“Why didn’t you?”

“They wanted to be forgotten by the world. And when I saw how peaceful Cretea became … I did not want the world to intrude on them, either.” A muscle flickered in his jaw.

“If we did somehow find them … would that be enough, though? If we can stop the wall from sundering first, I mean. Our forces and Drakon’s, perhaps even Queen Vassa if Lucien can find her, against all of Hybern?” Against whatever gambits or spells the king still planned to unleash.

Rhys was quiet for a moment. “It might have to be.”

It was the way his voice went hoarse, the way his eyes guttered, that made me press a kiss to his mouth as I laid a hand upon his chest and pushed him down upon the furs.

His brows rose, but a half smile appeared on his lips. “There’s little privacy in a war-camp,” he warned, some of the light coming back to his eyes.

I only straddled him, unfastening the button at the top of his dark jacket. The one below it. “Then I suppose you’ll have to be quiet,” I said, working my way down the front of the jacket until it gaped open to reveal the shirt beneath. I traced a finger of the whorl of tattoo peeking out near his neck. “When I saw you facing the king today …”

He brushed his fingers against my thighs. “I know. I felt you.”

I tugged on the hem of his shirt, and he rose onto his elbows, helping me remove his jacket, then the shirt beneath. A bruise marred his ribs, an angry splotch—

“It’s fine,” he said before I could speak. “A lucky shot.”

“With what?”

Again, that half smile. “A spear?”

My heart stopped. “A …” I delicately brushed the bruise, swallowing hard.

“Tipped in faebane. My shield blocked most of it—but not enough to avoid the impact.”

Dread curled in my stomach. But I leaned down and brushed a kiss over the bruise.

Rhys loosed a long breath, his body seeming to settle. Calm.

So I kissed the bruise again. Moved lower. He drew idle circles on my shoulder, my back.

I felt his shield settle around our tent as I unbuttoned his pants. As I kissed my way across the muscled pane of his stomach.

Lower. Rhys’s hands slid into my hair as the rest of his clothes vanished.

I stroked my hand over him once, twice—luxuriating in the feel of him, in knowing he was here, we were both here. Safe.

Then I echoed the movement with my mouth.

His growls of pleasure filled the tent, drowning out the distant cries of the injured and dying. Life and death—hovering so close, whispering in our ears.

But I tasted Rhys, worshipped him with my hands and mouth and then my body—and hoped that this shard of life we offered up, this undimming light between us, would drive death a bit further away. At least for another day.

 

Only a few more Illyrians died during the night. But high up in the hills, the screams and wails of Tarquin’s people rose to us on plumes of smoke from the still-burning fires Hybern had set. They continued burning when we left in the early hours after dawn, winnowing back to Velaris.

Cassian and Azriel remained to lead the Illyrian legions to their new camp on our southern borders—and the former left from there to fly into the Steppes. To offer his condolences to a few of those families.

Nesta was waiting for us in the foyer of the town house, Amren seething in a chair before the unlit fireplace of the sitting room.

No sign of Elain, but before I could ask, Nesta demanded, “What happened?”

Rhys glanced to me, then to Amren, who had shot to her feet and was now watching us with the same expression as Nesta’s. My mate said to my sister, “There was a battle. We won.”

“We know that,” Amren said, her small feet near-silent on the rugs as she strode for us. “What happened with Tarquin?”

Mor took a breath to say something about Varian that would likely not end well for any of us, so I cut in, “Well, he didn’t try to slaughter us on sight, so … things went decently?”

Rhys gave me a bemused look. “The royal family remains alive and well. Tarquin’s armada suffered losses, but Cresseida and Varian were unscathed.”

Something tight in Amren’s face seemed to relax at the words—his careful, diplomatic words.

But Nesta was glancing between us all, her back still stiff, mouth a thin line. “Where is he?”

“Who?” Rhys crooned.

“Cassian.”

I didn’t think I’d ever heard his name from her lips. Cassian had always been him or that one. And Nesta had been … pacing in the foyer.

As if she was worried.

I opened my mouth, but Mor beat me to it. “He’s busy.”

I’d never heard her voice so … sharp. Icy.

Nesta held Mor’s stare. Her jaw tightened, then relaxed, then tightened—as if fighting some battle to keep questions in. Mor didn’t drop her gaze.

Mor had never seemed ruffled by mention of Cassian’s past lovers. Perhaps because they’d never meant much—not in the ways that counted. But if the Illyrian warrior no longer stood as a physical and emotional buffer between her and Azriel … And worse, if the person who caused that vacancy was Nesta …

Mor said flatly, “When he gets back, keep your forked tongue behind your teeth.”

My heart leaped into a furious beat, my arms slack at my sides at the insult, the threat.

But Rhys said, “Mor.”

She slowly—so slowly—looked at him.

There was nothing but uncompromising will in Rhys’s face. “We now leave for the meeting in three days. Send out dispatches to the other High Lords to inform them. And I’m done debating where to meet. Pick a place and be done with it.”

She stared him down for a heartbeat, then dragged her gaze back to my sister.

Nesta’s face had not altered, the coldness limning it unbending. She was so still she seemed to barely be breathing. But she did not balk. She did not avert her eyes from the Morrigan.

Mor vanished with hardly a blink.

Nesta only turned and headed for the sitting room, where I noticed books had been laid on the low-lying table before the hearth.

Amren flowed in behind her, tossing a backward look over a shoulder at Rhys. The motion shifted her gray blouse enough that I caught the sparkle of red peeking beneath the fabric.

The necklace of rubies that she wore, hidden, beneath her shirt. Gifted from Varian.