“Because if you found a way inside, without going through the passage, others will as well.”
Chapter 4
Allie
The frozen streets were thankfully empty, everyone shielding themselves in their homes after the attack in the passage.
Still, my gaze jumped to every small window we snuck under, in case someone got curious at the wrong time.
“Are you sure the wings are safe there?” Dax hurried alongside me through the back streets of Solkar’s Reach, both of our shoulders slumped against the biting wind.
“Yes.” I wouldn’t have left the Protectorate crown there otherwise. I drew my hood closer to my stinging cheeks.
“That fellow out front was interesting,” he said. “Liked his golden cane. He has style.”
“Be thankful you weren’t the one who had to distract him.” While Dax had crept past the massive wooden door, the guardian had gone on and on about the proper candles for the Seventh Day ritual and how I needed to keep a stack of them on me at all times.
Just in case.
I didn’t know which situation would absolutely require candles, but now I knew the proper wick length to keep them burning all night.
“I still think we should have brought them with us,” Dax said between chattering teeth. “How can it be so much colder in the city than in the forest?”
“Get used to it,” I said. “And your arrival at the fortress will already cause a stir, best to do it without unexplainable contraptions.”
“Come on, it can’t be that bad. I’m just one person, not a whole battalion.”
He wasn’t getting it.
Of course he wasn’t.
Dax was used to his charming smile allowing him to stroll past enemy lines and into the most guarded strongholds in Malhaven.
“The people in Solkar’s Reach aren’t used to outsiders,” I pressed, catching his gaze. “And they won’t take kindly to you appearing out of thin air, a day after the entrance has been attacked, when the Commander isn’t here to vouch for you.”
I needed to get him to the fortress and officially presented before someone caught sight of him traipsing on the streets. Any inkling of subterfuge could snowball into whispers and rumors we did not need right now.
Also, selfishly, I wanted Ryker to meet Dax.
Yes, as the Commander, he needed to know my cousin had infiltrated the impenetrable crater, and he could ask Dax questions about details I couldn’t even begin to guess.
But a bigger, louder part of me longed to bring my two worlds together.
The old and the new, as fractured as each of them was.
Maybe, together, they’d create one full life–if I managed to blend them properly and not let them fracture each other beyond repair.
The idea of even one member of my family meeting Ryker also unleashed flutters in my stomach, both excited andcautious. I sort of wanted to show him off, as trivial and ridiculous as that sounded. This man who could command a battlefield with a glance and silence a room with one word. Who had immense powers swirling in his veins and still chose restraint and the good of his own people above all else.
I had no clue how I’d present him as, though.
Lover seemed too much and not enough at the same time. We’d only shared a bed for one glorious night, the echo of which still made my cheeks burn and my power purr.
That lone word sounded like stolen, illicit moments, not a grand plan for the future.
Future husband was too formal and finite for the tentative connection we had. Fiance was even worse; it sounded too much like the naive, hopeful Allie who’d fallen in love with a charming merchant’s son.
Letting my heart open again still felt dangerous. I couldn’t fall if I wasn’t sure I would be caught and cradled.
