“Estela, I know you have been busy—I have been, too. Gods know you do so much… but it’s almost time to get Mikal. Are you ready?”
I look at her, and my chest swells. Months apart. Would he be proud of everything I’ve done?
Nodding my head, I swallow and say, “Yes. More ready than you can imagine.”
It’s then that Liana returns to the room.
“Liana. Back so—” I start, but she stumbles forward, grabbing a piece of paper and a pen. A stone falls from her hand and crashes against the ground.
I bend to retrieve it.
“My queen,” she gasps. Her eyes are wide, and she blinks in rapid procession while her Fuegorra lights up like a dazzling beam of magic. “This is a message from Melisa and Ra’Salore.”
“What does it say?” I ask as Arlet guides her to the chair.
Liana starts to write as her breathing slows.
“Rholker…” she spits, looking right at me. For the first time since she barrelled back into the room, her eyes are clear. “He’s killed off thousands of slaves.”
Blood rushes to my ears, causing a dull roar.
“What?” Arlet says through the shock, and my hands go numb.
My redheaded friend picks up the stone with the message and the paper that Liana had been writing on.
“Pens are burnt, men are rounded up and whipped, thousands are dead. Rholker is still here, and he has definitely secured a relationship with Arion,”she finishes.
I sit there, frozen.
All because a few dared to escape. I had thought that he would’ve been weakened by the fight, and everything would be all right.
I was wrong.
I push away from the table and go find my husband.
Chapter 37
Trolleite
TEO
Mrath’s return feels like déjà vu. Gods only know how Thorne had been communicating with her while under the mountain, but I don’t press the white-haired assassin.
Estela and I wait for the elven leader outside of Enduvida, flanked by twenty hunters, the mounted Faefurt Assassins, and Thorne himself.
My wife is anxious. Since we’ve started to get word from Ra’Salore and Melisa, the news is dire. Rholker is eradicating humans at an exponential rate, and I just feel…
Helpless.
Mrath rides atop an alce, much like Layla’s, and she wears a crown of thorny twigs that wrap around her temples and elongate her already narrow face. She wears dark green armor, the kind that blends into the fray of the forest but is stark against the snowy mountains.
Behind her, a hundred women come bearing glinting weapons and hungry faces. Some ride bears or wolves, but agreat manyrun.Their elven bodies are strong, used to running for incredibly long distances.
No sooner than they draw a hundred paces, the Faefurt assassins at our sides rear their beasts, thrust their weapons in the air, and let out a series of high pitched calls. It stirs the bones.
They certainly don’t inspire immediate trust, but they are much more lively than their men—I’ll give them that,Estela says in my mind.
I smile down at her glow and press my hand against the small of her back. She leans into the gesture, and a warmth as powerful as the sun itself thaws my insides.
