Rather, she remained at the house, seizing her chance to worm her way closer to Tamlin. She believed she’d gained a foothold, that her declaration of justice served at the bloody end of the whipping hadn’t been anything but a final slap in the face to the guards who watched.
And when that sentry had sagged from his bindings, when the others came to gently untie him, Ianthe merely ushered the Hybern party and Tamlin into the manor for lunch. But I’d remained at the barracks, tending to the groaning sentry, drawing away bloodied bowls of water while the healer quietly patched him up.
Bron and Hart personally escorted me back to the estate hours later. I thanked them each by name. Then apologized that I hadn’t been able to prevent it—Ianthe’s scheming or the unjust punishment of their friend. I meant every word, the crack of the whip still echoing in my ears.
Then they spoke the words I’d been waiting for. They were sorry they hadn’t stopped any of it, either.
Not just today. But the bruises now fading—at last. The other incidents.
If I had asked them, they would have handed me their own knives to slit their throats.
The next evening, I was hurrying back to my room to change for dinner when Ianthe made her next move.
She was to come with us to the wall tomorrow morning.
Her, and Tamlin, too.
If we were all to be a united front, she’d declared over dinner, then she wished to see the wall herself.
The Hybern royals didn’t care. But Jurian winked at me, as if he, too, saw the game in motion.
I packed my own bags that night.
Alis entered right before bed, a third pack in her hands. “Since it’s a longer trip, I brought you supplies.”
Even with Tamlin joining us, it was too many people for him to winnow us directly.
So we’d go, as we’d done before, in segments. A few miles at a time.
Alis laid the pack she’d prepared beside my own. Picked up the brush on the vanity and beckoned me to sit on the cushioned bench before it.
I obeyed. For a few minutes, she brushed my hair in silence.
Then she said, “When you leave tomorrow, I leave, too.”
I lifted my eyes to hers in the mirror.
“My nephews are packed, the ponies ready to take us back to Summer Court territory at last. It has been too long since I saw my home,” she said, though her eyes shone.
“I know the feeling,” was all I said.
“I wish you well, lady,” Alis said, setting down the brush and beginning to braid back my hair. “For the rest of your days, however long they may be, I wish you well.”
I let her finish the plait, then pivoted on the bench to grip her thin fingers in mine. “Don’t ever tell Tarquin you know me well.”
Her brows rose.
“There is a blood ruby with my name on it,” I clarified.
Even her tree-bark skin seemed to blanch. She understood it well enough: I was a hunted enemy of the Summer Court. Only my death would be accepted as payment for my crimes.
Alis squeezed my hand. “Blood rubies or no, you will always have one friend in the Summer Court.”
My throat bobbed. “And you will always have one in mine,” I promised her.
She knew which court I meant. And did not look afraid.
The sentries did not glance at Tamlin, or so much as speak to him unless absolutely necessary. Bron, Hart, and three others were to join us. They had spotted me checking on their friend before dawn—a courtesy I knew none of the others had extended.
Winnowing felt like wading through mud. In fact, my powers had become more of a burden than a help. I had a throbbing headache by noon, and spent the last leg of the journey dizzy and disoriented as we winnowed again and again.
We arrived and set up camp in near-silence. I quietly, shyly asked to share a tent with Ianthe instead of Tamlin, appearing eager to mend the rift the whipping had torn between us. But I did it more to spare Lucien from her attention than to keep Tamlin at bay. Dinner was made and eaten, bedrolls laid out, and Tamlin ordered Bron and Hart on the first watch.
Lying beside Ianthe without slitting her throat was an exercise in patience and control.
But whenever the knife beneath my pillow seemed to whisper her name, I’d remind myself of my friends. The family that was alive—healing in the North.
I repeated their names silently, over and over into the darkness. Rhysand. Mor. Cassian. Amren. Azriel. Elain. Nesta.
I thought of how I had last seen them, so bloodied and hurting. Thought of Cassian’s scream as his wings were shredded; of Azriel’s threat to the king as he advanced on Mor. Nesta, fighting every step toward the Cauldron.
My goal was bigger than revenge. My purpose greater than personal retribution.
Dawn broke, and I found my palm curled around the hilt of my knife anyway. I drew it out as I sat up, staring down at the sleeping priestess.
The smooth column of her neck seemed to glow in the early-morning sun leaking through the tent flaps.
I weighed the knife in my hand.
I wasn’t sure I’d been born with the ability to forgive. Not for terrors inflicted on those I loved. For myself, I didn’t care—not nearly as much. But there was some fundamental pillar of steel in me that could not bend or break in this. Could not stomach the idea of letting these people get away with what they’d done.
Ianthe’s eyes opened, the teal as limpid as her discarded circlet. They went right to the knife in my hand. Then to my face.
“You can’t be too careful while sharing a camp with enemies,” I said.
I could have sworn something like fear shone in her eyes. “Hybern is not our enemy,” she said a tad breathlessly.
From her paleness as I left the tent, I knew my answering smile had done its job well.
Lucien and Tamlin showed the twins where the crack in the wall lay.
And as they had done with the first two, they spent hours surveying it, the surrounding land.
I kept close this time, watching them, my presence now deemed relatively unthreatening if not a nuisance. We’d played our little power games, established I could bite if I wished, but we’d tolerate each other.
“Here,” Brannagh murmured to Dagdan, jerking her chin to the invisible divider. The only markings were the different trees: on our side, they were the bright, fresh green of spring. On the other, they were dark, broad, curling slightly with heat—the height of summer.
“The first one was better,” Dagdan countered.
I sat atop a small boulder, peeling an apple with a paring knife.
“Closer to the western coast, too,” he added to his twin.
“This is closer to the continent—to the strait.”
I sliced deep into the flesh of the apple, carving out a hunk of white meat.
“Yes, but we’d have more access to the High Lord’s supplies.”
Said High Lord was currently off with Jurian, hunting for food more filling than the sandwiches we’d packed. Ianthe had gone to a nearby spring to pray, and I had no idea whatsoever where Lucien or the sentries were.
Good. Easier for me as I shoved the apple slice into my mouth and said around it, “I say go for this one.”
They twisted toward me, Brannagh sneering and Dagdan’s brows high. “What do you know of any of it?” Brannagh demanded.