Tears drip down her cheeks as she stares upward, her focus glazed now, but her heart gives a final, strongthud.
With that heartbeat, it’s as if a surge of energy must allow her to fight through the damage within her mind because she whispers, “I lied to Thaden. I told him that his father loved him, even though Malak never knew he had a son…”
Milena’s whisper fades into silence.
A silence that stretches while night settles around us.
In the distance, the creatures of the forest begin scurrying, some more softly than others, while the wind picks up, blowing the snow off the leaves.
“She’s gone,” Torva says, lowering her head to Milena’s chest.
Beside me, Asha is stiff.
“Milena’s body is mine now,” she says.
Her stern declaration makes me study Asha more closely, the tension around her eyes and lips, the set of her shoulders.
Torva raises her head, a puzzled crease between her eyes. “What did you say?”
Asha doesn’t look away from the dragon, her voice harsh. “The Fae Queen sent me to hunt Milena. I had no issues with that. Milena deserved to pay for what she did. So I came to kill her. Thaden Kane merely got to her first.”
Tension rises within me at the intense anger in Asha’s voice and the fact that her description of her intentions isn’t actually accurate.
It’s true that she was hunting Milena at Queen Karasi’s command. But it was part of a deal in which Asha had had no choice.
In exchange for my life, Asha promised to kill Milena Ironmeld and bring her dead body to Karasi as proof of her death. It was the only way Asha could keep me alive.
I move to speak, but Torva has already lurched forward, her talons closing around Milena’s body. The peace she exuded just moments before has vanished.
In its place is a deep fury.
“You cannot have her body,” the emerald dragon snarls. “The fae cannot have her!”
Asha leaps to her feet. “I am owed for the pain Milena Ironmeld caused me,” she shouts, her voice sounding nothing like the compassionate person I know her to be. “I will take Milena’s body to the fae and they will do whatever they wish with it. Hang it from the ramparts. Put her head on a spike. Burn her where all can see?—”
“No!” Torva wrenches Milena’s body upward before she leaps away from Asha and into the only remaining space near the trees.
Torva’s wings shoot out, the force of their movement sending a violent whirlwind of air through the forest, making the trees bend and sway.
“No? Then you had better run, Torva,” Asha snarls, stepping toward the dragon, as if she would come after Milena.
At that, Torva takes to the air, clutching Milena’s body in her talons. The Blacksmith woman is still wrapped in a fur, but her dark hair flows behind her in the night.
Within seconds, they’re a mere speck in the distance.
Asha stops still in the snow, standing beside the deep furrow that Torva’s talons made when her powerful legs pushed her into the air.
Now, Asha doesn’t shout or rage. She’s startlingly quiet after her vicious outburst and, once again, her heartbeat is heavy.
I’m worried that Graviter will react to what she said and did, but when I glance back at him, he hasn’t moved from his cramped spot, his head tilted and a sigh on his lips that rustles the trees.
I approach Asha cautiously. “Asha?”
Her shoulders slump. “I learned well from you, Erik.”
As I draw level with her, she closes her eyes briefly.
“I learned well from the Vandawolf,” she says.
