Page 89 of Crown of Wrath

Brenna created the thing that my friends and I never could.

But Valinar isn’t able to hold everyone. This is just to protect the peopleshecares about. It can’t protect everyone that needs protection.

For now, though, I’ll be happy to watch Bog be free for the first time in hundreds of years. I’ll be happy to see Rivertail drink far too much wine and sing songs far too loudly. This place is not the answer to the cruelty of the world, but I can be happy to see my friends live without fear in so many years.

Bog gets within ten feet of the bird. He crouches precariously on a thin branch, and instead of trying to scale the last ten feet, he leaps to catch it. The branch cracks under his feet, but it holds long enough for him to leap into the air. The bird sees him then, its bright red wings extending as it does its best to escape Bog.

He’s too fast, though, and his long, thin fingers wrap around the animal at the pinnacle of his jump. Then he begins to fall. Thirty feet from the forest floor, he plummets to the ground. I’m moving instantly, rushing to catch Bog from a catastrophic miscalculation.

He falls too fast, though. There’s no way I’ll get there in time. Flames explode from my hands and feet as I leap toward him, to meet his trajectory and possibly catch him.

He puts one hand out, and his rough fingers catch on a branch that he passes. His momentum forces him to spin around the branch as I pass right underneath him. Then he shrieks, and I see the red bird flying away from him.

Bog’s momentum slows, and he drops the last ten feet to the ground in front of me. “Nice jump!” he says. “If I could jump like that, I would catch so many birds.”

Maeve comes up behind us with a grin on her face. “What happened? You had the bird!”

Bog kicks the leaves under his feet and hisses as he looks in the direction it flew. “Sneaky little thing bit me. I ain’t seen no bird with teeth before, but that one had ‘em.” He raises his finger, and a spot of red drips from it. “Little bird teeth don’t hurt someone strong like Bog, but it surprised me!”

Maeve chuckles and Rivertail appears. “You should have brought your net. It wouldn’t have gotten away if you’d had it.”

Bog hangs his head. “I didn’t know we were going to be hunting birds. I didn’t know I should have brought my net when we went to collect firewood.”

A thoughtful expression crosses Maeve’s face, and I know that whatever comes next is going to be something ridiculous. It always is when Maeve and Bog get up to anything. She grins and says, “You need a net scabbard. Then you could carry your net everywhere, like Cole carries his sword.”

Bog’s eyes light up as he lifts his head. “A net scabbard? Is this real? Do you know how to make one? How could a hunter as good as Bog not have heard of a net scabbard?”

This is insanity. No one needs a scabbard to keep a net in, but Maeve is taking him as seriously as she’s taken our talks of war. She doesn’t crack even the slightest bit of a smile when she says, “This evening, I’ll draw it out for you, but it’ll be up to you to make it. You know how to sew, don’t you?”

“Does Bog know how to sew? What a silly question.” He gets a hawkish look on his face as if he’s offended. Maeve just raises an eyebrow. He scoffs, “Bog does not know how to sew, but Bog has many friends. Hazel has sewn me many things. She’s nice. I’m glad the Nothing ate your cousin.”

Maeve chuckles and pats his shoulder. “Good. Then you’ll have someone to help you make a brand new net scabbard while I’m gone.”

Bog beams and runs back toward town. Rivertail follows him after he throws a grin back at us. Then we’re alone again.

Maeve sidles up to me, and I can’t help but feel a little annoyed. Instead of wearing her midnight dress like she would have anywhere else, she’s wearing a soft linen dress. She says it’s because she doesn’t trust her shadows to protect her here when she’s not the strongest shadow wielder.

The thought of someone being stronger than Maeve with shadows bothers me. I’d assumed that Brenna would be since she was the Conduit for Shadows, but a fourteen-year-old girl? The thought irks me more than I like to admit.

Maeve may be the Queen of Earth, but she uses Shadows just as much or more than Earth.

“It’s almost time to go. You know that, don’t you?” she asks, her voice low. There’s a strangeness to her voice, a sadness that I didn’t expect.

“I would have liked to stay longer, but Gethin isn’t relaxing,” I respond.

She sighs as she moves in front of me and runs her hands around my waist and puts her head on my chest. It’s an intimate motion. Her body pressed against mine almost feels like a dream still. Everything was so confusing between us for so long. But now… now it all makes sense. Now everything is simple.

“My mother thinks we should move against Gethin as soon as possible. I know we can’t until Aric’s men are ready. They need to make thousands of crossbows and tens of thousands of steel bolts. We have a couple of weeks at most.”

Less than a month. It doesn’t feel like enough time. Until now, I’ve always known that I was strong enough, but we’ve stepped beyond the clarity of what I was raised for. I don’t understand how to fight someone who can wield powers from multiple Great Houses. Especially someone as old and experienced and powerful as Gethin. He could be stronger than me, or maybe even all of us. My father certainly hasn’t wanted to test himself against Gethin, and that was before Gethin had any powers other than Steel. Yet, the world demands that we find a way to kill him.

I look around myself at Valinar, at a world of peace, and I wish, more than ever before, that I could pull Maeve away from the conflicts of the world. I’ve spent nearly a thousand years feeling so alone that I didn’t think there was any other way to feel. Since the night we bound our souls together in a betrothal ceremony, I’ve known what I was missing all those centuries.

I want the woman dressed in linen when she could wear shadow or crystal armor. I want the woman who will design a net scabbard for a goblin so he can hunt birds better. I want the woman who captured my heart and showed me that power is less important than love.

She won’t run away from this war with me, but maybe… Maybe there is something she will do.

“Maeve, I know that there are so many details to work out and more things to do than we really have time for, but I… I want you to consider something.”

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