Page 121 of Kissed By the Gods
“Can you send someone after Ryot now?” I snap, my patience for this performance at an end. My beast is shuddering on her hooves. Ryot is laying in a pile of ash, dying. Or already dead.
Robias pales again. This time, there’s no skepticism in his face. There’s fear, guilt, and concern—now that he knows I’m not crazy. Resentment rises in my throat, hot and acidic. We’ve lost hours on this. Hours we didn’t have.
“Oh gods,” he gasps. “Of course. Right away!”
We’ve all given up pretending that the entire Synod isn’t spying on the proceedings, because he raises his voice a little. “We need a contingent of volunteers to ride for Solmire at once.”
Dozens of men step out from the shadows, hands raised.
Most of them are from Stormriven. Nyrica, Thalric, Caius, Leif, and Kiernan emerge from the shadows.
Robias comes over to me, clapping me on the shoulder.
“See to your beast and then go see Elowen,” he tells me. “I’ll lead the contingent myself. We’ll ride hard, not yielding to storms or exhaustion until we’ve brought Ryot home.”
I’m still angry—at him, at all of them, at the arrogance that runs like rot through this place, the assumption that I must prove myself before they will act.
It’s exhausting. But despite everything, relief crashes over me. They’re going.
Robias turns and strides away, already barking orders. The courtyard erupts into motion around me. The watchtower guard blows the horn, calling for the beasts. The men all rush for the towers to take to their mounts.
I close my eyes and lean into Vaeloria, resting my forehead against her damp, quivering neck. Thalric and Nyrica pause as the chaos swirls. Thalric grips my arm.
“We’ll bring him home,” he says.
It’s a vow.
And then he’s gone, swept into the movement.
All I can do now is pray—to gods I don’t trust—that they make it in time to bring him home alive.
Dear Mother,
I worry for all my children. Gods, how could I not? They’ll each face the sharp edge of this world soon enough—sooner than I ever feared now that I won’t be around to shield them until their maturity. This sickness is taking me fast.
But my dread—my waking, sweating, bone-deep fear—is for Ryot. My boy was born with a heart too soft for a world this hard. He is so full of love it bleeds out of him. But this world doesn’t cradle love. It stomps it out as if it’s a weakness. Especially in our boys.
And when I’m nothing but bones and rot in the ground … Who’s going to protect that heart of his from being crushed?
With all my love,
Calisandra
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
RYOT
I hate the infirmary.
Always have. Always will.
The stench hits first—vinegar sharp enough to burn, layered over by cloying herbs: aloe, calendula, yarrow. The ones they use when things start dying.
The ones they used on my mother. Just breathing it in sets my teeth on edge.
There’s no godsdamn privacy.
Elowen’s hovering again. Her soft hands are always there, reaching, fussing, full of well-meaning pity. She pokes into things that aren’t hers—injuries I didn’t ask her to see. Pain I’d rather keep mine. At least now that I’m conscious, I can growl at her to back off and be an asshole until she listens.
