It seemed necessary, but we would be in their last safe place: their minds.
Revulsion shook me to my core, but if they were captured by the First Line, they could sink this revolution before it had even begun.
Sucking in a deep breath, I walked toward them. Squatting down in front of Celis, I chewed my lip. “What you heard before is a secret so big that it has the potential not only to end my life, but the lives of everyone I love. To destroy Ebrus. Lierick wants to remove it from your memory. He’ll smooth over just those few moments.”
“What?” Celis breathed.
“He’s going to bury himself in our brains and remove the memories,” Powell grunted. “I don’t want that. I won’t say anything.” He folded his arms across his chest, but he looked moments away from fighting, if Lierick came any closer.
Celis was quiet. “Can he… Can he take more? Can he remove the memories of…” She trailed off, and I looked up at Lierick.
With a solemn expression, he nodded. “I can… blur them. I can’t remove them completely, but I can make it all seem like a bad dream that you can’t quite remember. The memories themselves are too old, too ingrained into the survivor you are now.”
Celis didn’t hesitate. “Do it. I don’t want to remember.”
“Celis—” Powell argued, and she cut him a look. His mouth snapped shut, and I had to respect that.
Lierick sat before her, his fingers light on her temples, holding her head still. He worked quietly, only the gentle brush of strong magic against my skin letting me know he was doing anything at all.
Finally, her shoulders dropped. Her jaw relaxed. I hadn’t realized how tightly she was holding herself until her demons released their claws. A shuddering sigh of relief. The unclenching of fingers. They were all signs that this was the right thing.
Lierick was pale and vibrating, like he’d drawn all her tension inside himself. I didn’t need to know what he’d seen as he extracted those memories from Celis. I wouldn’t even want to imagine, but I could take some educated guesses at the horrors.
Powell watched her closely, but when Lierick turned to him, he narrowed his eyes. “I owe you my life. My loyalty. But I can’t let you do this to me. I can’t—” He let out a broken noise, and I was shaking my head, putting my hand on Lierick’s arm, stilling him.
“Okay, Powell.” I looked at Lierick. “Enough has been taken. I believe him.”
Lierick looked like he wanted to argue, but I stood firm. Powell needed to be in control ofsomething, and this was a small thing I could give him.
I shook my head. “Let’s go. We’re sitting ducks out here, if Feodore Vylan is roaming the plains this close to the Ninth Line Barony.”
Kian watched me closely, and the childish urge to let my older brother take care of everything washed over me. For so many years, I’d relied on Kian for everything—for survival during most of my childhood, but later, for more than that. For love and approval. To know what was right and wrong. I had become the person I was, because of Kian.
He’d only brought two more horses, aside from his own. Glory was a sweet mare, and the other one must have been a new acquisition, because I’d never seen her before. No doubt she had some kind of cloud name, because my brother loved meteorology. It was a weird hobby, but knowing whether wewere going to get four feet of snow just by the shape of the clouds on the horizon was the difference between life and death up here. He’d learned early and fallen in love.
I envied his passion for something so innocuous.
“Do you ride?” Kian asked the two strangers in our group. It was the first time he’d spoken to them directly, and Celis jolted a little.
Powell hesitated. “Not well.”
Celis hesitated. “I do. But I’m not sure I could handle them with my feet.”
Kian’s eyes dropped to her bandaged feet, and it was only from years of reading my brother’s microexpressions did I know he was raging inside at her injuries. He cleared his throat. “Powell can ride with me. Nimbus is large enough to carry us both, if we don’t ride hard. Is there anyone you feel comfortable riding with?” Once again, he directed the question at Celis. He didn’t assume. Didn’t force his opinion on her.
I loved my brother.
She wet her lower lip nervously. “Iker has been carrying me,” she whispered softly, although Iker hadn’t reappeared from the woods. I knew he would. He might have disagreed with his cousin, but he loved Lierick. He’d never leave him unprotected.
“You four?” he asked me and my guys, and Hayle shrugged.
“I’ll run with the hounds.”
Vox looked at me. “I can use my magic.”
I grinned up at Lierick. “Looks like it’s you and me.”
“Hours spent with your body pressed against my chest sounds like heaven,” he murmured back quietly, and Kian let out a gagging noise.
