His best friend. Gods. The betrayal burned all the way down to his soul.
If he never heard the name Lanval again, it would be too fucking soon.
He didn’t have time to wait for Val and confront him. He had to pack up his life and ship out in disgrace—immediately—as per the king’s orders. And, frankly, he didn’t want to see him anyway. Didn’t want to see his friend hauled back in chains. Didn’t want to have to look Val in the eye and hear just how little their friendship had meant.
Betrayed for a woman. Fuck.
The only thing he could do now was to gather up the men that remained of the Hawks and get the hell out of the palace.
Chapter One
September
Her wings hurt.
Not just a low background thrum. Nor the deep throbbing ache she’d left behind hours ago. No, this was constant, stabbing agony as something wrenched deep inside her with every flex of her right wing.
The rest of her was faring only slightly better—throat and wrists bruised to deep purple, a clump of her long dark hair was missing. And, down her right side, a blistering burn surrounded by pits and pockmarks, flanked a deep laceration through her wing. The harsh results of catching herself against the blazing rafters in her frantic flight to freedom.
Nim flew in a haze of pain, hardly aware of her surroundings. Focusing everything she had on moving forward. Staying low against the trees.
Eventually she had to take a break. The frantic pace and constant pain were making it hard to think, and she needed a moment to assess and plan. She had fled into the sky, taking nothing other than the clothes on her back and Val’s ring clenched in her fist. No thought other than to get far away.
She had flown at least a mile before she felt safe enough to hover, just for a few seconds, and tuck the ring into the small pocket in her waistband.
But now she was past the initial rush of panic, and tiring fast. She desperately needed a moment to regroup.
She allowed herself to drop down a few feet so that she was in amongst the top of the trees and flew jerkily toward a massive beech, thankfully still thick with leaves in reds and golds as autumn approached. A good place to hide. The kind of place she and Val had loved to play when they were children, pretending to be warriors with Tristan.
Hurt followed the thought, swift and brutal. She pushed it all away—there would be time for self-pity after she survived.
She hovered for a moment as she reached out to hold a branch and then swung herself upward. Only to slip, lose her handhold, and slide down the branch, tearing up her palms on the rough bark.
She frantically kicked up her leg and hooked her knee around the branch, jerking to a stop.
Nim hung upside down from the branch for a few seconds, breathing and getting her pulse back under control. Then she swung herself up to sit among the leaves.
She lifted her aching hands and stifled a gasp. They were slick with blood. And not just from her frantic slide. This was an hour’s worth of blood. Twisting, she saw that the tear in her wing had been weeping silver, running in a steady trickle down her arms, the entire time she’d been flying. She had been so afraid, so desperate to get away, that she hadn’t noticed.
A glance back showed a shining silver path for anyone to follow. Bile rose in her mouth at the thought, and she swallowed reflexively.
She could feel her long dark hair escaping from its loose braid and tucked a curl behind her ear with trembling, blood-sticky fingers.
She had to think. Had to stop the bleeding.
She had no bandages. And even if she had, she couldn’t bind her torn wing without limiting her flight. Her precious salves were abandoned along with everything else. As much as she wanted to curl up in a ball and cry, that wasn’t an option either.
She only had one, horrible option. She broke off a small dead branch and then flew down to the ground and sat on a large stone at the base of the tree. She used the flint she always wore to strike a spark into the dried twigs at its end. Then cupped it, blowing gently.
Once she had a good flame, she stubbed it against the tree trunk until she had a small glowing point, scarlet red and scorching hot. She opened her bleeding wing and then pulled the soft silver-gray leather forward and held it firmly with her free hand.
This was going to hurt like hell.
Nim wished she could close her eyes, but then she wouldn’t be able to see what she was doing. Instead, she gritted her teeth and pressed the torch into the wound to cauterize it. The acrid stink of burning flesh was almost as bad as the agony of the burn, and she couldn’t help her soft whimper or the tears that stung her eyes.
She blinked them away angrily and then stubbed out the torch in the damp ground of the forest and slowly let her wing go. It was trembling slightly; whether from her brutal treatment or the damage inside her muscle, she didn’t know. But it had stopped bleeding. Thank the gods.
She hung her head and gave herself a moment. Allowed herself to stand still, steeped in the devastation of it all.
