“I know,” Evander whispered. “My mother would do the same.”
She thought of her father—his thirst for vengeance so violent he’d sacrificed thousands of lives on the altar of his rage. She remembered the last time she’d seen him.
“I want you to find Prince Evandaine on the battlefield and kill him,” he had said. “I want to push Marwenna to her darkest.”
If Cadmus learned that she loved the son of his greatest enemy, he would not spare Evander. He would toy with him, like a cat with a mouse, and then he would kill him. Torture, starvation, and then a tidy public execution in Stratus, so everyone in Sennalaith and Ashkendor could witness Cadmus’s superiority over Marwenna.
And he would make Valenna watch — helpless and despairing. He would give her a front seat to every horror until she was driven out of her mind.
“It is too dangerous,” Valenna said, shuddering and trying to shut the door on these dark imaginings. “I can’t risk you. It’s reckless.”
Evander knelt in front of her. “I would risk my own life, my own safety, and my own freedom to be with you, but I will not risk yours.”
She dug her nails into the bark under her, peeling it from the stump until her fingers were dirty, her nails packed. “I feel the same.”
“Then we need to consider this with clear heads …”
“Whenever you say things like that, it makes me want to scream …”
“We need to be practical,” he persisted. “And the wise thing to do is go …” he faltered, then steadied his voice. “… go our separate ways.”
“But how can I let you go on this journey alone?” she said, choking on tears. They surprised her; she never cried.
He leaned forward and cradled her face between his hands. “I’m not yours to worry about anymore.”
She gripped his wrists and pulled his hands to her chest, where she pressed them against her heart. “A part of you will always belong to me, and a part of me will always be yours.”
“Our destinies are not intertwined. It wasn’t meant to be. But know that you were the first woman I ever loved … and the last.”
“Stop that,” she snapped, and a tear trickled down her cheek. The trees glowed brighter, their light pulsing on his face. “You’re going to find wyvern bone powder at the sanctuary, and you’re going to live long enough to be bitten in half by a dragon, like I always said you would.”
He smiled sadly.
She swallowed her tears, plunging them into the pool of anger she kept swirling under her breastbone. Anger didn’t hurt less than grief, but it was a pain she understood.
He was right. She needed to let him go so she could find her sister. So she could punish her father. Because this was her father’s fault.
This was his mother’s fault.
This was her fault.
But oh, how her father would pay for this loss. She would tend her anger like a garden until she could cut the flowers to poison Cadmus with.
“Come, let’s get some sleep,” Evander said, drawing her to her feet.
She followed him into the hut.
A glowing rain pattered on the hut roof, the drops luminous sapphire. Valenna awoke with a start, sitting up on the little cot and looking around frantically for Evander.
Torsten sat at the table, peeling carrots, and Evander crouched in the light of the stove, packing his rucksack.
“Will you send them a letter,” Evander was saying to the wizard, “so they know I wasn’t eaten?”
“Certainly,” Torsten replied.
“Were you leaving without saying goodbye again?” Valenna demanded.
“I was debating if I should wake you.”
