It was outside, echoing from distances close and far.
Jesstin passed out again. He woke and had no idea how much time had gone by.
He pitched forward over the loft railing, looking for Elloven, but she was gone.
Jesstin slapped his chest, then his face. Something was wrong... so very, very wrong.
The door crashed open. Sesto rushed in.
“We have a big problem,” he said.
“There’s a raid on Rivenholde! They’ve come in the night, so many of them!” Daire cried from behind him.
Jesstin swung around, looking for his clothes, but most were still in that tent, along with his sword. He grabbed the skintight leather they’d left for him, yanked it over his flesh, and raced down the stairs, skipping several before landing on the ground floor.
Sesto reached under his cloak and withdrew Jesstin’s sword and scabbard. He nearly toppled from the heft of the steel.
Jesstin nodded with relief and fastened the belt. “Where’s Elloven?”
“You’ve been keeping things from me for years, Taven.”
“No. Ellie, no?—”
Elloven backed up a step. “You tricked me into this bond because you knew I’d never consent to it. You knew I was leaving. Leaving you.”
“That’s not what happened.” Taven’s head shook through his words. “What did you say... leaving me?”
“You knew they would bond us when we got here.” She was suddenly freezing cold. “You knew all along.”
“I had hoped they might see the wisdom in it and offer their support,” he said in the tactful tone he used when he wanted her to feel like a histrionic woman who couldn’t keep her emotions in check.
“No, Taven.” Disgust burned in her fingertips, which felt full of literal fire. No, not felt. They were flames. She could end him, right then and there, same as she should have done to Fabrien the first time he’d assaulted her. “You think I can’t see through you? That I’ve always been this naïve little kitten unable to survive without your infinite wisdom?” She laughed a guttural, unnatural sound that came from somewhere deep within her, where her darkness lived. “It’s my own fault for not standing up for myself sooner...”
His eyes moved to her hands in alarm.
She looked down and saw them glowing, pulsing red. “You’re wondering if I would, aren’t you? You wonder if I have it in me.”
Taven swallowed. “Do you, Ellie? Could you?”
“I could,” she said, breathing in and standing tall. “I have.”
“You’re upset, and you’re not... You’re not thinking logically.” His fear smelled like copper, sharp and bitter and unwelcome.
Elloven squeezed her hands into fists. A hiss heralded the quench of fire retreating. She slipped through the gap in the door and into the hallway, swarmed with esguards, but most wore dusk-colored uniforms, not the threads of Rivenholde.
“She’s there!” one cried, pointing a sword at her. His next words were forced through a mouthful of blood. A sword tip jutted from his chest, then disappeared as it was extracted.
He crashed to the floor, his weapon clanging onto the stone as it fell from his hands. Where he’d stood was Jesstin, drenched in far more blood than what had come from one esguard.
Jesstin wiped his sleeve across his face, but it was just as messy. It left a path of crimson from his temple to his jaw, then dripped down his chin.
“Your left!” Elloven screamed.
Jesstin’s eyes locked with hers for a single instant as he spun and arced his sword across the man’s neck. He clashed with another man behind him, locking in place for several seconds before he bellowed and kicked him into the thick of esguards battling.
There was no time to think. She had nothing to defend herself with. Even her chaos was silent in the commotion, in the devastating awareness the esguards wearing dusk had come for her.
“It’s Curia Eversong, the silver tongues,” Taven said as he dragged her away from the melee, but she planted her feet and launched herself away from him. “Elloven, come on!”
