Alanna was her best friend, and Alanna had promised to come back and support Lucilla as she learned how to rule the kingdom. Yes, Keely had been thinking about going to Verturia—that’s what had started this whole mess—but she’d chosen to stay with the Hawks. She’d told him.
She was coming back, and he was going to tell her how he felt. They were going to talk and…. Gods.
“Sheiscoming back. After midwinter. I can’t… I mean—” His words faded away in confusion.
Lucilla’s expression softened. “She said something about a farm with chickens.”
Tor blinked. “She hates chickens.”
It didn’t make any sense. Why wouldn’t she come back? He was going to explain. To ask for another chance. She knew that… didn’t she? But… he hadn’t gone to her. Gods. Did she think he’d already made his choice, and that he hadn’t chosen her?
Lucilla shrugged sadly. “Go and look at her room.”
He shoved the letter into his tunic and bowed, unable to think of anything to say, before spinning around and marching up to the queen’s wing.
Keely’s door was open. Maids were inside laying sheets over the furniture, and they’d opened the window to let in the cold morning air. The room was bleak and freezing. And everything Keely owned was gone.
She had brought her life with her when she came down to Brythoria with Alanna, expecting to stay forever. And then she’d lived in the palace for nearly a year after Alanna married Ballanor. But every single thing she’d owned and used in all that time was gone.
He put a hand onto the wall and leaned heavily on it. How could she be gone? How could she leave and not say anything?
Will you come and see me before we leave? Please?
Fuck.
Her letter burned against his chest. It would be her goodbye. Her final words to him. And he didn’t want to read it. She would have tried to do the right thing. She would have told him she was leaving, forgiven him, and wished him well. That was Keely’s way—always looking after everyone except herself. And he couldn’t bear it.
He didn’t need to read her final goodbye to know that Lucilla was right, Keely wasn’t coming back. There would be no reunion. No chance to explain or beg for another chance.
He pushed off the wall and walked away as a deluge of guilt and grief threatened to overwhelm him. Keely was gone. The one bright spark in his life—the only person who made him feel any joy—was gone.
It was all he could do to push down the storm of seething emotions and hold himself together. But he did it.
Had he walked these same corridors when his parents threw him out? He couldn’t quite recall. Gods.
Somehow, he made it down the stairs, past the guards, and back into the administrative corridors where the stewards, chaplains, and marshals did their work. Without even really thinking about it, he found himself outside the door to Tristan’s new office.
He knocked twice and opened the door when Tristan grunted.
The new Supreme Commander looked up from his desk, eyes narrowed. “First Lieutenant Tor.”
Tor didn’t wait to be asked, he simply stepped forward and sank into the hard, wooden chair opposite Tristan. If he didn’t sit down, he was going to fall. What had he done?
He wrapped his hands around the back of his neck and forced himself to breathe. To push his shocked misery far down where he could only feel a small part of it. To take back control of his churning emotions. “Did you know? That Keely wasn’t coming back.”
Tristan leaned back, scowling darkly, but slowly, as his eyes traveled over Tor hunched in the chair opposite him, his face softened. “I knew.”
“Gods, Tristan. Why didn’t you say anything?”
A wave of emerald green and pewter scales flickered up Tristan’s arms. “It wasn’t my place.”
Tor let out a harsh snort. They had known. Known she was leaving. Forever. Known that he had fucked up completely by not going with her. And not one of them had said anything.
“I thought you were my friend.” The admission scraped out of him. This was his squad, the only people in the world he thought he could trust. The only family he had left.
Tristan leaned forward, his scales gleaming all the way up his neck. “I’m more than your friend, Tor. I’m your brother. And so are all the Hawks. Which is why we’ve given you the space you seemed to want. You should be grateful that we’ve left you alone instead of ripping you apart for hurting Keely. You know the code.”
Sister to one was sister to all. Gods. And Keely was as good as Alanna’s sister. His breath ached in his too-tight lungs. “Maybe you should have,” he admitted softly.
