But there was nothing.
Only the taste of pine and iron. No lingering shadows but the endless trees.
Yet, Ronan let the stillness stretch until it threatened to choke him. Only then did he finally sheath the dagger.
But the hair along his neck still prickled, his own darkness unwilling to settle. Someone had been here, was still here. And they wanted him to know it.
That stench of forest and death shifted, cut clean by frosted mint as a sudden wind whisked through the branches. A white owl ghosted down from the sky, wings stretched wide, landing above him with silent grace.
Late, as always.
Ronan straightened, crossing his arms as the bird launched once more, shifting midair. Feathers rippled, bones snapped and reshaped, light twisting until a body dropped before him.
One breath, creature. The next, Fae.
Elysian.
He moved like he once remembered being something else. Someone freer.
His hair, white as snow, was knotted back, while his pale skin was covered by an ivory jacket that he smoothed with a languid hand.
Like vanity even here in the rot.
The unnatural hue of his eyes was aglow, the whitish blue cold enough to burn. Like they could never fully settle here, on a continent that had stolen him.
He stalked forward, every step unhurried. “You weren’t exaggerating. She certainly moves like she’s part of the dark.”
Ronan’s eyes tracked the shifting tree line, each drift of shadow like a breath he couldn’t quite take. “She is.”
Elysian glanced alongside him. “You do realize this is starting to look more like obsession than strategy, yes?”
Ronan huffed, tugging the cuffs of his sleeves higher. “The only obsession is to free...” He didn’t need to say anything further; they both knew what lie he would spit. He said the most truth he could instead. “To free Selvarra. And it is not an obsession. Only essential.”
“Don’t talk as though I have never yearned for the taste of freedom, Ronan. Have you forgotten my own shackles?”
“Those were burned.”
“Only to be reforged as loyalty,” Elysian countered.
Ronan turned toward him fully then, his stare saying what his pride wouldn’t:Do you truly believe yourself bound to me? A slave instead of a brother?
Elysian’s smile was muted, wry, but there was warmth behind it as he perceived what Ronan didn’t say. “Freedom is where your soul can expand. Where your blood can breathe.” His eyes tracked the sky, then further beyond it. “Mine may never thrive here, not on this cursed continent, but it is close enough.”
Ronan looked away. “Close enough,” he echoed, though they both knew he didn’t believe it.
The step Elysian took toward Ronan was soundless. “Some sacrifices feel like theft,” he said it carefully. “But those that might seem to take the most are often the ones that matter in the end.”
Only once, Ronan’s shoulders rose, refusing to accept it before they settled.
Elysian dipped his chin, inhaling and immediately grimacing. His mouth curved as he nodded past Ronan, down to the carcass as he approached. “I thought you didn’t care for deer.” Ronan pivoted, letting him pass, tensing as Elysian crouched, fingers ghosting over the body. “Did you do this?”
Ronan scoffed, rubbing the faint mark on his wrist. “You know I don’t play with my food before I eat it.”
A sly smirk curved across Elysian’s mouth as he dipped his hand into a pool of blackened blood. Lifting it to his nose, he consumed the scent again.
A shudder rippled through him, his moonlit leathers almost changing deeper from the stench.
“Depends on what kind of food you mean.” He stood fluidly, gaze lingering colder on the doe now.
