He had to make her believe that helping Eldr was the right thing.
“How do you plan to trick Irina?” the man with the sword asked without lowering his weapon.
“And what will it cost Kol if you fail?” Jyn snapped.
The princess lifted her chin. “If the trick fails, he’ll pay with his life. It’s the same price he was willing to take from me.”
“He doesn’t deserve to die,” Trugg said.
“Neither do I. Neither did my brother.” Lorelai’s tone dared anyone to argue with her. “But Irina doesn’t care about any of that. She only cares about power. And because of the blood oath, she owns Kol.”
Lorelai looked at the man with the sword. “I have to test a theory before I know if this plan will work. Gabril, I’ll need your help.”
The man nodded and limped carefully across the wreckage of the trees Kol had destroyed as he’d chased the princess through the forest. As he walked past Kol, Gabril said quietly, “Don’t let the bad leg fool you, son. If you hurt my princess, I will be the nightmare you never see coming.”
“I understand the lengths we’ll go to protect those we love,” Kol said. He didn’t add that those lengths were what had put them all in this situation to begin with. Or that he wasn’t through fighting for Eldr.
The older man studied him for a moment, his expression unreadable, and then the princess said, “Gabril, let’s get started.”
Gabril turned from Kol and approached the princess as her bird lifted from her shoulder and flew into the sky.
“Where’s Sasha going?” Gabril asked.
“Hunting.” The princess turned to face Kol as Jyn and Trugg flanked him, their arms crossed over their chests and their expressions grim. “A mardushka uses her magic by calling to the heart of the thing she touches. Every heart feels a little different—the best way I can describe it is that it feels like the characteristics of the person, animal, or thing I’m touching. I’m going to see if I can trick my magic into believing the heart I hold is Gabril’s.”
“Whose heart do you plan on holding?” Kol asked, half afraid the answer would be his, though he thought he was far enough away from her to have a chance at shifting before she could hit him with her magic.
“An animal’s,” the princess said. Sasha returned, carrying the limp carcass of a rabbit in her beak. She swooped past the Eldrians and smacked Trugg in the head with the rabbit’s body as she passed.
“Stupid bird,” he muttered as he scrubbed a hand over his hair.
“My bird can drive her beak straight through your neck and into your artery in less time that it takes for you to draw a weapon, and she already dislikes you intensely. If I were you, I’d do my best not to antagonize her any further,” Lorelai said.
“I thought the bird obeyed you,” Trugg said.
“Better not antagonize me either.” Lorelai knelt as Sasha laid the rabbit at her feet.
“I’ll have you know that I am a Draconi warrior who graduated from the academy with honors befitting a warrior who— Oh skies, that’s disturbing.”
Trugg fell silent as Sasha tore the rabbit’s chest wide open with one strike. Her second strike ripped the heart free, and then the bird cocked her head and glared at the Eldrians, blood dripping from her beak.
“I see your point,” Trugg said.
The princess held out her hand, and Sasha deposited the rabbit heart on her palm.
“Can you tell it was a rabbit’s heart?” Kol asked, stepping forward despite the forbidding look the princess aimed at him.
It was his fate on the line. His life, his kingdom. He had to see the magic at work for himself.
Brilliant white light shot from her palms and surrounded the heart. “It feels like a rabbit.”
“I should think so,” Jyn said.
The princess stared at the heart. “No, I mean the essence of the heart is very . . . rabbitlike. Arrow-quick thoughts, wariness, and speed. It would never pass for human, even if the size and shape were right.” She looked at Gabril. “Would you be willing to cut your hand and put your blood on the heart so I can see how that changes the essence?”
Kol took another step forward. “Let me. This is my problem to fix. There’s no need for him to have an injury, no matter how small.”
The princess locked eyes with him, and the disdain in her expression was worse than the disappointment he’d become used to seeing in his father’s face. At least with his father, he could tell himself he’d been misunderstood, or that something his father had done justified Kol’s behavior.
There was no misunderstanding here, and the justification that he was desperate to save Eldr didn’t change what he’d nearly done to the girl who’d saved his life.