Layala dropped to the soft, green forest floor and leaned her back against the stone circle. The quiet hum from within it warmed her skin but there was no pull or draining of her magic. She closed her eyes, breathing in steadily. The tremors in her hands and legs and weakness in her muscles brought up a rush of anxiety from her time in the tower. She could almost feel the straw from that disgusting bed poking into her, taste the dryness in her mouth, the sting of cracked lips, experience the ache and gnawing at her stomach from raw hunger. Reina’s terrified face popped into her mind and the line of crimson that welled up when Tenebris drew a blade across her delicate neck. Piper’s scream as Gunner was torn away, lost to the lake forever. Everything seemed to hit her all at once.
Thane wouldn’t even look at her. He blamed her for the loss of Gunner, didn’t he?
“Are you alright, Layala?” Aunt Evalyn asked gently.
Her heart began to pound and despite how weak she was, her eyes shot open, and she shoved to her feet. Worry lined Aunt Evalyn’s face as she stared, as they all did.
She must run. She needed to feel free, to get away from those memories. The itch of her hot skin, the rushing of her breaths—if she didn’t move, she would burst. Everything around her seemed hazy except those memories of death and despair.
Forcing one foot in front of the other, she started off slow, clutching a hand to her heaving chest. Then she sprinted, tearing through the trees at a wild pace. Her surroundings zipped by in a dark-green blur, low hanging branches snapped across her face, but she barely registered the pain.
“Layala!” Thane’s voice sounded far away.
Run. Run. She couldn’t stop. The ache in her body stole the anxious, repetitive thoughts that seemed to be on a wheel sliding through her mind. She wanted to grip her hair and scream but kept pumping her arms instead. Hot tears streamed down her face. She leapt over a fallen log and slammed down on the other side. Quiet feet flew over the dense foliage. She weaved around tree trunks until she broke free of the forest and came to the edge of the island. Wide open space was less claustrophobic. The lake glistened as the sun peeked out from the dark clouds above offering some sense of relief.
Layala collapsed to her knees, barely able to catch her breath, and tipped over onto her side in the ebony sand. Then she rolled flat on her back, and her sword jabbed into her, but she ignored it as she stared up at the sky. A drizzle of cool rain pitter-pattered on her face. Why did so many bad things happen? Why did people die when she was around? Did the Maker care about their suffering? Didn’t he hear their pleas?
Come to me. I will help you, that now-familiar voice of the Black Mage whispered.
Layala slapped her hands on the sides of her head. Stop it! Leave me alone.
I feel your suffering. I will make the hurt go away. But I need you to find me.
No! She silently screamed in her head. Because that’s where the voice was. Maker, maybe she was losing her mind.
I truly need you. I’ve waited so long.
A quiet rustle of bushes drew her attention. Layala tilted her head to see Thane emerging from the break in the tree line. For once he appeared to breathe heavily. She clenched her jaw and turned away, wanting to hate that he followed her but the tightness in her chest eased slightly.
Silently, he traipsed over the tall grass and lay beside her in the sand. In serene quiet, they both stared at the sky for a while. The deep pull of his lungs was almost a lullaby to calm her nerves. The rustle of wind in the treetops and chirps and songs of birds with the steady lull of the water, seemed to put her in a trance. The tightness wound around her chest loosened some and the tears dried. She felt like she could breathe again.
“I forgot how fast you are,” he said reverently, as if breaking the peace was a sin.
She pursed her lips and said nothing.
His hand brushed against hers, and then warm fingers gently nuzzled their way in between hers. “Why won’t you look at me?”
“I could ask you the same question.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. They were quiet again as she waited for an answer rather than an apology. “I feel I’ve failed you. You had to fight me rather than help them.”
“You think you failed me?” She sat up and tossed her arm toward the water. “You were not in control of yourself out there. I was. They begged me for help.”
He pushed up to his feet and stared out over the water. “Gunner is dead because I commanded him to be here. He’s dead because of me. Just like all the others I’ve lost but at least they died in a battle for something greater. To protect the lives of their families and the people they love.” He did finally look at her, wild-eyed, face twisted into agonizing fury. “Gunner died for a stone we don’t even know exists for certain. It’s nothing more than rumors or hearsay. Maker above, I am weary of my people dying needlessly.”
She unintentionally moved back at the wrath emanating from him like a blast of wind. She’d seen him angry a few times, but this was different. This was—anguish. “I’m sorry this is your burden. And I’m sorry I couldn’t save him.”
“I’m not blaming you,” he snapped. He smacked a palm to his chest. “It’s on me.”
Gritting her teeth, she stood up and matched his ferocity. “No, you don’t get to do that.” How many times had she blamed herself for all of this and he refused to let her? She’d even suggested if she wasn’t alive, it would end this chaos, but he wouldn’t allow her to speak of it. With flared nostrils he stared down at her but stood still. “This is on your father and the Black Mage. It’s them, not us. There would be no war to fight, no Void to destroy. We would never be here if it wasn’t for them.” A long breath passed through her lips.
“My father,” he murmured with a humorless laugh. “I was within my reach. I—could have killed him.”
Layala swallowed hard. He had the opportunity and didn’t take it? “What?”
He looked away as if reliving the memory. “He was feet from me. It was strange to see him near when I had mourned him and felt the guilt of killing him. He was conversing with my mother.” His beautiful, soothing voice dropped lower. “They spoke about making—amends.”
“Amends?” Layala balked, cheeks flaring hot with frustration. She balled her hands into fists at her sides. “Amends! Between you and him? They can’t be serious.” The shadows of confusion and doubt were written all over his face. He ran his fingers across his loose dark-brown hair. “You’re not…” Oh Maker above, he was. “You’re thinking about that? Considering it?” She couldn’t fathom it. After everything Tenebris did. The elf king was immoral, wicked, a fiend and deserved no sympathy, least of all from Layala or Thane.
“I,” he paused, sliding his palms down his face. “I don’t know. I want him gone but—I thought I fed him to pale ones, and a part of me is relieved he didn’t suffer that way.”
She remembered walking into his tent one night when he’d dreamed of the day he brought his father to the Void and the guilt that ate away at him. She felt it then. She didn’t now, and maybe that was why her jaw still dropped, why she couldn’t understand. Tenebris had a list of unforgivable offenses a mile long. I can’t believe this is happening. Layala wanted Tenebris dead almost more than anything. She would take her revenge, the thing she’d been trained to do her entire life despite Thane’s conflicted, twisted relationship with his father.
“He’s the worst person imaginable, Thane! Release this guilt. It’s unwarranted!”
“You don’t understand because he’s not your father.”
That felt like a slap to the face. “I don’t even have a father because of him!” she snarled. “You insensitive prick.” She turned away, stalking down the beach, seething. She shoved her fingers into her hair, scraping her nails over her scalp. He saw his father one time and suddenly changed his mind about this? How could they live in a world where the three of them existed? Tenebris who would use her, Thane who lived to protect her, and she, the source of conflict in between.
Large fingers wrapped around her bicep and spun her around. “Laya, stop. I’m sorry. I am an insensitive prick. I wasn’t thinking.”
“I’m never going to forgive him.” She jerked out of his grasp, taking one step back, two. “Never. He’s dead one way or another.”
“I’m not asking you to forgive him. I never would.” The storms in his very eyes were as dark as the booming sky above.
He reached for her, and she pushed his hand away. “But you’re asking me to let him live, aren’t you?”
“No,” he said gently. The rain streaked down his face, and the sag of his shoulders looked to hold the weight of the world. “I’m asking you to understand. Understand why I couldn’t kill him. And my mother was there and I—I couldn’t.”
She didn’t know her parents but if Aunt Evalyn was evil, she didn’t think she’d be able to kill her when it came down to it. Especially if she wanted to ask for forgiveness. Killing a stranger was much easier than a loved one. But would he stand by and watch as Layala did it? Would he try to stop her? This situation made the knots in her stomach worse.
She sighed, turning toward the forest. Would he hold it against her if she did kill him? Was she going to have to choose between killing Tenebris and loving Thane? “You won’t have to. I will. You can’t rob me of this. He almost took you from me. For power, Thane. And you’re defending him.” She shook her head, thinking of Tenebris’s boot smashing her hand in the dining hall, grinding her bones. She started to walk away again.
He stepped in front of her and took her face in between his hands. “I’m not going to fight with you, and you’re not just going to walk away.” Then he smashed his lips to hers.
She gripped his wrists, kissing him back. He was as infuriating as the day she met him, but she melted in his arms.
He pulled back and rested his forehead against hers. “I will always choose you, Laya.” His voice was gravelly and full of emotion. “I want you to know that.” And he had proved that time and again.
She looked up into his eyes. He tentatively lowered his lips closer to hers, a breath away, this time waiting. After a few beats she gave in again, kissing him deeply, wrapping her arms around his neck. The rain poured down, soaking through their clothes. She would normally be cold in this stormy weather, but his hot kisses trailed down her neck, warming her body. With frenzied desire building inside, Layala dragged him down on the wet grass. Callused hands slid around her waist, gliding under her top. She craved his touch like a drunk longed for booze, intoxicated in much the same way. “You promised,” she breathed, while his fingers inched below the hem of her pants at her waist and tugged them down, “to destroy anyone who hurt me.”
“And I will.” He dragged his hands roughly over her bare thighs. The thunder boomed with the ferocity of an angry god. With eager longing, Layala watched his deft fingers pull his belt loose. “I will,” he swore.
A moment later, she pulled him on top of her, wanting, no, needing him. His kisses were intense, full of hunger and command, as was the way he moved against her. Everything in her felt a little hazy and heavy like the horizon dotted with mist and as she arched his thumb tugged down her bottom lip. His touch might have been embers igniting her flesh. Every kiss left its heated mark on her. Every sound she made, a call for more. As she watched the forked lightning streak across the stormy sky, it could have been her, crackling with blazing heat, illuminating the dark, and finally bursting into thunder where hot and cold collided.
The sun peeked out from behind the angry clouds, warm and soothing. She lay on Thane’s chest, absently running her fingers over his bare skin. “Were you ever tempted to sleep with anyone else?”
“Is this a trap?”
She chuckled and lifted her head, propping her chin on her folded hands. “No. I’m serious. Was it hard to wait for me?”
Bringing up his arms behind his head, he took a deep breath. “Well, I am an exceptionally attractive elf and there were many females groveling at my feet.”
She lightly pinched his chest. “Arrogant pig.”
He laughed, a deep rumble that seemed to move through her. “Of course it was hard. There was more than one occasion that I came into my room to find a mostly naked, if not fully nude, maiden there waiting on my bed.”
Layala’s mouth dropped. “Who?”
“So you can punish them?”
“No, I’m dying to know the juicy castle gossip. Pearl and…” She trailed off before saying Reina aloud. “They talked about maids trying to move up in status.”
“Well, Vyra for one. I’m sure it was Talon who told the guards to let her in.”
For show, Layala dramatically gasped at the scandal and twisted a piece of his long dark hair around her finger. “She did? What did you do?”
“You really want to know?” he asked and arched an eyebrow. She nodded. His chest heaved and dropped sharply. “I had been drinking wine, a little too much. I came into my room to find the fireplace already ablaze but that was usual. And there she was in nothing but a white, see-through nightgown. Don’t know what the point of the fabric is. I saw every inch of her private parts.”
“To stand completely bare in front of a male the first time is nerve wracking, perhaps it was for her comfort. But I also imagine it would make a girl feel sexy.”
“I can see you wearing something like that to show me you want me without saying it, but you could also strip down to nothing. I’m going to take it off anyway.”
Layala smiled. “I’ll keep that in mind. Go on with the story.”
“Alright, well, Vyra practically mauled me. I stood there in shock for a moment.” He laughed at the memory. “She was like a rabid badger. Jumped on me, wrapped her legs around my waist. The kisses—so wet.” He shuddered.
“Wet?” Layala laughed.
“Yeah, like a slobbery dog.” Layala cupped her hand over her mouth to stop from laughing more. He carried on. “But I got my wits about me and had to unlatch her. She didn’t want to let go. She made sure to cop a feel of the goods too.”
“She grabbed your…” her eyes flicked down.
“My cock and balls, you can say it. Or how about meat and two veg? Wait, no, rod and berries.”
She shook her head but smiled. “What kind of berries? Aren’t berries a little small?”
“Plums. Actually, let’s go with grapefruits.”
“Grapefruit?” She rolled her eyes.
“It’s a figure of speech, my love.”
“We’re getting off track, so she grabbed your rod and blueberries.”
“They’re not blue anymore.”
Layala burst out laughing.
“But yeah. She grabbed me painfully hard. The girl has no finesse. I’m sure she talked to some harlot for advice and went a little overboard. And then to be nice I sent her out the servants’ passage with a blanket around her shoulders.”
“I don’t know how she showed her face after that. And you’re way nicer than I ever would have been.”
“So I hear. You gave a man a black eye for grabbing your ass. I heard your friends say it at the pub in Briar Hollow.”
That was right when she’d walked in with Forrest and Ren, and she hadn’t noticed him at all. “Bet that made you fall straight in love.”
“Almost went right to my knees before you. But it was when you stuck a knife in my shoulder in my room that I knew you were the one for me. All I thought was that this lovely maiden is wild, and I love her.”
“Maker above, are you ever going to let that go?”
“Never,” he teased.
“When was it that you really fell for me? The truth.”
He sat quietly, watching the clouds pass by above. She recalled many moments that whittled away at her heart.
“Hmm, I loved the idea of you most of my life. And you did truly dazzle me when you came into my room to assassinate me. I mean, the audacity alone.” He smiled. “But I knew what we had was real or what I felt was real, anyway, after the funerals and we stood out there in the rain and you slipped in the mud into my arms. You remember?”
“Yes.”
“I looked down at you and it hit me like a slap to the face. It’s why I had to ask you to forgive me, because I couldn’t live with myself if you didn’t. And Maker above, did I want to kiss you.”
“I remember you almost did, but you pulled away. Why?”
He brushed his thumb over her lips, eyes focused on them, as if they were back in that moment. “I needed to know that’s what you wanted before I ever kissed you again. And it was you who kissed me at the Celebration of Life.”
She laid her head back down on his bare chest, watching the lake’s shoreline. A pair of ducks waddled up onto the sand, quacking happily, then a set of tiny yellow babies appeared behind them. “Why does that seem so long ago and yet like it was yesterday?”
“It’s strange, isn’t it?” He stroked the top of her head, scrubbing his fingers into her scalp. “And what about you, Laya? When did you know you loved me?”
“If I’m being completely honest with myself,” she wanted to say it was the night she left him alone in that mage’s tower, but it was before that, “I think it was the moment I put on that flower crown. I wanted you to do something, to show me that what I felt was real and I hadn’t imagined it all. You didn’t disappoint.”
He chuckled. “Oh, you wanted me to toss that crown, carry you in my arms, and drag you onto my lap?”
Her finger drew little circles across his soft skin over the planes of his muscular chest. “Or maybe it was your reaction to the crown when I knew I loved you. I would have never told you about Novak otherwise.”
“You can talk about him, you know. Did he treat you well? Was he respectful?”
Layala lifted her head and sat up. She reached for her top and slipped it on. “You think I would have tolerated less?”
Laughing, he shook his head and pushed up onto his elbows. “No, I suppose not.”
“He was funny and had a sort of boyish charm. Slender, a little taller than me but not much. He liked to fish in the river. We’d do that together sometimes, but I hate gutting fish. It’s too slimy and gross.” She tugged the tie at the end of her hair loose and brushed her fingers through her long locks. “We’d been friends for so many years, and I’d loved him for a long time, but it was different than with you. I loved him like a friend. I think I knew he loved me long before anything ever happened. But I was never that physically attracted to him. He wasn’t ugly but sort of plain, with a good heart.”
“But you are drawn to me and my dashing good looks,” he teased. “And my charm, we mustn’t forget the charm.”
Although she could have come back with a snarky remark, she wanted him to know the truth. “You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen, Thane, on the inside too. I was a little smitten when I saw you even if your presence unnerved me.”
“Please, do go on. About the smitten part.”
Now she rolled her eyes and began to twist her hair into a braid. “The romance between Novak and I wasn’t perfect. It seemed once we admitted our feelings, he was jealous. We argued more than we ever did before. He’d get angry when the men looked at me too long at the training yard. He started fights sometimes over lude comments. I finally made it a rule he couldn’t go because they only did it more to rile him up. But he made me happy too. He baked the best cinnamon sugar cookies. And it was cute how nervous he was to even kiss me. He never wanted to take things further because I was mated to you. He said he didn’t want to have me fully until I was free, until I could be his and not yours.” She nibbled her lip, wondering if she would have let herself fall in love with Thane if Novak was alive. “We were together for a year and a half before our emotions got in the way of his vow not to bed me… anyway, it was a clumsy attempt. I don’t think he had a Fennan to give him a book on pleasing a female.” She giggled.
“So you never felt the peak of lovemaking before?”
She shook her head. “Not until the ruins with you.”
“Well, I’m glad he was there for you when I couldn’t be. Even if I’m jealous he was your first love.” Thane grabbed her hand and kissed the top of it. “But I am all too thrilled to know I’m your exceptional final lover.”
“A talent I am grateful for,” she said with a slight blush. “Anyway, speaking of Fennan and lovemaking.” Layala stood up and slipped on her pants. Either the time they’d spent laying on the wet grass had rejuvenated her strength, or the lovemaking did but the weakness in her limbs was gone.
“I’m not going to jump to conclusions but that sounds odd—”
“Piper,” Layala said, exasperated. As if she’d ever think about herself and Fennan together. “You should ask him about Piper.”
“Eh.” He didn’t sound enthused and got up to dress.
“Spill,” Layala said. Why was he against them being more than friends?
“It worries me. I don’t want to see her get hurt. Piper has been courted by a few Ravens, but she’s never had her heart broken because she never loved them. She’s always been waiting for Fennan to really notice her. And Fennan, as I’m sure you’ve heard, is a lover of many. He leaves broken hearts in his wake like a pixie trails dust.”
They started back up the way they came. Through the woods to reunite with their companions. Thane pushed aside a heavy branch to let Layala go by. “But he wouldn’t do that to her,” Layala said. “She’s different. She’s Piper.”
“And he should know that. I don’t think he’ll take it anywhere unless something changed him in the dungeons.”
When they drew closer to the encampment, the clinking of metal, grunting, and jeers sent Layala’s heart racing. Were they under attack?
