I know.His reply was short. Still mad then.
Do you need one of us to swap with you? Riding and balancing her can’t be easy. Me or Hayle could ride with her for a bit, so you can stretch?
The response was immediate and biting.No.
Cousin. I hate that we’re fighting. I never would have hurt her—you know that. It was a tactical decision, not a personal one.This was something I’d already said, repeatedly.
People have already taken from her body without her permission. You would have just been one more perpetrator.
I flinched, her memories flitting through my mind once more.In the end, she was asked and consented. Holding onto this can only end badly for us and for her. Please, Iker. I’m sorry.
I felt his heavy sigh in my mind.Fine. You’re forgiven.
Do you like her?
She’s fine.Iker hesitated.Strong. You can only respect that kind of strength. In a different world and a different time, perhaps I would have asked her on a date, but she is too young, too wounded, too raw. This lifetime isn’t ours. She needs to heal instead.
A smile tugged at my lips. As long as I’d known him, Iker had been only about the mission. Our return to our homelands. He’d rebuffed everything from flirtatious looks to outright offers of marriage.
I made a humming noise of agreement in my mind.She is special. This war won’t go on forever, and she has years to heal, if you are willing to wait. Don’t write it off yet, cousin. If anyone knows that patience is key, it’s the Second Line.I paused, because this last part was probably unnecessary, but needed to be said.But if you pressure her in any way, I’ll cutoff your balls myself. And Avalon would probably feed them to Taeme’s hounds.
I felt his chuckle in my brain.I’d let you.
There was a relief in breaching the wall between Iker and myself. He had been my companion and bodyguard for as long as I could remember. He was more like a brother than anything else. Ill feelings were like sandpaper scraping across my skin.
“Just up here on the left,” Kian called, and I realized just how close we were to the mountains. The trees were tall and spindly, dusted at the tops with snow. Kian led us through a set of tall pines to what looked like the entrance to a cave.
I looked down at Hayle. “Anything in there?”
He frowned. “Only an ice bear, but she’s still in torpor right at the rear of the cave. She says don’t mess the place up, or touch her food stash, and she won’t bother us.”
Vox spluttered. “Just an ice bear?Justan ice bear. For fuck’s sake, Taeme.”
Hayle shrugged and grinned. “You’ll just have to trust me, Vylan.” He nudged Vox’s shoulder with his own.
“There’s a slight overhang where we’ll hobble the horses, so they can feed. They wouldn’t like being in the cave with the scent of an ice bear anyway,” Kian said softly.
Smart animals.Climbing down on shaky legs, I stretched as Hayle pulled Avalon from the saddle, wrapping her in his arms and snuggling her cold cheeks, like the few hours they’d been separated had been too much.
Their love was so evident; they wore it on their faces for the world to see. I looked over at Vox and saw the longing there. He loved her too, loved them both. But people like Vox and I hadn’t been raised to have room for feelings and weaknesses.
And love was the greatest weakness of all.
Five
Avalon
The village we rode into the following day could hardly even be called such a thing. It was a collection of rundown huts, made of stone and thickly thatched roofs. If Kian hadn’t been so sure, I would’ve thought the place was abandoned. There wasn’t even any smoke curling from the chimneys. How could you survive out here without a fire running for most of the day?
“How did you say you found this place again?” I asked Kian.
“Returning from a meeting in Fortaare. It was… a lot, and I wasn’t in a hurry to return to Rewill, so I decided to travel around the edges of our Barony. I happened to stumble past it. Thought it was abandoned, but would make a decent place to rest for the night. I was wrong on both accounts.” That should have sounded ominous, except he was smiling. Who lived here that made my brother smile so fondly?
Stopping in front of the most damaged of the houses, Kian swung down from his horse, holding out an arm so Powell could slide down after him. He stood there until the other man was steady on his feet, then went up to the abandoned door and knocked twice.
Nothing happened. The knock echoed around the mountains, caught on the howling wind. We stood there for anendless minute, during which I assessed whether my brother had succumbed to the stress of being Heir and lost his mind.
Then the door creaked open. Kian smiled and stepped inside, and we all slid from our horses to follow him, despite the fact it was creepy as hell.
