Page 160 of Bloodguard

And so am I.

An ogre on massive horseback reaches for his axe when he sees my sword in my hand. “You said you’d only come to mourn your dead,” the ogre says.

I don’t take my eyes off him as Maeve speaks beside me.

“Leith…take care of Papa and Giselle, even though she won’t let you. Find a wife, build a family… Most of all, be happy.” There’s a rustle of fabric as she draws closer, and misery drenches her voice. “That’s no longer an option for me.”

She strokes what feels to be a scrap of soft material behind my ear.

I turn at her touch—and the familiar aroma of belladom.

“No,” I say, dread rising at the sickly sweet odor.

The way she looks at me parallels the agony I felt when I saw her promise to be Soro’s bride.

Tears shimmer in her eyes as a small scrap of white fabric escapes her fingers and flutters to the ground. “I’m sorry,” she says. “My stars, I’m so sorry.”

It takes me falling to the ground to fully accept what has happened.

The steady stomp of heavy hooves expunges all surrounding noise. The moonlight doves no longer sing, the starlight sparrows no longer call, and the waterfall dissolves into silence.

I surrender to Maeve’s potion. There’s no fighting it. There’s no escaping it. There never was.

“Maeve.”

It’s the same name I call when I wake in the morning, alone at the shore of our hidden lake. It’s the only name I need.

She thinks she should surrender to fate.

Fate can fuck off.

I’m not done fighting yet.

And if I know Maeve, neither is she.

chapter 56

Maeve

My hands glide over the smooth hair of a royal moon horse as I dismount and lead her into the castle stables. She’s mostly chocolate brown with splashes of white along her nose and back, and her mane is white and braided. Bronwyn is her name. She’s beautiful and, like the other horses in the royal stables, unaccustomed to kindness. To Soro, Tut, and the others, moon horses serve a purpose—to guard, to thunder into battle, to die for Arrow.

I press a kiss on top of her nose. To me, she’s another I need to protect.

I release her and shut the stall door, not bothering to lift the skirt of my gray dress as I walk the length of the royal stables. Though my cape still lies beneath the willow, I am not cold. The air reminds me of home, where the grassy knoll ends and the forest begins. It’s earthy, moist soil intermixed with the dry aroma of horse feed and grass.

Broken pieces of hay float through the air as I make my way down the aisle, the longer wisps swept up by my skirt to stick to the lacy hem. I take my time, petting each horse, cooing words of affection, but it’s not just for them. It’s for me, too.

When I asked Tut to take me to the manor, he readily complied, thinking it was one more way for me to owe him. One added step forward to freeing the phoenix. If so, he’s wrong.

One of the many things Leith has taught me is that I owe my people but I also owe myself.

It’s why I went to bid farewell to my family.

And why I gave myself so frantically to Leith.

He is my family, too. We needed a goodbye as much as he needed my truth.

I spread my pain and guilt at his feet like a puddle. Yet he stepped over it to comfort me and to forgive me. Even after everything I did, he forgave me so that maybe I can begin to forgive myself.

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