Page 94 of A Sky of Emerald Stars

“No Wolf has set foot that far south in centuries,” Navin said confidently. “There’s barely a human around those parts. It might be the safest place for us and give us time to figure out this magic. While the Silver Wolves are looking north, we move south.”

I pulled from his grip, my senses honing further as my brain moved beyond shock and started to formulate a plan. “An excellent direction to attack from, too.” I could tell this response made Navin uneasy, but again, I was the warrior. And now was surely a time of war. “Does this place have a whispering well?”

“It does.” His lips curved into a frown. “But there are closer ones on the trail there, too.”

“We need to update Calla on everything that’s happened.” I nodded. “And we search the temple of knowledge for answers on reversing dark magic, too. There must be a way.”

“Sadie,” Navin pleaded. “I don’t think that’s possible. I don’t know that we can save Maez.”

“We will!” I shouted, the panic rising in me again. “We will save her. Wehave tosave her.”

Navin slowly slid his hands down my bare arms, letting out a soothing shush. “We will get to the temple soon,” he assured me.“And all of those questions we will begin to find answers to. There is nothing we can do in the meantime but wait and rest.”

I shook my head. “I can’t do that,” I said, another tear spilling down my cheek. “I can’t just sit here. Can’t just sleep. Not when Maez is gone. I need to come up with a plan. I need a strategy. I need to come up with answers somehow—”

Navin’s lips dropped to my cheek in a soft kiss and skimmed up to my ear. “There are no answers in this wagon,” he murmured. “We almost just died. Please,” he begged. “Let me hold you. Let me feel you. Let me make sure you will be all right. Let’s start with getting you out of these wet clothes.”

I let out a rough breath as his hands skimmed up my sides and found the hem of my shirt. He pulled it up over my head and dropped it to the floor. I met his eyes and his hands stilled for a second as I said, “I almost lost you today.”

“I thought I’d lost you, too,” he said, tugging his shirt off from over his head. He pulled me back into him, both of us stripped bare from the waist up. The feeling of my skin against his made warmth spread up from my belly, stretching out across my limbs in pinpricks.

“I’m here,” Navin whispered again. “We’rehere. We survived.”

“We’re here,” I said, stretching up on my tiptoes, relief flooding through me as my muscles finally relaxed. As my lips met his, I surrendered to this moment, to the comfort I knew only his body would bring me.

I needed him in so many ways in that moment. Needed his comfort, his reassurance, his warmth, his love; needed to feel like I wasn’t free-falling through the sky but firmly planted on solid ground.

As his warm hand splayed across the small of my back, he crushed me tighter into him. I let out a soft moan. His tongue licked into my mouth, caressing my own, luring me back to life, reeling me back into myself. My fingers trailed down his hot torso, landing on his belt buckle. He unbuttoned my wide-leggedtrousers without breaking our kiss. The fabric dropped to my feet, and I stepped out of it, kicking it aside. In my panic, I hadn’t bothered with undergarments and was now justly rewarded for it as his hands trailed up my backside and squeezed.

I finally worked his belt open and hooked my fingers in both his trousers and undershorts, yanking them down and freeing his erection. I stretched up to kiss him again, my skin burning at every point we touched. I backed him up until the backs of his legs hit the kitchen table behind him, and I leaned into him until he sat.

“We’re going to have to burn this table,” he said with a laugh as I nipped at his bottom lip.

I shoved him back farther, his hands steadying me as I put one knee up on one side of him, climbing onto his lap. He gripped my ass tighter, holding me there poised above his hard cock.

“We survived,” I whispered, holding his gaze as I stroked him from base to tip. His eyes guttered as I positioned him at my entrance, my mouth parting on a shaky breath as I began to lower myself onto him.

“We survived,” he groaned, his hands tensing as I lowered farther until I was fully seated and every point of us joined.

I kissed him, reveling in the fullness, feeling for the first time since the battle anchored in a way that I so desperately needed. This was a promise only our bodies could make. We were here. Together. Tomorrow would bring with it a myriad of sorrows. I steeled my heart for all the pain I knew was to come, but there, with him, for one split second, everything felt safe and warm and right.

Calla

We stopped on the outskirts of Durid, right before the border with Olmdere. I’d wanted to keep going, to get back to my home court, feeling like an army of Ice Wolves was on our tail the whole ride, but Mina and Ora had both insisted that we could contact Sadie from here, and so we stopped.

Ora had tried to explain what had just happened over and over on the ride, but no words seemed to permeate the barriers erected in my mind. I wanted to feel hurt, betrayed even, by their lack of faith in me. They had secrets that they never shared, magic that they’d never used, or at least if they had, I hadn’t been aware of it. I’d shown Ora the quietest and rarest parts of my soul, and they had seen and accepted me for them. But still, I knew there was so much of their life I had barely scratched the surface of. Of course, the mysterious musicians of Galen den’ Mora had their secrets, and from what I’d seen, clearly ones that should be kept from Wolves. It made sense, and yet I couldn’t seize hold of that information, couldn’t turn it around in my mind and inspect it the way I wanted to. I heard the words: Songkeepers, magic, Sawyn... but they meant nothing. Ora went on and on, and I barely moved, barely reacted. At some point I’d need to figure out how to use everything they’d told me to help with this war,but first I needed to find a way to get the horrific memories out of the way.

All I could think about was Briar, the echoes of my screams, the rush of blood from my wounded leg. Briar was so much a part of me, the other side to my coin, and Sawyn had stolen her from me, my only family or friend at the time. I’d fought through three kingdoms to get her back,diedto save her, and now she was gone again. The loss felt like a missing piece of me, so numb and hollow without her.

Where did they take her? Was she hurting? Was she locked up in a room like the one Nero had left her in that dreamless slumber? Forgotten?

I wished with everything in me that I could turn around and race to Damrienn, sword in hand. I hated, too, the way I felt tugged in a million different directions now: Queen and sister, warrior and diplomat. I wanted to slaughter every single Wolf who stood between me and my twin, and yet I was going in the opposite direction, preparing to protect my people. I knew Briar would tell me to do as much, and still, I loathed myself for it, because it meant I was still weak, still able to be threatened with the people I loved.

The sun shone high above, warming the chill that filled my body. Grae had to guide me like a dog herding sheep as we disembarked from the carriage. My legs moved, my arms swung, but my mind was stuck reliving Briar’s abduction over and over. Ora had acquired us some clothing from a washing line on our journey northward. My velvet robes waved in the breeze, flapping like the sound of a crow’s wings.

Tears carved lines down my ruddy cheeks as I stared at my vacant reflection in the gleam of my golden bracelet. Everything in me felt both numbed and heightened, the strangest senses being pulled to the forefront—the smell of limescale and blood, the soft squish of the loamy earth below my feet, the rustle of the pine trees...

When we arrived at a crumbling stone well, I tried to pullsome of my worries back into myself, tried to meet Ora’s gaze and speak some wooden words.

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