Page 76 of A Promise of Peridot
“There was an evening.” I cleared my throat. “A few months ago, when she spoke during a forum I held. She had great insight. I remember feeling unbelievably proud of her... the way she had braved the room. I knew my people still scared her, and yet—”
One of Mari’s eyes peeked open. “I’m going to need more than that, Kane. You have to actuallyfeelsomething.”
Rare heat flamed up my neck—I did not embarrass easily. “Fine,” I gritted out. The memory that she needed bobbed to the surface from wherever I had sought to suppress it the past few months.
“The night the wolfbeast attacked Arwen.” I prickled against Fedrik’s and Griffin’s curious eyes. “I had been flying back from Willowridge. The whole way home I was kicking myself for leaving her. I had this... feeling. That something would happen to her while I was gone. That I would be punished somehow. Perhaps because we had grown so close the night before. Or, because the people I cared about so often wound up dead.
“When I got back, I raced to her room. I was going to make up some flimsy excuse for visiting her, but she was gone.” My knuckles went tight against the memory of her empty bedroom. “It was like finding a limb missing. Running through the woods, I think I made a promise to every single God for her safe return. And when I found her in that clearing... saw herbloodleaking onto the forest floor...
“I thought my very heart lived outside my body in that moment, and I was watching it wither and die. I would have given my own life ten times over to save her from that pain. From the fever, the nightmares, the agony. It was the longest night of my life. When sheawoke the next morning—healing, laughing—it was like dawn breaking over a thousand years of darkness. She—”
“It’s done.”
I hadn’t even noticed the wind swirling around us—or that I had closed my eyes—but when I opened them, Mari’s hair was falling softly around her face and thin, reedy leaves were fluttering back down to the ground.
Like a bath of light and warmth, I felt Arwen’s spirit flitting about inside my chest.
Alive—
She was alive.
I clutched at my heart. “She’s all right.”
“Thank the Stones,” Mari breathed. “You should be able to sense where she is. The feeling of being tied to her will only intensify as you get closer. Once you touch, the spell will end.”
I made sure I still had my sword on me and gathered my pack.
“We’ll meet you back at camp,” Griffin said. “We won’t risk finding a healer in Frog Eye unless we have to.”
I nodded and took off toward the layers of greenery ahead of me.
The sensation of my hands being tied stopped me in my tracks. Monkey shouts and bird calls were swallowed by pure silence as I looked down, but my arms were hanging at my sides, despite the feeling telling me otherwise.
“What is it?” Griffin called.
Fear—true and genuinefearhammered through my heart.
“I think...” I could feel what Arwen felt. Could feel her being tethered to something, my back, mirroring hers, bound to some kind of pole. “I think someonehas her.” My voice was hoarse.
Horror knotted both Mari’s and Fedrik’s faces.
I didn’t waste another moment before hurtling for the trees.
23
arwen
The Amber soldiers’ encampment made our three tents look like—well, three lone tents.
I tried to hold my chin up as Halden’s officer led me past the sentries stationed at the wood-crafted fortress gates, but I knew. I knew this was the end. I was amazed none of them had killed me already. Wasn’t I all that stood in the way of their leader’s eternal reign?
Halden guided us along a wide dirt path. His hair was shorter now. Cropped and clean-cut, but still that pale, yellow blond. His expression was stern, his armor adorned with more gold, more filigree, but he was the same boy I’d caught toads with in Abbington. The first boy I kissed.
The same one who told his king where Kane and I would be. Who brought the armies and fire-breathing creatures to Siren’s Cove. Who ensured the death of men, women, children—
My mother.
Soldiers around us sharpened swords and carried stacks ofshields and helmets, insulated by canvas tents and burning hearths. We passed a crude stable, too large for mere steeds, and the smoke billowing in bursts from the open roof told me it was filled with salamanders. Their ashy scent and guttural snarls sent cold dread swirling in me like a dark tide pool.
