Ryker pressed his forehead against mine. We stood like that for what felt like eternity, breathing each other in. The only thought keeping me upright was the fact that the crater had let him pass.
Solkar’s Reach wouldn’t have sent its son to be slaughtered…would it?
“Sylvester can reach me,” Ryker muttered, his breath a ghost across my lips. “If you feelanythingis wrong–”
“I’ll send him. I promise.”
A shudder passed through us both before we disentangled.
“Don’t doubt yourself. Be cautious,” he said. “I don’t trust the crater fully. Not anymore.”
Then he turned to Dax, a raised brow his only question.
“I’m staying.” Dax jutted out his chin at me. “I go where you go. I thought I made that clear.”
“Very well,” Ryker said and looked at me–really looked at me, eyes jumping all over my face, as if trying to memorize each crease and eyelash. “Stay safe.”
We held onto each other’s hands for as long as we could as he stepped toward the passage.
“Come back,” I mouthed as he vanished in the darkness.
Chapter 35
Allie
“If Silas finds out you haven’t gone to war, he’ll definitely use that to discredit you more.” Dax ripped the last few winter berries from our garlands and flipped one into his mouth.
He’d offered me some–insisted I might waste away in the cold without proper food–but I couldn’t even think about eating.
My stomach was all in knots, and the closer we got to the city, the tighter they fastened.
Never mind the wind and hail and abject cold we’d endured during the night.
My mind felt brittle since Ryker and the warriors had left.
Maybe Dax was right. I needed to eat and rest.
But while he didn’t–or pretended not to–see the gravity of the situation, I knew.
My return to the city, without Ryker, would not be easy.
“Let’s hope he doesn’t find out anything,” I said, squinting my eyes at the mist. It had been hounding us since this morning, and didn’t seem like it would let up anytime soon. “If I’d been on the battlefield, he would have called me a traitor, fighting for our enemy. I can’t win.”
“Remember what I said about terrible men’s tactics?” Dax threw another berry in the air, but missed and lost it in the mist. “Godsdammit.”
“That’s just it.” My boots crunched the snow. “They need tactics to win. They’d be obliterated on an even playing field. Weaklings.”
I didn’t know what that made me–a loser without any tactics, probably–but I very much liked looking at myself in the mirror without seeing a monster staring back.
“So this traitor,” he said, voice too light to be casual. “What did they steal?”
I sighed. I’d known from the moment he heard, he wouldn’t let it go.
It wasn’t in Dax’s nature to ignore–being perceptive was.
“I need all the information you have to help you,” he said. “A thief behaves differently than someone who plots a breach.”
Last time I’d revealed a secret to him, we’d ended up shouting at each other. But he was right–I’d been solving problems in the shadows, while everyone enjoyed the light.
