Since the moment I met her, Mother Solas has been open and honest with me, so I have no hesitation in speaking my mind. “Your granddaughter needs you now more than ever. Why would you stay here?”
Mother Solas waits for the dragons to lift into the air and fly away, watching them leave before she answers me. “She trustsme to keep her informed if Erik changes his mind, but that isn’t why I want to stay.”
She has my full attention. “Mother Solas?”
“Rachel doesn’t know this, but the smoke from the crimson coal back at the city has damaged my chest. Breathing isn’t easy. I’m not in a good way.” She gives me a brave smile. “For some reason, I can breathe more easily here. Maybe it’s the moisture in the air, but I feel it may ease my passing.”
My eyes are wide. “You’re dying?”
“It won’t be long now. A few days at most.” Then, with the stoicism that must have seen her through Malak’s entire reign, she turns to Dusana. “Your Queen is certainly something, isn’t she?”
Dusana tips her head back and returns Mother Solas’s frank stare with a shrug. “She is the center of her own world.”
Mother Solas extends her hand. “Right, then. Up you get.”
Dusana scoffs at her. “A dying human woman offers me her hand? You would sooner drop me and blame it on your bad breathing than help me. We are enemies, old woman. Don’t try to make me your friend.”
“Why not?” Mother Solas asks. “You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t a dead woman, too. You said as much.”
Dusana scowls. Muttering under her breath, she takes Mother Solas’s hand and wobbles to her feet.
“Also,” Mother Solas continues, “my chest may burn with every breath I take, but that makes me even more determined to live the remainder of my life to its fullest.”
At that moment, Blackbird appears at the edge of the forest. Concord is close behind him. They both peer up at the sky as if to check that the dragons are gone.
A second later, two smaller figures burst from the tree line, darting between the birds. Galeia is a giggling blur, her tiny legsmoving astonishingly fast, while Cailey is a streak of bright light chasing after her.
Seeming satisfied that the threat is gone, Blackbird bounds after them while Concord steps regally through the trees, checking the space around her before darting forward and pouncing after him.
Beside me, Mother Solas plants her hands on her hips. “Food,” she declares. “They’ll be hungry.” She eyes Dusana. “I’m certain you must be hungry, too.”
Dusana gives a groan. “I’m famished.” She brushes the grass off her pants, but she quickly glares at Mother Solas. “Sharing a meal doesn’t make us friends.”
“As you like.” Mother Solas strides away, calling loudly, “Little Wolf and… uh… Bright Child, who wants to go berry hunting in the moonlight?”
Galeia pops her head up above the grass, which is taller where she’s crouched, so all she reveals is the top of her face and her bright eyes.
I’m certain she heardhuntingand notberries.
Oh, dear.
Mother Solas and Dusana are already ten paces away. I move to follow them, but Erik has prowled back to me.
“Asha.”
At the way he says my name, my heart is instantly heavy, and all my peace vanishes.
I speak my fears without hesitation, knowing that he will hear and listen to me. “You’re choosing a path that could tear me apart.”
He shakes his head, his dark hair falling across his eyes so much like he used to wear it to hide his wolfish features. “I made you a promise, Asha. I will never hurt your heart again.”
I fight the burn behind my eyes. “You can’t make a promise like that and then run toward death.”
In the distance, Galeia’s giggles float across the wind, along with the soft chatter of women who have somehow gathered together in this place, such a powerful combination of sounds that I can hear them above the crashing waves.
Erik takes a step toward me. “You removed the device from my heart. I can fight Karasi with the strengths I gained without risking the darkness. At least not any more than another human would risk. I can do what I was destined to do.”
“Die in battle?” I ask, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice. “Like your people?”
