He had to go. Get far away from the disaster of Ravenstone. If Ballanor even suspected that Val loved her, he would kill him, excruciatingly, over many days.
“Val, I can’t, I mean… I don’t want....” She swallowed the rest of her words as Val’s eyes shuttered, the silver flecks turning gray and dull.
He dropped his hand from her cheek and stepped out of her reach, his face set and hard. “Fine. But don’t ask me to leave again. I promised to keep you safe. And whatever you may think of me, I do not break vows lightly.”
“But—”
“No.” Without another word, he led them back onto the rutted dirt track.
They walked through the lengthening shadows in silence as Alanna’s heart thudded heavily in her chest and she tried not to cry.
Val’s shoulders were hunched, and his wings furled tightly as if in pain. She didn’t know what to say. She was responsible for the look on his face, and there was nothing she could do to change it.
Night fell over their grim journey. She began to hobble, tripping over stones, her feet aching, rubbed raw from walking in ridiculous court shoes. Without a word, Val lifted her onto Boreas, pulled a cloak out of his saddlebag to wrap around her shoulders, and kept walking.
It was almost a relief when the cavalry found them. Twenty guards in black tunics shouting and whistling as they surrounded them. Laughing and cursing, hurling insults and spiteful remarks as they bound their wrists and shoved them into a rough carriage.
The men pushed Val to the floor of the carriage, kicking him and spitting on him, but he never made a sound. And he never once looked at her.
Oh, Bard. Why hadn’t he run?
The rest of the journey was a blur of thirst and pain and misery. By the time they reached the palace, even though it was after midnight, the entire court was there to watch them. To call vicious taunts and insults.
She wouldn’t have cared if it wasn’t for the misery on Val’s face.
They were pulled out of the carriage and over the cobbled bridge, the water below them glittering in the torchlight as they stumbled ahead of the Black and Blues through the outer courtyard and across to the Great Hall, where Ballanor met them. Her husband was dressed in an embroidered burgundy robe, ready for bed except for his gold chains of office glittering with rubies and onyx in the flickering light.
Ballanor looked them up and down with undisguised malice, clasped his hands behind his back, and called out loudly so that everyone could hear, “We have the traitors!”
“No!” She forced herself to stand tall. “We’re innocent. Why else would we come back?”
Ballanor sneered. “You weren’t coming back, wife. The cavalry found you escaping down a back road.”
“We weren’t, we—”
“Shut up.” Ballanor strode over to glare at her.
“Please!” Alanna looked around at the gathered crowd, desperately trying to sway them. “If you speak to the Hawks, they’ll tell you—”
Ballanor cut her off with a raucous laugh. But he wasn’t looking at her; he was looking at Val. “The Hawks, what’s left of them, are gone. Captain Tristan took them to a new posting within hours of returning.” He smirked. “They want nothing to do with a traitor.”
The look on Val’s face was worse than anything else she’d had to bear that day. He looked like a man who had fallen into a hole and then realized it was a grave. And that he was trapped in it, along with the dead that lay there, with no chance of reprieve.
The last vestiges of color left his face, and he looked gray and devastated as they led him away. Even then he never looked at her, not once.
That was the worst part. The part that broke her.
She heard herself screaming at Ballanor, demanding to see a justice, insisting that they were innocent. But he merely flicked his hand and the guards ignored her howls of outraged betrayal as they picked her up, carried her to her room, and locked her in.
She stumbled to her bed and then lay down and wept. Choking out harsh sobs that felt as if they were torn from her body along with her heart.
She didn’t bother to look up when, a few minutes later, the door opened quietly and Keely came in. Keely didn’t ask what had happened; everyone knew. She simply sat down beside her and stroked Alanna’s hair until she had cried herself into exhaustion, and her tears slowly stopped.
“Oh, Lanni,” Keely said quietly.
Alanna turned on her side to look at her friend. “Where’s Lanval?”
“They took him to the Constable’s Tower.”
