Lorelai’s jaw clenched until her teeth ached. “She’d better rethink that position before I get there.” Flexing her gloved hands, she said, “Once I have what I need, I’m going after Irina. No waiting. No hiding. Just a full-force attack that will end with one of us dead. It will be dangerous. Risky even by Leo’s standards.” Her voice broke, and she made herself look away so he wouldn’t see how desperately she wanted him to ignore her next words. “You don’t have to come with me. You’ve already risked so much. I release you from your service.”
He took two steps forward and pulled her against his chest. “You aren’t releasing me from anything. Where you go, I go.” She gripped his coat with desperate hands as relief warmed the pit of ice that had been forming in her stomach at the thought of facing the rest of her journey alone.
“What about Ada?” she asked as she released him and stepped back. “I didn’t mean to pry into your thoughts, but . . . is she your wife? Were those your boys?”
The loneliness that clung to him when he didn’t think she was watching filled his eyes, but his voice was composed. “Yes, that’s my family.”
“You never told us about them.” She tried hard not to make it sound like an accusation.
“Because you’d just lost everything. My choices, my grief, weren’t yours to bear.”
“Where are they? Do you ever see them?”
“They’re still in the capital. I got a message to her as I fled with you and Leo, and we’ve managed to exchange a few messages since then, but, no, I don’t see them. She buried me—the entrance hall collapsed on all the guards who were on duty that night. She simply claimed that I had died along with the others and held a funeral. Irina attended. I’ve stayed away because as long as Irina believes I’m dead, Ada and the boys are safe.”
Lorelai’s hands curled into fists. “You should have your family back.”
“So should you,” he said gently.
Her eyes burned with unshed tears, but she lifted her chin. “It’s too late for mine, but it isn’t too late for yours. Let’s get moving. We have a lot of ground to cover, and I have a lot of planning to do if I want to have a chance against Irina.”
“Oh, you have more than a chance.” He picked up her travel pack and handed it to her. “Do you know why I’m willing to follow you into this battle without hesitation?”
“Because I’m Arlen’s oldest child, and that makes the throne of Ravenspire rightfully mine.”
“Wrong.” He held her gaze, his eyes fierce. “Bloodlines and birthrights don’t make someone worth following. Neither does the appearance of power. I follow you because you have the courage of a true warrior.”
“I don’t feel courageous.” She turned toward the west. “I just see what needs to be done, and there’s no one else to do it. No one else who can fight Irina with the weapon she’s used to destroy Ravenspire. It has to be me. That doesn’t make me a warrior. That just makes me the best tool for a necessary job.”
As they left the campsite behind and moved through a grove of trees with crumbling trunks and bare, shriveled branches, Gabril said, “A warrior doesn’t focus on the odds stacked against her. She focuses on her heart, on her will to face the evil in her world and defeat it, and then she finds a way to do it.”
Lorelai grabbed his arm to help him over a fallen evergreen. She should’ve healed his leg when she healed his sickness, but she hadn’t been thinking clearly.
She was thinking clearly now. The first order of business when they stopped for lunch would be restoring his left leg. She refused to hear an argument from him over it, either. His heart would submit to hers to make the cost of magic light enough to easily bear, or . . . well, she didn’t know what she’d do to overpower the will of the man who’d been like a father to her for the past nine years, but she’d think of something.
“I want to tell you a story.” Gabril reached for her gloved hand, and she held on to him while the morning sun filtered in past the bare branches and hung in the air like pale gold dust.
“Once upon a time, there was a princess who was unlike any other princess.”
She made a sound of disbelief, and he glared at her. “You may be my queen, but I can still assign you an hour of land sprints if you aren’t paying attention.”
She gave him her full attention.
“Other princesses were raised in castles with maids to clean up after them, cooks to bake their favorite treats, closets full of fancy dresses, and parents to watch over them and love them.”
Lorelai’s heart began to ache, thrumming in the hollow space that grief had carved into her. Other princesses also had brothers who were teasing them or starting arguments or defending them at any cost. She drew in a sharp breath and focused on Gabril’s words before the empty space inside could consume her.
“Those princesses had soft hands and peaceful sleep. They had the luxury of knowing what every day would look like, since every day was the same as the one before it, and of knowing what their future would hold. They would grow up, dance at balls, flirt at royal functions, and then marry into another kingdom or assume the crown and rule their own.”