Concealing my anxiety, I angle toward Hagan. “When my thunderbird arrives, you will help me lift Nathaniel onto my bird’s back.”
He nods. It’s in his interest to help me. As long as he remains close to Nathaniel, Cyrian won’t risk attacking him. It will be a different matter when we leave, though.
Just as I lift my fingertips to my lips for a third desperate time, lightning crackles across the haze above us, lighting up Treble’s silhouette in brilliant blue-gray streaks. Glowing and rippling with electricity, he plummets straight toward us before he spreads his wings and cracks them to slow his descent. The thunder created by his wings explodes around us, loud enough to thud through my hearing, but it’s a welcome beat.
As the wind from Treble’s wings gusts across us, my thunderbird casts a dangerous glare at Cyrian. The flickers of Treble’s lightning cut through the darkness swirling around the King, forcing Cyrian to backstep farther away from us.
I don’t have time for relief. Movement at the far end of the arena indicates that the hunters are returning. The last time they saw Treble, they tried to shoot him from the air.
I need to move quickly.
Hagan is already kneeling beside Nathaniel, carefully hooking his arms around Nathaniel’s torso and lifting him. He glances at me with a gruff command. “Help me keep his head steady!”
I race to Hagan’s side, supporting the back of Nathaniel’s head as Hagan draws Nathaniel carefully upward. While he strains under Nathaniel’s weight, he uses the strength in his thighs to rise as he pulls Nathaniel over his shoulder. It’s a much more careful and labored maneuver than the way Hagan barreled into me yesterday and threw me over his shoulder. I guess it helped that I was already standing up. Also that I’m much smaller than Nathaniel.
Making sure Nathaniel’s head doesn’t drop back during the process, I remain conscious of the oncoming hunters. Snake—the hunter with a long scar meandering down his arm—and the other men flood through the gate at the end of the arena. They shout in anger as they draw their bows and arrows.
“Don’t kill the bird!” Cyrian bellows, skirting around Treble and backing toward his men. “Hold your attack!”
Treble cracks his wings as Hagan and I approach, giving Hagan a warning glare.
Now that Nathaniel rests safely over Hagan’s shoulder, I hurry toward my thunderbird, willing him to listen to me. “This human is not my friend, but I need his help. Please give him your wing.”
I nearly cry when Treble shows me how much he trusts me, immediately extending his wing so that Hagan can climb up onto his back.
Hagan only stares at the extended wing. “What is this?”
“You have to walk up his wing bone. Like this.” I hurry to demonstrate, running up Treble’s wing, while Hagan takes a hesitant step. Just like Nathaniel the first time he rode Treble, Hagan casts Treble concerned glances. “I’m a lot heavier than you—especially carrying Nathaniel.”
“His bones are as strong as metal,” I say, holding out my hand to Hagan to urge him toward me. “Trust me.”
His gaze flashes to me, suddenly sharp. “Trust you? I will never trust my enemy.”
“Then don’t trust me as a fae,” I snap. “Trust me as Nathaniel’s wife.”
Despite the scathing glare he casts at my face, he takes another step, continuing up Treble’s wing. “You deliberately scrubbed Nathaniel’s name from your face before the ink wore off. Only Nathaniel can decide if you are still his wife.”
My stomach falls and my hand lowers. When Nathaniel first drew the symbol representing his family name on my face yesterday morning, I didn’t know that he was offering me his love and his loyalty. After I gave him permission to paint his name on my face in golden lacquer, I accepted everything the symbol meant—that we would love and protect each other.
Then I found out who he really is—the true heir to the Fell throne. I’d scoured at the mark on my face with dirt, wanting to put as much emotional distance between us as possible. I’d scrubbed my skin raw to remove the ink in an effort to make it clear to Nathaniel that he couldn’t jeopardize his safety for me.
“I told you yesterday,” I say, my voice bleak. “I will do whatever it takes to keep Nathaniel alive.”
Hagan scowls at me. “I don’t understand your motives.”
“You don’t need to understand me. Only believe that I’m not lying to you.”
Hagan’s glare deepens. He will never trust me. No matter what I do or say.
Taking the final step onto Treble’s glowing back, he turns and slides carefully downward so that Nathaniel is facing forward. Positioning Nathaniel there requires Hagan to carefully maneuver himself into a sitting position at the same time, even though he’s facing Treble’s tail.
I glance at the hunters who are approaching with stealth, their weapons ready as they creep toward us. They may not be attacking, but they’re preparing to kill Hagan the moment he leaves Treble’s back.
My eyes widen as I realize that I could slip onto Treble’s back right now and we could fly away, all three of us. I have no reason to save Hagan other than instinct, but I hear Nathaniel’s voice in my mind, telling me not to rethink, to trust my feelings.
I slide into position so that Nathaniel’s back rests against my front, quickly positioning his head against my shoulder. His heavy weight settles against me, nearly crushing my chest, but I wrap one arm around his waist and refuse to let go.
I wasn’t sure if Treble could hold all three of us, but he’s already proving capable, unflinching as our weight settles on his back.
Reaching around Nathaniel, I grab Hagan’s arm before he can begin the awkward task of extricating himself from his current position.
“Come with us,” I say, gripping his bicep as hard as I can. It’s difficult, given that my hand barely reaches around half of his upper arm.
The moment I speak, I regret it.
Dark stars, what am I thinking?
Hagan has made his hatred of me clear. I was the fae who killed Nathaniel’s mother, Paloma Exalted, at the border years ago. Hagan considered her his mother too—she raised him, trained him, gave him a home and a purpose. Even though Paloma came to the border to end the agony the Ebon Rot was causing her, I was the one who struck her down, burying her in the muddy earth within the Misty Gallows.
I was the one who ended the human’s beloved Queen.
The astonishment in Hagan’s eyes now tells me he thinks I’ve lost my senses.
“I’m a dead man,” he says. “I’m prepared to take my last breaths.”
I refuse to let go, gripping harder as he tries to shake me off. “I’ll need help when we land,” I say. “I can’t move Nathaniel on my own.”
It’s not completely true. The last time Nathaniel was mortally wounded, I managed to drag him off Treble’s back, but carrying him farther than that on my own will be very difficult. I don’t have the power of a Frost fae to control the wind that could carry him easily. My twilight power has many facets, but lifting things isn’t one of them.
Hagan shakes his head—already saying no—but I allow anger to flood through me. “If you want to meet your death once Nathaniel’s safe, then feel free. But until then, you will help me.”