Page 77 of A Fate Unwoven
No.
Lena clamped down on her magic, willing it back inside of herself. It didn’t matter how much the thought of losing Finæn made her want to scream. This choice was his, and she wouldn’t take it from him.
Not like he’d taken hers.
“Be careful,” she said, and stepped aside.
He held her stare, his own filled with a mixture of hurt and surprise. But beneath it, so subtle she was sure she was imagining it, was the smallest flash of understanding.
“Stay here until we return,” ordered General Alræn. “Yana, if anything happens, get His Majesty and Lady Lenora back to the palace and wait for us there. Æspen, stay close, and follow my every order.”
Stone scraping against stone cut through the air as the general pulled open the temple door. And then the general and Finæn were slipping into the shadows, the steady hum of their threads moving farther away with every beat of Lena’s heart.
THIRTY-FOUR
LENA
Finæn and the general had been gone for too long.
Lena stood outside the temple door, her fingers drumming against her leg as she forced her magic to stay on the three sets of threads on the other side of the stone. The first two, belonging to Finæn and General Alræn, felt the same as most others did: a steady hum of energy beneath her skin that called out to the Fateweaver’s magic like a beacon. But trying to focus on the third set, the one she’d sensed when they’d arrived at the temple, was as difficult as it had been when she’d first picked up on them.
What she could tell, however, was that there was still some distance between Finæn and the general and whoever those fading threads belonged to, but it was growing smaller by the second. Soon they’d be on top of it, and if Lena’s instincts were right—if whatever had injured the person was still in the temple—then they’d be facing that danger alone.
“We should go after them,” Lena said, her fingers itching for the familiar curve of her mother’s dagger. SistersdamnCasimir for insistingon keeping it until her end of the deal was done. Her control over her magic might have been questionable, but her skills with a blade certainly weren’t.
“They’ll be fine.” Dimas’s smile was tight, and when Lena let the wall she’d carefully constructed between them drop for just a moment, she felt the rush of his anxiety, as fierce and all-consuming as her own.
Yana stepped toward her emperor. “Come away from the door, Your Majesty.” Her dark eyes shifted toward Lena. “You too, Your Worship.”
Dimas moved back a step, but Lena stayed where she was.
Ioseph pushed off from where he’d been leaning against the temple wall, his jaw tight as he approached Lena. “This is their job, Lady Lenora. Let them do what they do best. Besides, until we know what we’re facing, it’s best we—”
A shout pierced the air, followed by a spine-tingling, stomach-churningscreech.The sound was like nothing Lena had ever heard. It settled in her bones like ice. Made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
Whatever it was, it wasn’t human.
Her magic searched wildly for Finæn’s threads. They were still there, still whole, but the hum of them had changed, switching from a steady pulse to an erratic beating beneath her skin.
Just as she’d done that night in Forvyrg, Lena started to run. She had no weapon. No plan. All she knew was that despite everything that had happened between them, she’d do whatever it took to keep Finæn safe.
She was through the small gap in the temple door before Ioseph had the chance to stop her, her boots smacking against the stone as she raced through the small entrance chamber and toward a set of double doors that had been cracked open. It was dark inside the temple. Darker than it should have been at this time of day; most of the wall sconces had been extinguished, and it was only thanks to the dim light of the remaining flames that she noticed the body slumped at the threshold.
She skidded to a stop, her heart in her throat. The stone beneath her feet was wet with blood.
Lena’s boots slid through a trail of it, leading to the body. She forced herself to look at the bloodied figure lying before her. Whoever it was had the same cropped brown hair as Finæn. The same broad shoulders. But his skin was pale and wrinkled, his unseeing eyes a dark shade of blue. A shaky breath left her lungs.
It wasn’t Finæn, but a man was still dead. And by the looks of the shredded ribbons of flesh on his chest, so deep Lena could just make out the ivory glint of his rib cage, it hadn’t been quick. Whatever had done this had taken its time.
And it was still here.
Three sets of footsteps echoed in the hall behind her, signaling the arrival of Ioseph, Dimas, and Yana. They came to a dead stop when they rounded the corner, their gazes landing on the same corpse that had stopped Lena in her tracks.
“What … whathappenedto him?” Yana asked.
Lena didn’t know, but she was going to find out. There was a dagger at his feet, small and blood-covered, but better than nothing. Lena knelt beside the body and brushed her hands over his eyes. “Rest well,” she whispered, her other hand swiftly sliding the dagger up her sleeve as she rose to her feet.
She stepped around the body and was a foot away from the crack in the door when Dimas hissed her name. “Lenora,wait.”
