But she wasn’t forcing herself into the lives of those she had captured and tortured. She’d also never let her empathy override her common sense, her duty. She’d never freed any of them—their bones still rotted in shallow graves of various Southern Wilds camps.
Guilt was not something she felt often—she’d done it for her people. Could she blame him for doing the same?
No, she could not. Just as she’d told John, war turned them all into monsters. Including her.
Solveig stripped off her clothes and hung them to dry, climbing up the side of the waterfall to the small perch she remembered. She lay on the narrow cove, naked, the sun soaking into her skin.
The feeling of being hidden from the world, from everyone’s scrutiny, overwhelmed her. The freedom allowed her to take three deep breaths in complete peace, revelling in the light as if it washed away some of her shadows.
And she let her heart hope, for the first time in centuries, that maybe there was an end to all this darkness.
Maybe the sun could rise.
Westleypacedbackandforth, waiting for Solveig to return.
He’d let Noren tear into him for every little detail of his deception. But he didn’t feel like he had betrayed anyone. If anything, letting Solveig escape was the first sound decision he’d made in centuries.
All those months at the Southern Wilds, he’d wanted to tell her—to start with the truth, laying it all at her feet. But he’d been a coward just like she’d said, and he hadn’t been able to bring himself to do it. He hadn’t wanted to see that hate enter her eyes when he revealed himself to be her greatest nightmare.
But she had known who he was and never let on. For what purpose? They’d have to talk, but right now Westley focused on Noren, who continued staring daggers at him.
“Anything else you’d like to add?” Westley asked with a sigh.
“At what point did you stop fighting for your people?”
Westley took a steadying breath, reminding himself that Noren was one of his oldest friends and it wouldn’t do well to break his nose. He was lashing out, hurt by Westley’s betrayal.
“I’ve never stopped fighting for my people. I changed tactics,” Westley said as calmly as he could.
“That’s what I don’t understand. What’s your plan? Align with Asgard?”
Westley took in his friend, assessing how best to approach his change of heart. Noren stared at him, his full brows pulled over his dark eyes. He kept his ashy brown hair cropped short on the sides, atypical for a Fae.
The longer section on the top had braids woven in—Westley assumed Conalle had been playing with it.
Noren was almost as tall as he was. The sharp planes of his face, creating shadows in his golden-brown skin, were hardly ever broken with a smile. The only time he’d seen his friend let loose was when Easta forced him to join their revelry, and usually he needed ale.
Westley rubbed the scruff that lined his jaw.
If Noren wouldn’t respond to a gut feeling, he wasn’t sure he’d be receptive to an emotional plea either. But since he didn’t have all the answers, that’s all he had to go on.
“Do you know what it’s like to have something change you to your soul?”
“What?” Noren jerked his head at the turn of conversation.
“Has anything ever happened to you that shook the core of your entire existence?”
“No.”
Westley nodded, softening his words, pleading. “It feels like my entire world has shifted, that my life was—”
“If you say incomplete, I’ll punch you.”
“I wasn’t going to say that, but thanks for the warning. No, I was going to say unbalanced. You know there were times when my parents’ orders didn’t sit well with me. But I followed them anyway. If something didn’t make sense or I had questions, I relied on the gods.”
Noren’s face still held a measure of disapproval.
“North and Easta see it this way, Noren, you know this.”
