Chapter 27

27

arwen

I didn’t recognize the noise that bleated from me.

A howl? A sob?

Panic had turned my voice to acrid ash.

Not Mari, please, no—

Not after Mother.

I tore for her, slumped and inert in the mud and leaves—

Feathers unfurled above me, and a lionlike snarl told me Griffin was shifting overhead, his limbs snapping and stretching, legs becoming the great, muscled hinds of a lion and ending in gnarled talons. The mighty beating of a plumed wingspan that nearly touched the trees on either side of the glade was only silenced by that roar—

The roar of a punishing predator.

Then, a single jaw-splitting scream.

The last of the bandit’s life. I cringed away from the squelching sounds of razor-sharp teeth digging into human flesh and sank to my knees by Mari’s side.

Kane was already there.

“Is she breathing?”

“I’m fine,” Mari croaked before he could respond. Her hands clutched at her chest. Nails caked with dirt.

Shock. She was in shock.

I moved her hands aside and searched her for the entry wound, the blood—but there was none. Just a dusting of ash above her heart, as if Mari had been struck by lightning.

She coughed violently, the wind knocked from her, before pressing her hand to mine atop her chest. “The amulet. It protected me.” She reached for the necklace at the base of her throat.

And then her light eyes widened as she felt her vacant neck.

“Mari,” I cautioned, releasing my hand from her heart. “You’re all right.” I wasn’t sure if I was comforting her or myself.

But she only searched frantically through the muck and leaves, her hands moving over the arrow that had been cleaved in two by the force of her power. “Where is it, where is it . . .”

“Mari . . .” But I couldn’t think of anything to say as she salvaged the shattered necklace from the ground and let out a sorrowful, horrified sob.

“It’s all right. You’re fine—”

“Fine?”

“Mari, can you look at me?”

But she only scrambled up, wobbling on her feet. “All of it, gone—”

Griffin, back in his human form, jogged past Kane and straight for us. “What’s wrong? Is she in pain?” I didn’t glance back at where he had massacred the bandit. The slain man’s blood clinging to the commander’s arms and chest told me enough.

Griffin reached one rust-colored hand toward Mari, but she swayed from his touch.

“I just need—” She fished for words. “There has to be a way to fix it.”

I swallowed against my lungs, nearly erupting from my throat. “You don’t . . . There was no power in the amulet.”

“What?” Mari’s voice was softer than I’d ever heard it.

“I should have told you. It was so wrong of me to keep the truth from you—”

“Should have told me what?”

I looked to Griffin and Kane for help. Nothing but pity welled in their eyes.

Pityfor strong, independent Mari. Reduced to tears over a necklace.

I steeled myself. “There isn’t any magic in the amulet. I’ve known for some time, and thought you would be better off unaware. It was wrong, and I’m genuinely, awfully sorry.”

She stared at me, her expression unreadable.

“Briar gave it to me years ago,” Kane added. “An exquisite gift. Very generous . . . but that’s all it was. A gift. Just . . . jewelry.”

“But you’ve seen the magic. The things I’ve done. It just saved me.”

“No,” I said, my voice breaking on the word. “You saved you. You don’t need it, Mari.”

Kane’s voice was low. “We should leave before any of those Amber men come looking for the source of the commotion.”

“We should fly for Crag’s Hollow,” Griffin said softly. “There’s nothing left for us here.”

But Mari held her ground. Nightdress soaked in rain. Bare toes in cold mud.

Kane and Griffin exchanged one more look before stalking ahead of us toward our makeshift camp.

“You all kept that from me? For weeks? I’ve looked like such a fool.”

“No, you haven’t. Not at all—”

“It’s . . . it’s . . . humiliating.”

“Nobody thought that—”

“Finally, I think I’ve made one real friend—”

“Of course I’m your friend. So believe me when I promise you, you will do magic without the amulet. You already have. And you’ll be better for it now because you’ll finally face your fear of . . . failing.” My words trailed off, but it was too late. I had already said them.

Mari winced before pushing past me and making her way into our camp.

Bleeding Stones. Not phrased right. Not at all.

I had seen her angry before, many times. But never hurt. Hurt was so, so much worse.

Kane and Griffin were already packing up our bags when I followed her back to our camp, incessant rain still pelting my face.

“I heard shouting,” Fedrik said, limping from his tent.

“Your leg—you’re putting weight on it.” One small mercy in a catastrophically dreadful night.

“I know. I didn’t think I’d be able to walk again. You are some healer, Wen.” Fedrik shot me a warm look.

Our chaste, heatless kiss flashed in my mind, and I said nothing.

Fedrik swallowed. “What’s going on?”

My head swam. I didn’t know how to begin to explain all of it to him. My vicious fight with Kane. The bandits . . . That I had been lying to Mari.

That I had hurt her.

I went with, “Everything’s fine.” And when he frowned, I added, “Are you able to pack up? We intend to leave for Crag’s Hollow.” Mari milled past us before he could respond, stuffing wet, rain-covered mugs and tins into a large canvas sack. “I can help you in a moment, I just need to talk to Mari.”

“Please don’t,” she said, grabbing her dress and blouse from the clothesline we had rigged between two palms.

“Mari, come on—”

She scoffed, turning to face me, the barest hint of hesitation twinkling in her eyes. “I have wanted to be a witch my entire life. I finally find a way to do so—to feel that glory, that success, to feel close to my mother—and it’s all a fraud? That’s painful. But what’s worse is my closest friend, who I have stood beside through countless tragedies, lying about it to me for weeks and then saying I’ll be better for it.” She shook her head. “I know you don’t care about yourself anymore, but I thought you’d at least give a shit about me.”

I felt the words across my cheek like a slap. “What?”

“Damn it,” Griffin huffed, discarding his half-filled pack and sitting down on a tree stump as if to say, All right you two, get on with it.

“Oh, come on. You don’t care about anything these days, least of all the people around you. Watching you toy with Fedrik and Kane? Who does that?”

Something stickier than shame ran through my veins. “You were the one that encouraged me to pursue something with Fedrik.”

One of the men swallowed a noise of surprise but I couldn’t tell who. I didn’t want to.

“I thought it would make you happier!” Mari’s voice had risen too many octaves. “But I get it now. You don’t truly want human connection with anyone. That’s probably why you haven’t told Fedrik yet.”

“Mari,” I warned.

“Told me what?” I cut my gaze from her to Fedrik, but only confusion rippled in his eyes.

Griffin saved me an unintelligible answer. “Come, now, witch. That’s not—”

“And you.” Mari whirled on him. “Talk about emotionally stunted. Holy Stones.”

Before she could further tear into the man who had just killed for her, I cut in. “Give the commander a break. You’re one to talk about leading people on.”

Griffin stood, his fisted hands nearly shooting clean through his pockets. “While you two fight like whining alley cats, I’m going to go find some . . .” He took a ragged inhale. “I don’t know. Some peace and quiet.”

“Nobody was talking to you anyway,” Mari huffed. Griffin just pinched his brow in a practice of patience and made for the wet palm fronds. “We are friends,” Mari spit at me. “A word I am beginning to think you never understood the meaning of.”

“And what about Ryder?”

“What about him?” She was nearly shrieking.

“You, like everyone else in the world, are totally enamored of him.” The words stung me, too, as I said them. Another person who preferred my shiny, charming brother. The sibling that wasn’t scarred and bruised and broken. “Did you forget how he left me to risk my life when my family fled Abbington?”

I was surprised by the venom in my words. I had never realized how much that hurt. That he had allowed me to practically walk to my death.

Mari straightened, as if preparing to say something she had been debating for a while. “No, I never did. And you should tell him that you haven’t, either. But it’s easier not to, right? To hold everyone at arm’s length so it won’t all hurt so much? I mean, Arwen, you barely even mourned the loss of your own mother.”

“She wasn’t my mother.” The words slipped from me before I could process them.

Mari flinched as if hit.

“She wasn’t . . . Not really.”

“This is exactly what I’m talking about. Of course she was your mother, Arwen. Whether or not she gave birth to you is beside the point. I never knew my mother, but if I had, I sure wouldn’t come up with a reason to say her death didn’t matter.”

“I never said that.”

“No, but you act like it. And worse, like yours won’t matter, either.” She shook her head and patted down the fabric still bunched in her arms as if our argument had wrinkled the fabric. “I’m going to go find Griffin. He can’t see well in the dark.”

And with that she stalked off into the forest.

Somewhere in between a senseless squabble about boys and Mari’s analysis that I didn’t so much as mind my mother’s brutal murder, the rain had ceased. The smell of soaked leaves stung my nose, and the rustles and chirps of forest creatures no longer seeking dry shelter filled the silence between the remaining three of us.

Kane stood from the tree he had been leaning against and quirked a brow at me. “Nobody knows that about Griffin.”

“Yeah, well.” I sighed, rubbing my face in frustration. “She’s very observant.”

I could feel both Kane and Fedrik’s eyes on each of my movements.

“She’s just taking her anger about the Stones-damned amulet out on me,” I said. “It’s fine. It’ll be fine.”

Kane’s jaw feathered in thought. “Actually, I don’t think that’s what she’s upset about.”

The softness in his voice made me want to wring his neck. I crossed the campsite to him and drove a pointed finger into his chest. “Don’t even start. I wouldn’t be dealing with any of this if it wasn’t for you.”

Only a warning danced in his eyes. “Are you finding that denial to be working very well for you, bird?”

“Hey, don’t talk to her like that.”

Kane turned to Fedrik, his voice terribly calm. “I will end you.”

But Fedrik only chuckled, almost brazen. “You have nobody to blame but yourself for ruining things with her.”

“Why don’t you ask Arwen exactly how that happened? It’s a funny story, actually.”

“Let me guess, you mistook murder for courtship?”

I couldn’t take this a minute more. Fedrik’s protection that I didn’t deserve. Kane’s jealousy, Mari’s searing truths—I seized a shuddering inhale. “He’s right,” I blurted. “They all are. I’ve been keeping something from you.”

Fedrik studied my face, allowing me to continue.

But I needed to get out of this damp, sticky, Stones-forsaken forest. I didn’t want to spend another minute here in Peridot.

I didn’t really want to spend another minute anywhere with myself.

“Can we talk? In private?”

Fedrik jerked his chin toward his tent.

The heat from the small hearth inside was stifling. The canvas glowed a rich, burnt orange from the flames, its low, slanted ceiling closer to the crown of my head than it had felt hours ago. I swallowed nothing, crossing my arms once before unfolding them again. Fedrik watched me warily.

“Kane and I stopped seeing each other because he never told me that I was the Fae. From the prophecy. The last—”

“Full-blooded Fae,” Fedrik supplied, his expression more cold understanding than wide-eyed shock.

I faltered. “I—”

“Lied,” he supplied again.

“No. I mean, yes. I did. Mari was right. I didn’t want to tell you because with you, I could ignore it. But that was selfish and . . . and I’m sorry.”

For a moment, no one said anything. The tent suffocated our breaths. Fedrik shifted on his feet.

“It felt good to be a version of myself that still had a future.”

“Sure. But . . . you didn’t even give me a chance to take on that suffering with you.”

“Nobody else needed to suffer.”

A few spare shafts of light fluttered around the tent from the deteriorating hearth. I grabbed one of Fedrik’s tunics to begin packing for him, only to see my palms streaked in splotches of red. Bandit blood.

Fedrik limped across the tent in one long stride until he was beside me and took the tunic from my hands, placing it back on the pallet beneath us. I cast my eyes to the floor, fixated on the dirt under my shoe, but he lifted my chin gently with his finger. “It’s a strange time to begin a relationship with anyone. There’s a lot we don’t yet know about each other. The very fabric of our world is in turmoil, grave danger awaits us all, et cetera. But . . . I enjoy spending time with you. And I’d like to give this a real chance, if you would. Prophecy and all.”

I wanted my heart to soar—

But it was still Kane’s face that rippled in my mind before any thought of being with Fedrik could crystalize.

“I can’t, Fedrik. I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

“Well, actually, I kissed you—”

“I still feel something for him.”

Fedrik brushed a thumb across my jaw, his devastating blue eyes more solemn than I’d ever seen them. “I know you do.”

“That doesn’t bother you?”

“You’re human. Broken hearts don’t heal overnight.”

I cringed, slipping from his grasp. “Well . . . I’m not really. Human, that is. That doesn’t bother you, either?”

A half laugh. “No.”

“Even still. I don’t . . . see you in that way. I hoped I would, really, I did. But I fear we might just be good friends.” I couldn’t help the relief that swept through my limbs. It was a truth that needed to be said. No matter what happened next.

“He’ll never be what you deserve.”

“I don’t know if I deserve too much right now.”

“Well,” he said, considering. “You could start by apologizing to Mari. I think she’s more betrayed that you accepted your fate so . . . flippantly . . . than she is about the amulet. It’s as if in doing so, you’ve abandoned her.”

“A lot of people have,” I murmured. “Abandoned her, I think.”

He tilted his head at a contemplative angle.

“That’s pretty good advice, Fedrik.”

“You’re lucky to have a friend like me.”

I smiled a bit. I was, actually. “She wasn’t wrong, though. I’m different now. Maybe I can’t be what she needs.”

“Why don’t you let her make that decision?”

I moved to walk around him and out of the tent to do just that, but Fedrik pulled my hand into his. “Kane will never stop looking for that blade. And while he drags you across Evendell to hunt for it, you’ll keep getting burned and beaten. And not just by your enemies. He’s bad for you, Arwen.” Fedrik drew in a breath. “Let me take you back to Azurine. No expectations. Nothing implied. I just want you to have a life outside of all this madness. Outside of Kane. Let me offer you a different way to live.”

I stiffened at his words. “But the prophecy—”

“You can enjoy whatever time you have left. And I’ll be by your side until the very end. As a friend. Or as anything you want me to be.”

“The blade is supposed to call to me.”

“He’s hunted for it without you for years. It was out of his own selfish need that he brought you along in the first place.”

“I chose to come.”

“And I’m saying maybe you shouldn’t have.”

The hearth crackled softly as we stood there, wet clothes still clinging to our bodies, my bloodied hand still wrapped in his.

“Thank you,” I croaked. “For the offer.”

“Will you think on it?”

“Arwen? Fedrik?” Griffin’s voice drifted in from the campsite.

Fedrik cleared his throat. “We’re in here.”

I slipped past him to where Kane and Griffin were surrounded by our canvas packs, their tents broken down and bundled up. I couldn’t meet Kane’s eyes. I didn’t want to know what he was thinking. What he might or might not have heard.

Griffin cocked his head toward us. “Where’s the witch?”

My breathing was still uneven, but I managed to say, “She went looking for you.”

The commander’s eyes widened a bit at my words, and he looked from us back to Kane, whose eyes narrowed in concern. “So, no one knows where she is?”

A furious shiver ran up my spine, but I steadied it with a slow inhale. “I’m sure she’s fine.” I moved for the knot of darkness and leaves surrounding us. “Mari?” I called out. “Mari!”

I didn’t care if there were more bandits, more soldiers—

“Mari!”

“I’m right here, Holy Stones,” she mumbled, stepping out of the trees.

A breath whooshed from me.

Griffin nearly sagged with a sigh of his own. “Hurry up,” he murmured. “We’re leaving.”

“I was looking for you in the first place! Let me just pack up.” Mari lifted her hands to conjure the spell.

But I couldn’t wait. I had to fix this. “Mari, I’m so—” I started, the exact moment her body crumpled to the ground.

“Mari!” I yelled, rushing to her.

Lifting her face from the ground, I wiped the mud from her cheeks. But the sight—

Her eyes.

Her huge golden-brown eyes were stark. Clear. Wide open.

No, no no—

I pressed my head into her chest and exhaled every ounce of air that had been growing stale inside me when I heard a solid, rhythmic heartbeat. And air, flowing in and out of her lungs.

Despite the pale, sickly pallor of her face, those unmoving eyes, the cool blue veins along her arms and jawline, as if she were a corpse—she was breathing. It didn’t make any sense.

Griffin was already next to me, cradling her head in his hands as it lolled to the side, painstakingly brushing twigs and leaves from her full red curls.

“What’s wrong with her?” he asked, voice more frantic than I’d ever heard it.

“I don’t know.” My shaking hands summoned lighte and I urged it toward her, but there was nothing to heal. Not a stroke, not a seizure . . . Again, I felt for the steady pulse in her veins. “She’s . . . healthy. Medically speaking, nothing is wrong.”

“Something is wrong, Arwen. She’s fucking unconscious!”

I pricked the cool pad of her finger with the jagged edge of my nail.

A reflex.

Griffin sucked in a breath. “Is that good?”

“She’s not paralyzed.”

“That’s good,” Fedrik said from behind us.

But it didn’t explain—

“It makes no sense,” I said again. “My lighte . . . I would— I don’t understand . . .”

Griffin’s voice was far too low as he leaned close to her. “Mari?”

Her eyes didn’t so much as flutter.

I spun back to Kane, still holding Mari’s hand in both of mine. “I can’t heal her like this. I need—”

“We’ll find an infirmary in Frog Eye—”

“She’ll need blood tests, ointments, potions . . . Will they have that?”

Kane shook his head, eyes still fixed on Mari’s head supported by Griffin’s hands. “We need a bigger city. Frog Eye is a small smuggling town . . .”

Griffin shook his head. “Siren’s Cove is sacked. It’s too dangerous. We have to fly for—”

“Willowridge.” Kane crossed his arms.

Onyx. Back to Onyx. “Your palace?”

Kane shook his head. “We can’t risk it. It’s not as insulated as Shadowhold. Lazarus could be waiting for us.”

“Where, then?”I asked, rage coating my voice. Mari’s hand felt too small wrapped in my own.

“Briar’s.” Griffin’s voice was barely a whisper.

“We haven’t seen her in fifteen years,” Kane warned. “I don’t—”

Griffin said in a voice so raw it sent my stomach guttering with dread, “Now, Kane.”