Slowly, as if it cost him all of his strength, Adrik lifted his head. I sobbed with relief. His moss-green gaze tangled with mine.
“Ana,” he breathed, voice cracking with pain, face twisted with anguish.
I stumbled down the trail, blind with fear and relief. Yavor overtook me, freeing Adrik of Lorell’s weight.
“Bastard,” Yavor growled lovingly.
“Ana,” Adrik whispered again.
I reached him, frantic hands finding his skin impossibly cold. A sob broke from me, cracking me wide open.
“Adrik,” I mumbled into his sleeve.
Faintly, I was aware that he lifted me onto his stag. That he enveloped me as I pressed my back to his chest, and that he buried his face in my hair as we rode, breathing as if he’d been drowning. I did not notice much else. We might have journeyed the forest for days or mere minutes. I was lost to the warmth of familiar arms, to the hitching tune of his breath, to the scent of all the things I held dear. I might have passed out, exhausted from keeping the mist at bay.
I blinked against the glint of well-lit windows cresting the near hills and the bright glare of the flares.
Zora and Sai had come through.
“I will take Lorell to Almira,” said Adrik as we crossed the bridge. “Go to the cottage with the others. I will be there in a moment.”
THIRTY-ONE
Do you delight in my torment or are you blind to it?
Idid not remember making it inside, but I found myself huddled in a fireside chair while Ilvar stoked the flame and Yavor and Radan whispered quietly in the kitchen. I listened for the hiss of steps in the snow. Unease curled in my stomach; as if Adrik might vanish again now that we were no longer entwined.
He came through the door with a swirl of snow, just as he had that first time. He must have remembered it too, for his lips curved into a shadow of a smile as he saw me. In quick strides he came for the hearth, and though he tried to conceal it, I caught the pained clench of his jaw, the slight unevenness in his step. I hurried to brace him.
“You are hurt,” I said with no small measure of accusation as I helped him into the chair.
Ilvar muttered something about the kitchen and tea and fled the room.
“Ah,” Adrik said lightly, “it is but a scratch.” With a grunt he released the seam of his cloak.
“You’re bleeding out!” I cried, alerting Yavor, who came running with a rag.
“Just bleeding,” Adrik rasped, clutching the rag to the horrid gash. “I am half of a faerie, remember?”
I glared at him, faint with the image of a blood-smeared chest. “Faeries bleed.”
“We do not bleedout.”
He waited a moment, gauging perhaps if I was willing to lighten up. He sighed when I sat at the edge of the chair, arms crossed a little sullenly.
“What happened?” I asked.
“The mist,” he said with a shudder. “There’s something alive in it, I think.”
I tried to imagine what sort of beast might cause a wound as deep and ragged as the one now turning the rag a gold-flecked crimson.
“How is Lorell?”
His gaze darkened as he shook his head. “He is… strange.” I did not need to hear more and I did not know how to ease our quiet sorrow. His eyes softened as he said, “Almira claims you are cross with her.”
“She lies. I amfuriouswith her. Withyou, I am cross.”
He raised a brow, a little amused. “What did I do?”
