Keir bowed his head. “It would be our honor to host them.”
Evelina blinked. Her mother was already going over the details with Keir and the other Rider, but Evelina couldn’t hear her. Her pulse pounded—from fear of being on the border or exhilaration from being able to heal in such a way, she wasn’t sure.
The Rider beside Keir was watching her, his eyes widening a fraction.
“We’ll keep them further from active battles,” Keir assured the queen. “Perhaps to tend to the survivors after.”
The soldier’s face was blank again, but a muscle ticked in his jaw. “The princess may not be the best healer to utilize.”
Queen Embry’s eyes narrowed at him. “She and Gloriana have worked in tandem for years,” she said sharply. “We all have a duty in this war.”
Evelina was being sent to heal on the border. Notaskedby her mother, but commanded by the queen. She often felt the crown’s heavy weight more than her mother’s tenderness.
“It’s greatly appreciated, Queen Embry.” Keir nodded and turned to the Rider. “We leave after first light tomorrow, Daimon.”
It was as if Evelina had been hit with a boulder; the wind knocked out of her instantly with a single name. A name she’d been avoiding for twenty years.
Because it couldn’t be him.Hecouldn’t behere.
Her blood drained from her face, her breath catching. She knew why the Rider felt so familiar now.
He glanced at her, only for a moment. She could see it then—a face she didn’t recognize right away—but the midnight eyes… They werehis.
Her once closest companion. The one who had always been there when she needed him. If she called, he would answer.
Until the day he didn’t.
It had been nearly twenty years since he’d left the palace. Since he had left her without an explanation or even a goodbye. She dreamed of seeing him again so she could yell at him for leaving so quickly—so she could demand to knowwhyhe left the way he did, without ever returning.
But sitting here, looking into the eyes of a man that didn’t reflect the boy she once knew, she was frozen. Her heart raced with excitement at seeing her old friend again, mixed with a heated anger that he’d left in the first place—a wound that never quite healed.
There was a time when she would have killed to have the chance to speak with him again, but things were different now—hewasdifferent now. This Daimon’s smile was harder, joyless—cruel, almost. His voice was different, too—devoid of emotion even within the lilt of his tease. There was no crinkle in the corners of his eyes, no real smile. His smirk was just as emotionless as his eyes.
The war had changed him the moment it sank its teeth into his heart. The once kind eyes had hardened, so much so that she had to stare at him for a moment to be sure itwas really him.
The Daimon she knew died the day he left.
She didn’t hear anything else that was being said. She wanted to bolt out of the room, to run and hide in the infirmary. But she also couldn’t look away from him.
He washere.She would have to work with him for the foreseeable future. And she had no idea what to do with that.
Because truthfully, it didn’t matter that he had changed. Because war hadn’t just hit him—in the time he’d left, it had ravaged her people, her home, her family.
He wasn’t the only one who had changed.
The day he left, the Evelina he knew died too.
Ten
Evelina
Evelina didn’t tryto sleep that night, but she hardly ever did. Especially now that she knew Daimon was back. And not only that, but now she would be stationed with him.
She went straight to the infirmary after the meeting, eager to avoid running into him. She wasn’t ready to face him yet—didn’t even know what she would say. The last time she had seen him, they had still been so full of innocence, two bright souls still clinging to hope. Even though she had just lost her father, she thought his sacrifice would be the first and last of this war. But then the losses kept coming, and Daimon—her only friend—left.
A warm arm draped across Evelina’s shoulders. She was trembling so violently that the arm had to tighten to hold on.
“I’m so sorry, Evie,” Daimon whispered.
