Reyna
The dense woods were as silent as the dead of winter. As she pushed through a tangled patch of briars, several thorns scraped along her bare arms. Blood burst along the path of the wound, fresh and bright, like the crimson liquid she’d seen Lorcan drinking in the Tower of Thorns.
Frustration tore through her like a storm. It wasn’t the pain. It wasn’t even the blood. It was the fresh reminder that her love had banished her from his side.
“Lorcan would never do that,” she muttered to herself as she tore off a scrap of her linen tunic. Because he wouldn’t, and she couldn’t forget the truth. The look on his face when he’d learned of her deal with Seelie, when she’d given up a normal life with him for the magic that would save the world from the Ruin…he’d been devastated by the idea that they couldn’t spend the rest of their lives side by side.
He wouldneverdo this.
But knowing that did little to dull the sharp pain that had been flickering in her heart as she ran.
With a heavy sigh, she stumbled back onto the skinny path that twisted through the depths of the forest. Eventually, it would lead her to Craobhan, but it would take days. Her feet ached almost as much as her heart, and she hadn’t eaten since fleeing Murias. Night was drawing in, and as Wingallock swooped down to perch on her shoulder, she admitted to herself that it might be time for a break.
She continued forward until she found a small clearing off the edge of the road. In the Before Times, when all the kingdoms had been at war, she never would have set up camp so close to a road, but things were different now. No longer did she roam through enemy territory. If any fae passed her by, they would not be out for blood. Most likely. The wood fae who had attacked the throne room during the coronation had been dealt with. The realm had been at peace ever since.
Reyna had nothing to fear.
So, why did she still feel so on edge?
Lorcan’s words echoed in her ears, from before he’d transformed into a twisted version of himself.You can’t relax. You want something to be wrong. You can’t accept that we’ve won.
It was all true. But that didn’t mean that everything was right.
Reyna crunched through the underbrush and squatted beneath the canopy of trees. Her stomach growled as she glanced around, wishing she’d brought a pack of supplies along with her. “What do you reckon, Wingallock?”
Her familiar hooted softly into her ear and then took off through the trees, his white wings flared wide. She smiled fondly at her owl. He knew she was hungry, same as he. He’d hunt for some mice while she got a fire started.
As she threw some sticks together and got the flame growing, something silver and shining caught the corner of her eye. She twisted toward it, frowning. Was Wingallock back already? That was fast.
“What?” Her jaw dropped open when her eyes landed on a very familiar cloak hanging from a branch just along the edge of the clearing. Heart hammering, she pushed up from the ground and stared at it like it was a ghost.
“It can’t be,” she whispered, reaching down to her belt to grab her ice dagger. It was her mother’s hoarfrost cloak, the one Reyna had inherited after she’d died. It had been months since she’d seen that cloak. She couldn’t even be certain where she saw it last. In the Air Court, perhaps, before she’d been stolen away to the Shadow Court.
Reyna thought it had been long lost, that she’d never see it again.
An eerie chill danced down her spine. How the hell had it ended up here? A deep, aching part of her begged to reach out, to feel the soft material slip through her shaking fingers. This had been her mother’s cloak. Just like the ice glass ring she wore on a chain around her neck, it felt like one of the only connections Reyna had to her mother. It was like an anchor, holding her steady amidst all the storms that had blown her way. It reminded her of who she was and where she’d come from.
It reminded of her why she fought so hard to survive.
Chills sweeping along her arms, Reyna took an unsteady step toward the cloak. It rippled in a light wind, the black-and-silver shimmering like the moon. She’d lost this cloak twice now. And it always came back.
“Mother,” Reyna whispered, tilting her face up to a sky blocked by the dense canopy. “Are you out there somehow? Are you watching me?”
Or was she slowly losing her mind, just like Lorcan?
With trembling fingers, Reyna slipped the cloak off the branch and pulled it around her shoulders. The scent of frost filled her head, taking her back to home. The ice, the snow, the looming mountains drenched in silver light. Her soul ached for it, even now. After all this time, the cold called for her bones.
Sucking in a breath through flared nostrils, she returned to the fire. She sank onto the ground and stared into the flames. She hated the way they hissed and curled their heat into the night air. There was something so wrong about it. She’d always felt strange around fire, but she’d never quite understood why. For a long time, she thought it was just because she’d been born of the ice, but Eislyn didn’t seem to have a problem with flames. Only Reyna did. And now with her mother’s cloak pulled tightly around her body, that strange sense of wrong permeated the clearing like a dense mist.
And here she’d thought she’d left the mists behind.
A crack sounded in the forest, and Reyna leapt to her feet by deep-seated instinct. Her dagger was in her hand before she even thought to grab it, and a low whistle emanated from her throat. Wingallock darted through the trees and settled on her shoulder, digging his talons into her skin.
“Did you see anything?” she whispered to him.
The owl nuzzled her cheek, his beak pressing into her skin just once. The signal for no. Her familiar could not speak, but they’d learned long ago how to communicate.
Reyna’s heart tripped in her chest as she slowly crept forward. The fire blazed behind her, and she knew that no matter how quiet she might be now, if anyone was out there, they’d already seen her. She gripped her dagger tighter as fear robbed her breath. Perhaps she’d been wrong to assume enemies no longer lurked in the shadows.
