Page 25 of Until the Stars Fall

His eyes darted around the room as his lips tried to form words his mind hadn’t yet selected. Then he focused back on me. “To be needed, but—”

I raised a finger between us. “No. Nobut, Brennan. We don’t get to choose how we are needed. We either help or we don’t. We either do what needs to be done or we walk away and accept the consequences of our cowardice. You can absolutely choose to tell the king and me and the entire kingdom to fuck right off, but you don’t get to sit here and bitch to me about feeling insignificant when the whole of our future sits on your self-centered, prickish shoulders.”

Brennan stared back at me, but I couldn’t read him, couldn’t tell if any of my words had gotten through to him. How many times had I reminded him of the stakes, of the consequences of his failure, only to have him brush them aside? But I didn’t have time to sit here in silence while he wrapped his head around something that should have been an easy decision. I had shit to do. Maybe time in the dungeon would help him make up his mind.

Slamming my palms down onto the desk, I pushed myself up to stand, ready to tell him just that, when he lifted his face to look at me.

His lips crept up into one of his lopsided smiles. “I guess I’ll be the bait the kingdom needs.”

CHAPTER 13

Lieke

I woke before dawn and stepped out of my tent, breathing in the crisp morning air. Clasping my hands together, I reached my arms high above me and stretched away the stiffness in my joints. At least the ache of my muscles was now a pleasant reminder of my improving strength rather than the agonizing torment it had been when I’d first arrived.

“You ready?” Raven’s question pulled my attention over my shoulder.

“Of course,” I said, giving my shoulders one more roll before I took off running across the camp toward a barely-there trail.

Raven caught up to me easily, and within moments we had instinctively matched each other’s gaits so our feet hit the ground in unison. We continued along the path without speaking, accompanied only by the noise of our steady breathing and footfalls. As I looked around at the trees, I recalled how difficult this run had been just over a year ago.

Had it truly been a year since I’d left home?

This entire time, I’d received only a handful of letters from Mrs. Bishop. She claimed her infrequent communication was for my safety—and the safety of my hosts, who couldn’t risk being discovered by the fae, but I still wasn’t completely convinced of the threat. Not even the attack at the Durand party last year could convince me that the entire race was a danger to humans.

After an hour, Raven and I closed in on the camp and slowed to a walk.

“Feels good to be back here. I missed these trees,” she said quietly. We had finally returned to the forests near Engle after spending the last year migrating about the country, settling in different regions each season to avoid detection. We hadn’t returned to the same campsite as before, but we were near enough that these woods felt familiar.

“Certainly beats running in the mountains. Reminds me a lot of home,” I said with more than a hint of sadness.

“You’ll get back there soon,” Raven said encouragingly.

I frowned. “But not yet.”

“Not yet,” she said. The smile she offered me, though, seemed more apologetic than comforting, and I bristled.

“What aren’t you telling me, Rave?” I asked. When she bit her lower lip and dropped her gaze to the ground, my gut tightened. “Is it that bad?”

She shifted her attention toward camp, where the others were preparing the morning meal. “It’s not going to be easy,” she finally said.

“As if any of this has been easy,” I said, trying to laugh, but it came out hollow.

When Raven finally turned back to me, gone was the lightheartedness that had been present before. As I waited for her to speak, her dark eyes burned into mine with such intensity that my breath caught. Quietly, as if she were apologizing, she said, “I’d say this will hurt me more than it will hurt you, but I hate to lie to a friend.”

A rough circle of stones had been placed in the grass at the edge of camp, designating the new training area. Eventually, once the grass got worn down with all the sparring, they would be removed.

I stepped over them and into the ring. Raven’s words had conjured such fear in me that I had barely been able to choke down my breakfast.

“You should have eaten more,” she said from behind me, and I pivoted to see her entering the ring carrying two knives. We had long ago stopped sparring with wooden blades, so the sight of the weapons wasn’t what sent my stomach lurching into my throat. It was the remorseful gleam in my friend’s eyes.

“I would have if you hadn’t scared the shit out of me earlier,” I said, trying to smile. She said nothing but opened her left hand, offering me the knife in her palm. As I took it, I eyed her suspiciously. “Why do you look like you’re about to do something you don’t want to do?”

Raven swallowed hard. “Because I am,” she said.

She moved in a flash, sweeping her blade toward me and catching me off guard. I shuffled backwards in retreat, but I wasn’t fast enough. The edge of her knife slashed across my left bicep, biting into my flesh. Instinct forced my knife-hand up to cover the wound, but Raven smacked it back down with a sharp reprimand.

“No! Fight through the pain, Lieke,” she commanded, her eyes stern and focused, then lunged toward me again. This time I was ready for her, and I leaped out of her reach. “Good,” she said, but I barely heard her as I tried to ignore the stinging heat in my arm and the blood dripping down from beneath my sleeve.

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