“My magic has already touched Gabril’s heart. I know what his feels like.” She cut each word into sharp little pieces. “I’m not interested in having anything to do with yours, even if it could pass for human and not Draconi, which it can’t.”
He absorbed her words and held her gaze. She didn’t have to have anything to do with his heart, but he wanted her to see it in his eyes anyway. Regret for what his choices had nearly cost her. Regret for being at Irina’s side when her brother was killed. And desperation to change the fate of his people without making the princess pay the price for their salvation.
Something soft flickered through the princess’s gaze, but then she turned away as Gabril said, “Ready when you are, Lorelai.”
Swiftly, Gabril nicked the fleshy side of his palm against his sword. Lorelai placed the heart on a nearby rock and watched as Gabril allowed his blood to drip over it. When his cut began to clot, he reached down with his other hand and smeared the heart on all sides, covering it completely with his blood.
“Now try.”
She reached for the heart and cradled it in her palm. The same white light surrounded the heart, and the princess frowned.
“Did it work?” Kol asked.
Lorelai’s frown slowly eased into fierce smile that had Kol’s dragon heart thumping hard in his chest.
“It worked. Now instead of rabbitlike thoughts, wariness, and speed, I feel quick intelligence, speedy reflexes, and a stubborn sense of duty.” She looked at Gabril. “If I hadn’t recently felt your true heart for myself, I’d believe that this was yours.”
“Except for the obvious problem that it doesn’t look anything like a human heart,” Jyn said.
“No, but a deer’s heart would.” Lorelai looked at Trugg. “How fast can you hunt one down and bring it back to me?”
Trugg looked to Kol, and the king nodded.
“Fine. I’ll go find a deer. That’s exactly why I excelled at flying and battle strategy at the academy. So I could hunt down a deer.” Trugg stabbed a finger at Lorelai. “My king had better be in one piece when I get back.”
“I’m not the mardushka he needs to worry about.”
As Trugg shifted and Gabril cleaned his sword on a clump of dying underbrush, Kol took another cautious step toward Lorelai. When she didn’t snap at him to back up, he came close enough to say quietly, “Thank you.”
“I’m not doing this for you.” The wind tossed her curly black hair over her shoulders and the sun painted her pale skin gold as she looked at him. “I’m doing this because if you fail, Irina will just keep trying to find me. And because if Irina uses Ravenspire land to send her magic into Eldr, it might weaken her, and I can use that to my advantage.”
“That’s more than fair, but—”
She laughed sharply, and beneath it he heard the kind of fathomless loss that had opened up within him the day his family died. “None of this is fair. My father should be ruling the kingdom. Leo shouldn’t be gone . . .” Her voice wavered and broke.
“I’m sorry. I know more than most how useless those words are when you’ve lost so much.”
She closed her eyes as if his words hurt, and when she opened them again, there was a hint of compassion on her face. “It isn’t fair that your people are dying because of choices someone made in another kingdom. And it isn’t fair that you felt you had no option but to tie yourself to Irina because that was better than losing absolutely everything.”
“I have no right to ask this, and I will have no way to repay you the debt I owe, but if this fails, and I die—”
“I’ll send my magic into Eldr and put a barrier between the ogres and your people. Once I’m through fighting Irina, I’ll be able to afford expending the kind of energy it will take to seal them back into Vallé de Lumé.” She said the words simply as if she hadn’t just lifted a weight that was crushing Kol from the inside out. “Now listen, here’s what we’re going to do. Irina will test the heart with her palm. It’s been nine years since she’s laid her hands on me, so my blood on the deer heart should fool her. But she also has a scrying mirror.”
Kol nodded. He’d seen the destruction of his kingdom in that mirror.
“She can’t find me with it unless I’ve recently touched something tainted with her magic with my bare hands. I’ll put my gloves on in a moment and leave this place far behind, and I won’t take them off for five days. That gives you enough time to get to the capital and then meet up with me if you’re still alive.”
He swallowed hard at the matter-of-factness in her voice, and said, “And if I don’t show up?”
“Then I’ll know we failed, and I’ll send my magic into Eldr to form the barrier while I deal with Irina.”