Lyana didn’t need to meet Cassi’s glare to feel every suspicious, accusing prick in it. The left side of her body tingled with heat. She kept her eyes locked on Xander, feeding off his energy instead of her friend’s because at the moment, his emotions matched hers. “Really? Xander, how? It’s a miracle.”
“No one knows,” he explained with a shake of his head as words eluded him. “The people are saying it was a gift from the gods to thank us for our devotion. Someone claimed to have seen a cloaked figure pass beneath one of the spirit gates last night—they’re saying it was Taetanos himself.”
Lyana bit her lips to keep from squealing.
“Thank the gods,” Cassi drawled.
Lyana ached to throw a pillow at her face, but she restrained herself…barely.
“Thank the gods, indeed,” Xander said, not noticing the sarcastic undertone of Cassi’s statement. He was pure of heart, and Cassi, well, wasn’t. But that was one of the reasons Lyana loved her. “I’d like to think that maybe…” Xander mumbled with glowing eyes, reaching out to hold her fingers. “Thank you for coming with me to say the blessings yesterday. I think, maybe, it did something. Maybe, somehow, we helped.”
“We did,” Lyana said, squeezing back.
The words were true. If Xander hadn’t taken her out into the city yesterday, she would have never even conceived the idea in the first place. Would have never known where to go or which steps to make. This was all because of him, because he’d taken the time to include her, and she was grateful. But not so grateful that she was ready to tell him the truth.
She released his hand.
He took a hasty step back and cleared his throat.
“Well, anyway, you missed breakfast, so I wanted to come and tell you the news myself.” He paused to eye the leg which clearly caused her no pain or hardship, then looked up with a charming wink. “I’ll tell my mother you require a day of rest to recover from your wounds. Shall I come back to escort you to dinner?”
“Please do,” she murmured.
He left with another bow. Lyana winced when the door clicked closed.
Three, two, one—
“What were you thinking?” Cassi hissed, charging toward her the way Lyana imagined bears in the great plains of the House of Prey might charge toward a rabbit. But she was no rabbit.
“I wasn’t thinking,” Lyana countered, turning to meet her friend head-on. “I was acting, I was doing, and it was amazing, Cassi. If only you’d been there to see, you’d understand. But I didn’t want to risk getting you into trouble.”
“Since when?”
Lyana sighed. “Since we’re in a foreign house and trouble here might have real consequences, unlike back home when I knew I could talk our way out of any punishment my father might have threatened.”
Tension left Cassi’s muscles. Her shoulders fell and her wings folded as all her edges softened. “You should have told me.”
“I know,” Lyana admitted. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too,” Cassi said, stepping close enough to put her hand on Lyana’s arm. “I don’t blame you for wanting to help. You’re a healer—it’s what you were born to do, to be. It’s just—” She broke off.
“Just what?”
Cassi looked away, studying the rich fibers of the carpet instead of meeting Lyana’s probing eyes. “You need to be careful.”
“I was.”
“So many people are counting on you, Ana…”
Lyana nodded along with her friend’s words, because Cassi was right. The ravens. Xander. The queen. This entire house and all the houses, they were all counting on her to do her part, to be the princess she was supposed to be, the queen she was supposed to become. Not this. Not the person she was, magic and all.
“Just promise me,” Cassi said. “Promise me you won’t do anything else that might get you into trouble, at least for the next ten days.”
Lyana frowned. “Ten days?”
Cassi didn’t move for a moment, and then she gave a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Yeah, ten days. Because after that, you’ll officially be mated, and you won’t be my problem anymore.”
Lyana shoved her gently. “I’ll always be your problem.”
Cassi snorted. “Ain’t that the truth. Now come on, I’m starving. Let’s see if we can find some food, and you can tell me all about your little midnight expedition, all right?”
Lyana agreed, following Cassi out the door, but her mind was still stuck on those words.
Ten days.
You’ll officially be mated.
You won’t be my problem.
She’d tried not to think about the ceremony too much. About the fast-encroaching future. The vows she had to make—vows before the gods, vows she would never break, not once they were spoken.
Ten days was all she had left to be herself.
To be Ana.
A girl of magic and wonder—the girl she was with Rafe.
Not Lyana Taetanus, Crown Princess of the House of Whispers.
A woman bound by duty.
Ten days. It hardly seemed enough, so she planned to make each moment count, no matter what she’d promised Cassi. There was no time to be afraid. No time to be nervous. No time for anything at all.
51
Rafe
He spent the next few days in an upside-down sort of life, sleeping all day, awake all night, telling himself the sneaking around wasn’t for him or for her. It was for Xander. For the ravens. To lift their spirits. To give them hope. To make them believe Taetanos was strong and mighty, not frail and failing. To restore their faith—a feat he’d certainly never been accused of before.
He was lying.
Sure, they’d healed the rest of the injured. Sure, the House of Whispers was celebrating. Sure, Pylaeon, the city of spirits, was more alive than he ever remembered. Sure, Xander was overjoyed by the display of Taetanos’s strength.
But that wasn’t why Rafe kept taking Lyana down the secret path and into the city each night. Those few minutes when she held his hand in the dark, those moments when her eyes were closed and he could finally watch her without worry, those seconds before they said goodbye, when they just stood and stared and enjoyed the magic simmering between them, that was why.
And it was why he jolted out of bed as soon as he heard the scuffing of boots on stone, heart hammering in his chest—a wild, caged thing—and rushed to yank open the curtains to his balcony. Before he even grasped the heavy fabric, the door behind him burst open.
“Going somewhere?” Xander asked, tone balanced between accusatory and amused.
Rafe jerked his hand away from the curtain and spun, hearing a gasp on the other side. His pulse pounded, quickened by a different emotion than a moment before—by terror and bitter, bitter guilt at his own treachery. “No.”
“Calm down,” Xander said, striding across the room to plop on his usual stool. “You’re allowed to go outside. Just no flying, and no letting anyone see you, at least not for another week or two. But it’s late enough now. I’d imagine the city has mostly fallen asleep, a feat that completely escaped me tonight. And you too, I see.”