This will work. This will work. She chanted it to herself all morning and again during the afternoon, after they paused to quickly eat around midday, the sweat dripping down her face and spine as she sat on a fallen log.
By the time they finally stopped to set up camp for the night, shortly after the sun set and the forest had fallen into shadow, even Evelayn was gasping for air, her tunic soaked through. Tanvir had bent over to grasp his knees, trying to catch his breath while General Kel sat down to stretch on the mossy patch of ground they’d found in a small clearing where they could sleep.
When Evelayn had recovered slightly she began to search for kindling to start a fire.
“Your Majesty, please, let us do that,” General Kelwyn protested, quickly rising to his feet.
“Kel, stop. I’m not going to sit here and watch you two wait on me hand and foot after running as hard as we did all day. I’m not your queen right now. We are a team and I will do my part.”
He looked like he was about to argue, but when she glared at him, he shut his mouth and merely nodded.
“As you wish, Your Majesty.”
“And no more of that while we’re out here, either. My name is Evelayn.”
“If you say so, Your Majesty.”
She shook her head at the stubborn general and went back to collecting firewood, wandering between the trees a few lengths away from the clearing.
“Let me help you, Your Majesty,” Tanvir’s voice came from behind, soft and teasing. “Unless you wish for us to sit back and watch you wait on us. I could find a way in my heart to be satisfied with that arrangement.”
Evelayn turned to face him, one eyebrow lifted. “Just for that, I will let you carry this load for me, my lord.” She tossed him the armful of sticks and branches she’d collected, which he barely caught in time to avoid dropping them all over the forest floor.
“As you wish.” He echoed what Kel had said earlier.
They fell quiet as she scoured the ground for more firewood and piled the viable options into his arms.
When they were some distance from Kel and the camp, Tanvir spoke again. “I still can’t believe this is happening—that you’re doing this. I never wanted to risk you this way.”
“It was a good idea. And it was my choice to make. I have to do what I can. If this is the only chance of saving my kingdom … well, then …” She shrugged, even though her heart beat faster as she thought about the looming challenges ahead.
“Why do you have to do that?”
Evelayn paused, glancing over her shoulder at him. “Excuse me?”
Tanvir’s expression hovered somewhere between exasperation and appreciation. “I don’t even know how to describe it. You’re stubborn and headstrong, but you’re also so determined … so brave. I want to throttle you and kiss you—all at once.”
He took a step toward her, a tendon in his jaw tightening.
“I’m not keen on the idea of being throttled.” Evelayn stood frozen to the same spot, the soft earth compressing beneath her feet as he took another step closer. His familiar citrus and spice scent mingled with the musk of the damp soil and the fragrance of the flowers and plants surrounding her.
“Then stop being so frustrating.”
Evelayn’s heart thumped against her rib cage. “I’m not sure I know how.”
Tanvir laughed softly, “Now that I believe.”
He finally stopped when the load of wood he held was the only thing separating them. “If my arms weren’t full of branches right now, I think I would be tempted to find a different use for them.”
Evelayn’s neck warmed and her belly tightened, but she tried to keep her expression placid. “I believe I already expressed my feelings about being throttled.”
“And I believe that you are purposely trying to frustrate me now.”
“I’m not sure that would be wise,” Evelayn said lightly, belying the tumult inside her, but he must have scented her true feelings, because he growled softly, an almost animalistic sound. Her heart skipped up into her throat at the sudden fierceness of his expression, all the teasing wiped away.
“You really have no idea what you’re doing to me, do you?” he rasped.
Evelayn swallowed, feeling somehow immobilized by his amber gaze, his eyes still shining brightly in the falling darkness. She took a deep breath to calm her trembling hands and caught a different but still familiar scent. Tanvir must have noticed at the same time she did, because he quickly took two steps back and turned away, just as Kel strode into the clearing.
His sharp gaze traveled between them, and Evelayn forced herself to adopt the composed mien she wore at the castle whenever she was in public, willing herself to be calm, to not give their still uncertain feelings away.
“That armful looks more than sufficient for one night,” was all Kel finally said to Tanvir.
“I agree.” Evelayn nodded at Kel and then began walking back to the camp. “We’d better hurry and get some rest. We should begin again at first light tomorrow.”
She didn’t glance back to see if the two males followed her or not.
EVEN THOUGH THEY PUSHED THEMSELVES TO RUN AS fast as possible, a building exhaustion slowly began to diminish their pace so that they didn’t reach the border until the end of the third day. Evelayn had hoped to be at Máthair Damhán’s lair by then, and they were still a good day’s travel from where the Ancient lived in a cave in the Sliabán Mountains. The teasing of that first night seemed a distant memory as tension coiled tighter and tighter around the trio, a relentless and increasing pressure as every day brought them closer to the summer solstice and Bain’s attack.
Each day also brought an earlier dawn and a later sunset, so that they were running the majority of the time, with only a few hours of rest under the cover of night. By the time they reached the border, the wear of the grueling task she’d set them had increased to the point that the moment she finally halted at the edge of their kingdom, Evelayn’s muscles cramped in painful protest.
“Hopefully the message reached the priestesses in time,” Tanvir commented, the first time he’d spoken in hours, as he pulled one foot back and stretched with a grimace.
“The wards are to prevent Draíolon from coming in to éadrolan. Not to keep them from going out,” Kel reminded them.
“That’s what I’m worried about.”
“It’ll be fine,” Evelayn finally cut in. “I can get us back in if the wards are still up when we return.”
Tanvir and Kel both turned to her with eyebrows lifted. She smiled confidently at them though inside she was a mess of fear and uncertainty. The truth was that she didn’t have a clue how to get past the wards. She could only hope the priestesses got the message in time—and that she and her companions made it to the lair and back in time to come through the gap that would only be opened for the brief window she had calculated they would need. And they were already taking longer than she’d anticipated.