“I love you too. I always have. But we need to be pragmatic …”
“Sometimes, I want to slap you so badly …”
“Because with things as they are, you really should forget about me.”
“Alright then.” She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “I’ll just stop, after two years. People can do that. Shut their emotions off like a spigot.”
He smiled despite himself. “I can’t return to Silvanlight. I had planned to leave with Hera before the paddocking. I planned to go to Cobblepine.”
A part of her had suspected he was preparing to leave Silvanlight. He was slippery like that—a runner.
“Why Cobblepine?” she asked, her brow furrowed. “I thought they hated you there.”
“The wyvern we found on the plains. I think they might have a breeding pair.”
A light flared in Valenna’s bog. More powder meant more time, more hope, more of him. And, oh, she wanted himso badly it hurt.
She reached out and clutched Evander’s hands again. “That means we could save you!”
“It’s not a certainty,” he said quickly. “But it doesn’t matter anymore, because …” He rolled his sleeve and indicated the tattoo on his bicep, now little more than a smudge.
Valenna’s heart sank. “Oh no. You broke the oath.”
“I’ll be worse than scum in that place.”
She raised her chin. She wouldn’t let a simple thing like that stand in her way. “I’ll go.”
“You don’t know where Cobblepine is.”
“You do. Tell me.”
He huffed a laugh. “Absolutely not. I’ll go on ahead and see if I can charm my way in.”
“You are many things, Vander,” Valenna said with a fond smile. “You are handsome, and clever, and funny in a cynical way, but you are not charming.”
He didn’t seem offended. “I know the head woman. She may have pity on me. And we agreed you are going home to your life in Largotia.”
“First, we did not agree. Second, that will be very pleasant for me. I always sleep well at night knowing the man I love is probably lying dead in some god-forsaken gorge.”
“Val, please, just go home.”
“There are two options, Evander. Only two. Either I go to Cobblepine alone or we go together. Choose.”
She gazed levelly at him, daring him to defy her.
He shook his head, fighting a smile. “Why don’t you think on it for an hour or two, and then we discuss it more?”
“Alright. You should rest. We’ve got a long journey ahead of us, and you’re fragile …”
Now he was offended. “I am not fragile.”
“Alright then, you’re in a very fit and sturdy state of imminent death. Why don’t you take an entirely unnecessary rest while I go and talk to Torsten about the journey?”
Reluctantly, Evander returned to the cot and stretched out. Valenna studied the lines of his body, the way the lean muscle in his chest and stomach dimpled his shirt. He smirked at her, and she flushed.
“Sleep!” she ordered and rushed out the door.
Chapter twenty-six
