He had given everything for her, every last ounce of his reserves, had fought, had defied Raynar and the strings of words that had obviously been meant for him. For Nehelon. Who was far more than the annoying Fae male she had encountered in Everrun that first day.
Without him, she wouldn’t be squinting her eyes at the morning sun. She wouldn’t be breathing in that scent that made her recognize that her sword and her honor weren’t enough to be happy…
And as she studied his features, the contrast of the perfect arches that were his brows, the straight line of his nose, the sharp angles of his cheekbones, the soft, sensual curve of his slightly parted lips … Gandrett knew that this shell—this beautiful, alluring shell the male chose to show the world—was only a fraction of the beauty that slumbered in the depths beneath.
Nehelon, despite his flaws, despite his dark and brooding temper, had saved her, had made sure she lived another day to fight for what was right, for a free, united Sives.
Biting back a groan of pain, Gandrett propped herself up on her elbows and managed a twisted smile. “Thank you,” she whispered into the tapestry of birdsongs and rustling leaves.
Nehelon didn’t stir. Not for a long while.
“How long?” he asked when he finally lifted his head from the side of the bed, blinking at her with sleepy eyes.
“At least a day,” Gandrett responded with a glance at the sun that was now high in the sky. She knew exactly what he was asking. She had asked herself the same question while she had been watching him sleep, trying to ignore the growing pressure in her bladder so she wouldn’t wake him. Now that he was awake, the bathing room would be her first destination.
Nehelon nodded and rubbed his face, looking oddly worn, not at all replenished from sleep. How long had he been up after he had delivered her to her chambers? How long had it taken him to secure the palace, to assess the damage, the situation, and establish a new chain of command among the remaining men of the palace guard?
“How’s the scar?” He nodded at her side, brows furrowed as he probably went through the same memories that she did. The guard who had stabbed her, how close to dying she had come.
“Better,” she plainly said, pushing back the fear that came with acknowledging what had happened.
He cocked his head too fast for the usually unbothered Fae, a silent question hanging there in the air between them.
Why? She didn’t speak the word but so intently wanted to ask why he had done it. Why he had saved her.
Nehelon broke the connection between their eyes first, his face smoothing as he stretched his arms over his head and cracked his neck with a brief motion to each side. The sound made Gandrett come back to her own, more basic needs.
With as little audible evidence as possible she was still in pain, she climbed out of bed, uncaring that she was wearing a knee-length, satin nightgown that covered little of her back, and trudged to the bathing rooms, leaving Nehelon to his own thoughts for a while.
The why of him saving her wasn’t the question of true importance, but what were they going to do now? Were they going to hunt down Raynar? What would happen to the rest of the people here in Ackwood palace? To Mckenzie, to Lady Crystal, to—Gandrett could hardly think the name of the brave young man—Brax?
She took her time in the bathing room, tending to her needs, brushing her teeth, and slid on a plain burgundy dress that had been laid out for her. Moving around made her scar sting a little less. Also, it made her feel like she was back in control of the situation—at least when it came to her own body and its uses to fight off potential attackers. She still needed to inquire and update about what was going on in the palace.
When she returned to her bedroom, Nehelon eyed her with a stoic expression. Too calm for the Fae who had tormented her with sword-fighting exercise and magic-practice. He sat with preternatural stillness, his eyes the only thing that moved as his gaze followed her through the room.
He didn’t resemble the warrior who had picked her up from Everrun so much as the Fae prince Raynar had called him.
Gandrett’s chest tightened. How many more secrets did the male have? As it seemed over seven-hundred years of them.
She didn’t feel like asking. Not now. It didn’t matter who he was as long as he kept Brax and Mckenzie safe. As long as he fought for Sives and not against it.
His gaze, however, told her that he wouldn’t be around much longer to protect Brax and Mckenzie. That his original plans hadn’t changed.
“You are still leaving?” she said, for the first time since she had met him feeling that she could read him.
“It is time,” he merely said, features unchanging. “Pete is right. I can no longer delay it.”
She wanted to ask why. Wanted to know what Pete Nemey—the Meister of the Order of Vala—had to do with all of this. But she remained silent, unable to bring herself to acknowledge the question that this was goodbye, that there was a reason. Or Nehelon wouldn’t leave.
“I’ll be here a couple more days to make sure Brax has everything under control and to strengthen the wards on the palace.” His expression warmed a bit as he read her face from across the room, seeing whatever it was that showed there. “I won’t leave him unprotected, Gandrett.”
She wondered what he found in her expression that made him think that the reason he needed to reinforce it was for Brax’s sake.
“And Mckenzie?” she asked, hoping to get good news about her friend.
But Nehelon’s features twisted out of that stoic calm. “Apparently, Lady Crystal made a deal with House Saza Brina behind Lord Tyrem’s back,” he said, getting to his feet as Gandrett slowly made her way to the table, ready to sit down. “They left Ackwood the night of the attack.”
Gandrett felt her pulse quicken as he spoke. Mckenzie was gone—trapped in whatever deal it was her mother had made for her without getting to choose for herself. “So she’s alive and healthy, at least,” she said more to herself. And that was about the only benefit of the situation. Her friend wouldn’t be within immediate reach of Raynar there in the baking heat of Khila. Immediately, her mind wandered to Everrun, to Surel, her stories of the desert-spotted lands in the south, the mountains that split Phornes from the Calma Desert, and the endless ocean in the east—
Nehelon nodded, oblivious to Gandrett’s thoughts. She knew he had been there in Phornes. His companion, Ygri, had been from the southernmost realm, and they had traveled together for a while. Gandrett bit her lip at the thought that the Fae male before her had cared for someone so deeply that he had called it the worst day in his existence when she had drowned summoning water.
“But also tangled in an arranged engagement that she didn’t choose,” he pointed out, bringing her mind back to the topic of Mckenzie’s forced engagement.
Gandrett swallowed hard as she sat in one of the carved chairs and rested her hands in her lap.
“Brax found Lady Crystal in her chambers after the attack, and for all that it’s worth, the lady says Prince Taghi is offering protection for her daughter better than Ackwood could ever provide.” He frowned. “Whatever that means.”
Gandrett sat in silence as she digested all the possible meanings of what Lady Crystal had supposedly said. Why had the lady stayed behind? She could have made a deal for herself, too, coming as the bride’s mother—
“It means,” a voice joined in from the door, “that Taghi Saza Brina made a deal with the Dragon King to save his own sorry ass, and marrying Mckenzie Brenheran seems to play a big part in that deal.”
Gandrett sucked in a breath, and Armand stepped over the threshold, his honey-blond ponytail half-pulled apart, his clothes full of white smudges as if he had been crawling around in dust or flour. “Brax told me I could check in on you but not to wake you if you were still sleeping.” He mustered a smile.
Gandrett experienced shock and relief all at once as she saw the Lord of Eedwood and processed his words. And another name came to her mind. “Addie,” she whispered, and
his sorrowful gaze told her that there was a longer story to be told.
Armand joined her at the table, his elegant face tired but not hopeless, and laid out the story of what had happened in the tower. He told her about Lady Isylte Aphapia of Ilaton, about her daughter Selloue, how they had disappeared with Addie—
Gandrett’s stomach twisted at the details about the chalk marks, how Taghi had practically lured him away from the fight in the great hall so he couldn’t help them.
Nehelon had come to stand by the window closest to the table, his face tight, commenting every now and then. He and Armand and Brax had talked all of it through while she had been resting—naturally.
When Armand was done talking, there was only one question she asked, “What’s the plan?” And when Nehelon and Armand shared a look that couldn’t mean anything good, “You have a plan, right?”
The Fae male always had a plan. Always. It was his second nature—beyond the brooding—to always be prepared … and yet, so many of his plans had failed even during the short time that Gandrett had known him. She frowned.
It was Armand who braced his elbows on the dark wood between them and sighed. “I am going back to Eedwood first thing tomorrow. I can’t leave the east unprotected, so”—he glanced to the side, at Nehelon, who gave him a sharp, warning look—“the chancellor will set me up with some magically enhanced artifacts to shield at least the key positions in my field of influence. Just in case Raynar chooses Eedwood as his next target, you know.”
He didn’t comment on the revelation that Nehelon had magic, probably even knew by now that the chancellor was Fae. And a Fae prince for all that was worth. Gandrett pushed aside the knowledge and the unease that it inevitably brought with it and focused on the plans that had been made to save her friends, the Prince of Sives, and possibly all of Neredyn.
“And Addie?”
Armand lowered his gaze, letting his hands slide back into his lap, defeated.
His silence was answer enough.
“You can’t just leave her in the claws of that monster,” she retorted. She had intensely studied Neredyn history. Plus, she knew the legends about Raynar Leyon, the last Dragon King. If he was half as bad as what had been written about him—and after the brief encounter in the great hall, she knew he was at least that—he wouldn’t just kill Addie. He would destroy her. She had felt his icy breath on her face, on her throat, as he had cut open her tunic to carve her up. He had mouthed the words to her as he had traced a finger along her sternum, making sure that not even the Fae could hear him, “Blood and pain.”
It was Nehelon who responded this time, a muscle in his jaw feathering as he studied her reliving the memory. “Even if we knew where they took her—” He took a deep breath, gaze wandering back to Armand, who had turned pale as the chalk on his clothes—for after his story, Gandrett was sure that was what it was that he had been doing, examining those marks, trying to make sense of them, trying to find Addie. “She will probably be dead before we make it even halfway there.”
Hadn’t it been for the obvious regret in his voice, Gandrett would have attacked him with her bare hands. “How can you just give up on her?”
As she eyed Armand incredulously, he lowered his eyes, shame, frustration, whatever it was that he was hiding behind the fringe of lashes disappearing from her view. So she turned her attention on Nehelon, who held her gaze, blue eyes cold and calculated—the commander, not the prince or the male who had saved her in the great hall.
“If it had been me—” she said exasperated. “Would you have given up on me?”
Her direct question seemed to hit him like an arrow, and he cringed from the words she had spoken—or from what they implied.
However, Nehelon said nothing other than, “We cannot afford to waste time on a lost cause.” He didn’t sound convincing, though.
Gandrett got to her feet with a gasp, and her hand instinctively flew to her side, the scar beneath the cotton layer protesting at the rash movement. Nehelon was at her side in an instant, his arm around her back to support her weight, his face close enough that she could read the pain, the doubt that surfaced as he scrutinized her expression.
“If we are to look for Addie, we’ll be better off if we first go to the one place where we can find the people to be up to the task,” Nehelon said, and she could read it in his eyes as they bore into hers, full of regret, of hope, of something that she couldn’t name because it was gone in a flicker, too quick for her to understand.
In the background, Armand cleared his throat and got to his feet. “We can discuss this later,” he murmured, in a sudden hurry to leave. “I need to pack up my things.” But neither Gandrett nor Nehelon turned to acknowledge he had spoken.
Chapter Fifty
Gandrett registered that the Lord of Eedwood had left the room as the door clicked shut and fought the scent that enveloped her with the proximity of the male.
“I was a lost cause there in the great hall,” she whispered, leaning into Nehelon’s surprisingly careful hands. “You sacrificed the fate of Neredyn just to keep me alive.” For a long moment, their eyes locked, centuries of hardship mirroring in his, and something else—
“One day soon, Gandrett,” was all he said.
And Gandrett knew what he meant. That someday soon, he was going to tell her why.
Gandrett didn’t push for it and let Nehelon help her back into her chair.
“I am setting things up so Brax will be fine on his own … with his mother, here at Ackwood palace,” he said as if the rest of the conversation hadn’t happened except for a glimmer that lingered in his eyes. “Armand goes to Eedwood and rallies the forces of the east before Raynar can do so. Mckenzie, for now, is in hands that at least don’t mean her any harm—” Gandrett was about to object, but Nehelon cut her off. “Even if he has made a deal with the Dragon King, for now, he is not target number one. So she will be fine there for a while.” He let go of her and slid into the chair that Armand had vacated.
Gandrett didn’t like to admit it, but of all the places in the world, the lines of one of Raynar’s allies was one of the safest places—temporary until Phornes would go to war for Raynar and blood would be spilled on either side of the lines. Then it wouldn’t be safe anywhere. But for now—
“So, the best chance we have is to build our own allies and to find Raynar. When we find him, we’ll find Addie. If she is as important for him to get back to full strength as we think, then he won’t let her out of his sight until the process is completed—not after what happened here.” He gave her a look that told her there was more. Much more. And Gandrett swallowed the lump that was building in her throat.
“Spit it out,” she managed and placed her hands on the table between them, taking in the details of Nehelon’s human face with weary eyes.
“I sent word to Pete about the attack,” he said, voice calmer than she believed he felt inside.
Gandrett waited, hungry to piece all the details together, to understand where she was placed on this huge game board that Neredyn had become overnight.
“Pete says he will take care of Andrew’s education until you return.”
Gandrett’s heart stuttered at the name of her brother. He was in the one place that had been untouched by the Dragon King seven hundred years ago. Maybe the priory of Vala was a safer place for him to be than by her side. She didn’t even want to think of what might have happened to him had he been here in Ackwood when the attack happened. She loosed a breath. The moment Brax was alright to handle things here by himself, she would leave for Everrun and see her brother again.
“He really is your friend, isn’t he?” she said and held Nehelon’s gaze.
The Fae nodded imperceptibly. “He will make sure Andrew learns to defend himself, and he will watch over him until your return.” He dropped his gaze and studied his calloused hands. “For a long time, he was my only friend,” he admitted and paused as if he wanted to say something else but shook his head ever so lightly tha
t Gandrett couldn’t be sure she had registered the motion.
For a moment, they sat in silence, the events of the past days pushing heavily on their shoulders and on their hearts, the summer wind playing with the curtains and the rustling of leaves in the park below the only sounds filling the room. Then, Nehelon straightened in his chair.
“When I leave for Ulfray,” he said, voice quiet and assured as if he had rehearsed the words, “I want you to come with me.”
He held her gaze, enduring her silence as she processed the words and again had the same question on her mind. “Why?”
He nodded as if he had been anticipating her reaction. “There is more than one reason to go, Gandrett. First, too many people know of your magic, and if the wrong one learns about it, you might hang for it.”
He had a point. “I could hide at the priory,” she suggested, but knew that if she wanted to save Addie or Mckenzie, there would be little she could do in Everrun. So she silenced herself and let Nehelon—who was patiently waiting for her to make her own realizations—continue.
“Second, those people who could help us free Addie, are in Ulfray,” he said with a voice equally calm and quiet as before. “And third…” He let his words trail away, hesitating, probing her gaze … and didn’t finish.
“Third?” Gandrett prompted, her shoulders curving inward a little as she leaned back in the chair.
He let his glamour slip—or it slipped without him realizing; it had happened before—revealing the Fae features that were so in harmony with that scent that she couldn’t get out of her nose.
“Third … I am going to Ulfray … and you need me.” He stared into her eyes, a small crease between his brows, gaze so deep that she felt he wanted to unearth a treasure from the Glistening Blue. “You need me to learn all aspects of your magic, I mean,” he corrected. His face smoothed over. “Now that Raynar is back, you will need to be able to control every tiny little detail about your magic. Your sword will no longer be enough to save yourself—or your brother.” He turned his head to face the window, the incoming breeze shifting his hair back and exposing his pointed ears. Gandrett couldn’t help but stare—after all those months, when she spotted that particular trait that marked him as a Fae, all the horror stories of her childhood came back to mind. And a blind fascination that had more to do with the bearer of the ears than with the ears themselves. “Or anyone else for that matter.”
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