I expected him to retort back, but he cleared his throat and took a slow breath. “Grandmother actually believed in wishing wells. I could almost…hear her in my ear when I had my head in that well. Sounds crazy but…she was proud of what Iwished for.”
I swallowed and glanced out into the blue morning sky. The mountain clouds swirled above us and birds sang in thecrisp air.
Riyan hugged me close to him. “Let’s just hope that well magic isn’t allpeasant bullshit.”
His voice broke on his last word and he stopped on the mountain path. His heart thudded against my head. Tension rumbled inhis chest.
I placed my hand in the center of his chest. “Riyan, are youall right?”
His voice was quieter than I had ever heard it. “She taught meto read.”
He turned his head toward a grove of tall trees and walked over to them. “Every time I got hurt, she kissed where the injury had been—even though magic had alreadyhealed it.”
He knelt under the canopy of branches with sunlight dappling his golden hair and lowered me to my feet. “Every available maid was too terrified to nurse me, so she fed me goat’s milk through a flour sack. Every two hours. Even though Grandfather thought shewas crazy.”
Riyan pressed his palms into the ground and hunched over. His eyes swam and his brow knitted. Our bond pulled beneath my chest and compelled me to goto him.
I walked between his arms with my face just under his. His massive body shook and his eyes darted back and forth as he stared down inthe grass.
“She went throughso muchjust to keep me aliveand I…”
My blood glowed in my arms and they lifted up. I stood on my toes and wrapped both arms around his trembling neck. I whispered that her death was not his fault, that it was a horrible accident, but that did not stop the tears that wet my hairand shoulders.
No birds sang. No wind rustled the leaves. The only sound echoing off the mountain stone was Riyan’s short, bitter sobs for HildaBrina Bloodstone.
I nuzzled my cheek into his throbbing neck and bit my tongue as my own chest started to shake. Our bond rattled around my heart and forced me to remember every memory of my brothers I hadshut away.
Erik pulling my hand away from the fire. Endre dangling upside-down from a tree while Erik shouted at him to get down. Endre whispering bad words at the dinner table. A frog in Erik’s boot. Scars on Endre’s knuckles. Mud pies. Nursery rhymes. Storiesunder candlelight.
I leaned into Riyan as the bitterness of my brothers’ absence spread through my body like rot. My arms tightened their embrace and our bodies nearly melded. His sadness was a barb behind my eyes. His guilt was a boulder inmy stomach.
His grief and mine mirrored, but I still couldnot cry.
When Riyan’s chest stopped shaking and I wiped the last tears from his eyes, he stood up and changed into the tunic I made for him. I sat down and picked at the grass asRiyan dressed.
Riyan sniffed once and then the air around him shifted. He hardened back into the Hero of Lycaster the moment he fastened his sword back aroundhis hips.
I tore through a blade of grass as I bit down on my own sadness. I wanted the last time I said my brothers’ names to be when they heard them from my lips as they rode away from Ravenwood Manor, but I was weak. The moment I broke that bread and said their names, their deaths finally cemented inmy soul.
I ripped apart another blade. My stomach was hollow and dark, like I was fourteen again and staring blankly at Mother and Father when they told me Erik and Endre would nevercome home.
Riyan muttered under his breath as he shook dirt and muck off his crimson cape. I looked up from the shredded grass in my hands. The darkness in my belly lifted as soon as I saw his annoyed face glaring at his cape that was covered indark stains.
Riyan murmured about the cape being clean enough and wrapped it around his shoulders. His face twisted up in irritation as his meaty hands fumbled with the cape near his clavicle. A glint of gold passed through his fingers and he growled in frustration as he failed to securethe cape.
“Damn this stupid, tiny…,” he grumbled. He hissed out a breath and his big eyes flicked downto me.
A smile cracked across my dry lips. He did not need to ask. I pushed up from the ground and raised my arms. “Come here.”
Riyan knelt in the grass and leaned forward so I could reach his shoulder. He held out the House of Bloodstone pin and I took it—finally, someone was ready to accept the role of Baron. I stood up on my toes and poked the pin through the crimson wool near hisright shoulder.
I caught his dimpled half-smile out of the corner of my eye as I worked thepin through.
“Looks like my sweetheart is back.” His voice was a ribbon of satin against my ear. “You’ve come a long way from trying to stab me a fewhours ago.”
I smirked. “You sure?” I poked him in the clavicle with the pin. He did not flinch, but he chuckled low inhis throat.
“You can’t hurt me.” He said with an edge of impending mischief. “Itjust tickles.”
