“You know that without your help, I wouldn’t be here today,” he said, voice solemn, emerald eyes clear and serious.
Gandrett shook her head. “If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have ended up with those scars. She hardly dared look at his neck and hands, which all, despite the healing properties of the Dragon Water, held scars—nothing as bad as what a natural healing process would have left him with but still scars to tell a tale of Gandrett’s magic.
Joshua pulled his collar up, covering the evidence.
“If it weren’t for you and your magic, my mother would have killed another innocent.” He lifted his gaze to the canopy above them. The greens were a darker shade than the first springy sprouts she had observed on her ride from Everrun back to Sives with Nehelon a month and a half ago. How much had changed since then, her magic being only one of the many things within her that had recently scared her. She stole a glance at Nehelon, who was absently massaging Alvi’s ears, his own, pointed ones probably intently listening to their conversation.
“I am sorry about your mother.” Gandrett placed one hand on his arm in comfort. “I wish there had been a way to stop her without—”
“You didn’t kill her, Gandrett,” Joshua interrupted, face stern as he relieved her of her guilt. “She made a choice to drive that knife into her own heart. It was her choice.” His fingers curled around the air in his palms. “She made her choice long ago when she decided to put a spell on me so she could manipulate me into becoming something I never wanted to be. My own mother—” He shook his head.
“And it still hurts,” she said, fingers squeezing his arm.
He nodded, that sorrow filling his eyes again. “It still hurts,” he agreed.
That night after miles and miles of riding, Gandrett couldn’t find sleep, even when Joshua was already deep in dreams.
“I wonder if he has nightmares,” she whispered to Nehelon, who had been sitting like a statue on his bedroll, eyes on the small fire they had risked. “After years of sharing his mind with another presence—” Gandrett could only imagine the horrors he had endured and to what degree it might have scarred the young prince. A prince. That was what Joshua Brenheran was.
Nehelon got up from his bedroll and noiselessly prowled to hers, where he sat down beside her.
Gandrett curled herself into a sitting position, resting her chin on her knees.
“Will you have nightmares?” he asked, sincere concern in his words. He picked up a piece of wood from the ground between his feet and played with it. “After what you’ve seen down there,” he didn’t need to say in the temple of Shygon for Gandrett to know what he was talking about, “it wouldn’t surprise me.”
As Gandrett tilted her head, shoving her forearm under her cheek so her knee wouldn’t dig into it, Nehelon’s eyes studied her with caution as if he didn’t fully believe she was truly there.
Gandrett herself couldn’t fully believe she was truly there. Too much had happened in Eedwood—
“Does it scare you?” he asked. Words she would have never expected of him. Words that didn’t come with any mockery or pitfalls. “Your magic, I mean.”
Gandrett searched her chest for the hollow space that had throbbed this morning but couldn’t find it. She didn’t know what kind of magic it was that she had, only that she had almost killed Joshua with it, and hadn’t it been for the icy cold in the caverns, she probably would have killed Linniue and Armand.
“A little.” It was an understatement, but admitting to fear wasn’t something she was used to.
As if Nehelon understood anyway, he nodded and held up the piece of wood before her.
It burst into flame at the top of his hand, dissolving into ash before her eyes.
Something in Gandrett’s chest stirred.
“I felt it,” Nehelon whispered. Gandrett blinked—a silent request for what he was talking about. “I felt your magic awaken, Gandrett.”
His eyes sparkled in the firelight while pieces of ash still floated before him.
Gandrett didn’t speak for lack of a response, just locking her gaze on his.
“You will need training, or you will expose yourself.” His eyes were full of wisdom, of history, and it occurred to her again that he wasn’t human, that he had roamed the realms of Neredyn for centuries and longer, and that he would when she was little more than the ashes floating between them.
She knew he was right. She could feel it even now as he spoke, that space in her chest that had replenished over the past hours, that would soon be brimming with power.
“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” she admitted, offering the truth about how she felt for once.
Nehelon turned to the side, propped up on one arm, and brushed his fingers across her cheek in response. “You won’t,” he promised. “I won’t let you.”
Gandrett held very still, anxious he would continue and anxious he would stop.
“I will be there to guide you,” he breathed as he leaned in, the thrilling, nameless scent that promised his presence filling the space between them. “You won’t be alone.”
She took a deep breath, indulging in the thought of speaking those words which had been following her around since that moment in the forest, but Nehelon was faster.
He dragged his thumb across her lips, straightening up as he cupped her face in both hands, bringing his own to level with hers. His breath was a rush of heat on her skin, and his glamour was slipping, exposing the full beauty of his features and letting Gandrett’s pulse thump in her throat. It had to be so loud it might wake Joshua.
But Nehelon smiled. A sweet smile that didn’t match the torment in his eyes. “One day, Gandrett Brayton, I will kiss you…” His finger traced her lips in a slow curve that made her breath catch. “One day, when I’m a better man.”
The next morning, they were back in the saddle before the sun rose, taking the most direct route to Ackwood, stopping only to water their horses and to rest and eat when necessary.
By the time the monumental drawbridge and the statue at the main gate over the water became visible two nights later, both Gandrett and Joshua had told Nehelon the full story of what had happened at Eedwood castle. Nehelon didn’t interrupt often. Only when he learned both his dagger and his knife hadn’t made it back out of Eedwood did he voice his complaint. But Gandrett noticed a smile as he fretted. And whenever his gaze met hers, his eyes seemed to be saying, Alive. You are alive.
Mckenzie’s squeal of delight set the entire courtyard on red alert as Joshua climbed off his horse, his hair shimmering in the afternoon sun like molten gold.
They had stowed their Denderlain-cloaks away into their packs the moment they had made it out of Denderlain territory, and they’d arrived in Ackwood with their dirty riding clothes telling tales of their journey.
Gandrett observed from her spot between Lim and Alvi how Mckenzie wrapped her arms around her brother, both laughing and crying at the reunion. Nehelon had left the two horses in her care as he had prowled off to inform Lord Tyrem and Lady Crystal their lost son had returned. Which gave Gandrett a moment to breathe. After almost four days of riding side by side with Nehelon, she still hadn’t had a chance to bring up the one topic that wouldn’t let her sleep at night. She had caught herself studying him from the side countless times, never able to figure out if those curves of his lips had touched hers. And if it had been so, if Vala would forsake her.