Parry, Edmund, and Margeaux. We’d traveled on horseback from Balar Shan to the Peace Gate. Until I’d seen them waiting for us in the courtyard, I had not even known that there were any horses left in Velora. Let alone enough to carry a group of our size. But I should not have been surprised. The fae hoarded everything. Magic, food, riches. Why not horses? Not all of them could shift and fly through the sky like Garrick.
The anger I’d felt that moment in the courtyard surged anew. A dark part of me wanted to freeze the creatures to death, just so that the fae would not have them. The stronger part wanted to freeze the fae themselves, even knowing I would die in the attempt. My power wasn’t rational. It ebbed and flowed with my emotions.
I sucked in a breath and exhaled it slowly, counting as I did. Just like Tomin had a few moments before. Just like he’d taught me.
Beside me, though, his breaths were shallow and fast. I glanced over my shoulder. Varian had not moved; her face remained implacable.
“Tomin…” I said slowly. I didn’t reach for his arm, not where Varian could see. I did not want to get him into trouble.
“I am sorry I could not do more,” he said in a rush. “After the Memory Gate.” His voice cracked.
I forgot to watch the Peace Gate for any sign of Alize’s return. The tremor in his voice… Tomin’s eyes were full of tears.
The gods had never granted me brothers. I was the youngest sister in my family and the youngest witch in my coven. I had no name for the feeling in my chest, other than… well, a word I was very uncomfortable with and had not yet given to Garrick, even. At least, not aloud.
My chest ached for him.
“We are all bound by the oaths we have made to survive,” I said quietly. I thought of my own. Garrick’s. The blood of every supplicant who’d ever attempted the Seven Gates ran in the blood fountains in each temple. They’d all made oaths of their own in a bid to survive. One more hour or day or week. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
Tomin puffed up his cheek as he exhaled another slow, audible breath. “I wish that made me feel better.”
I laughed. “What do our feelings matter in the games of gods?”
He rewarded me with a smile. Not quite as wide as it had once been, but the corners of his eyes crinkled.
“Your exercises have helped. I have not lost control.” Not entirely, at least. Tomin did not need the details. He needed hope.
The notion of me providing hope to anyone was even more laughable. But Tomin, bless him, did not laugh. His smile softened. His shoulders relaxed a bit. Warmth filled my chest and stomach, and I did not even have to borrow it from Garrick.
I let the warmth radiate out into my limbs as I turned my attention back to the Peace Gate. The physical iron gate had closed behind Alize. She might not exit here. The Mercy Gate, the Justice Gate, and the Sacrifice Gate had all left us at a different physical location from where we entered. I could not remember the Devotion Gate. Garrick had carried me injured and unconscious from the gate, and for many days afterward.
I knew that all around me, every set of eyes watched the gate. Waiting. Each with their own desired outcome.
Tomin shifted his weight at my side. He seemed to be working himself up to something. I held my silence. After a few purposeful inhales and exhales, he spoke.
“If they try to take you again, Varian will not intervene.”
There was no question as to whotheywere or whattaking memeant. Garrick’s hand tightened around mine. We all understood.
I did not have time to explain to Tomin that I had no choice. Not anymore. I couldn’t leave Maura to her own devices in Balar Shan any more than I could abandon the Seven Gates. I had not taken an oath, but I felt the power of the covenant all the same. Breaking Velora’s curse was not enough anymore; not if it meant returning power to the hands of those who would use it to hurt others. I had to destroy Maura’s talisman. I could not allow her to have even a fraction more power.
