Page 109 of Sanctuary of the Shadow
Harrow ignored her, lowering her feet to the floor and gently easing up to standing.
“You lost half the blood in your body. You can’t be up and about yet!”
Harrow took a step, but black spots winked in her vision and she stumbled into the wall. Malaikah was there to catch her before she went down. “Please get back in bed?”
“Need my scrying supplies. And a healing brew.”
“You have healing herbs? Thank Goddess. Where?”
“They’re in the bag with the rest of my Seer supplies.” Harrow gritted her teeth and took another step toward her desk. “Pull everything out for me, would you?”
“I still think you should be lying down,” Mal tried weakly.
“Not lying down, Mal. Help me or go outside with Fiona. Your choice.”
“Hey now, Fiona’s all right. You make it sound like she’s bad company.”
Harrow snorted a laugh despite herself. “You’re right. That wasn’t fair. Sorry, Fiona.” Leaning hard on Malaikah, she painstakingly turned to look at her best friend. “Please help me? I know you’ve already done so much, but I just…need to do this.”
“What exactly are you going to do?”
“I want to talk to Darya. I want her to look me in the eye and promise Raith will be okay. And I don’t care what anyone says, I want to see him.”
Malaikah sighed. “If I help you, will you promise to go back to bed afterward?”
Harrow frowned but realized that even if she did decide to travel to Darya’s territory to break Raith out of there, she still needed to heal from her injuries first. A Seer’s healing brew wasn’t an instant cure. It certainly sped up the process, but it would still take a couple of days for Harrow to feel like herself again. “Fine. You win. I promise I’ll go back to bed afterward.”
“Excellent. So what do you need first?”
…
“Iknew you’d come,” Darya said from the far end of the room.
Harrow spun around. It was a sunny day in the Water Territory, but the air was cold. Though the temperature didn’t affect her in a vision, she could still feel it. Still, no fire burned in the hearth. Harrow had a feeling Darya never lit any no matter how cold it was because it reminded her of Furie.
“Everything Malaikah told you is the truth,” Darya said before Harrow could speak.
“I want to see him.”
The Water Queen looked exhausted. Dark shadows lurked beneath her arresting silver gaze, and her normally silky black curls were frizzy and wild—looking more like Harrow’s did on a regular basis. Even more surprisingly, Darya wore a plain, undyed dress with tears in the worn fabric. None of her regular fineries were present. If not for the aura of power and charisma that surrounded her, she would have appeared no more royal than a scullery maid.
“You can’t, child,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”
“Why not? Why should I trust you mean him no harm?”
“Because I gave you my word. And because a Seer knows when another has told her a bald-faced lie, especially one of as great importance as this.”
Damn her, but she was right. The Water gave Harrow no inner indication of falsehood, but again, Harrow had been ignoring it because she wished for a different reality. When would she learn? Perhaps this was to be a lifelong lesson, then?
“I will embody him again,” Darya said, “but as I told Malaikah, it may take time. I intend to do nothing else until I achieve my desired result, but I don’t know when that will be.”
Harrow listened to her every word through the filter of her inner guiding voice and heard nothing but truth. “Can I see him?”
Darya shook her head.
“Why? If we’re to be separated for an indefinite amount of time, you should let me see him before I go.”
“I cannot.”
