Page 90 of The Huntsman's Heart
Reaching down, I stroke her face gently. “Come back to us.”
She doesn’t stir.
“I’m going to fly out to see what the others are doing. It will be dawn soon. We cannot wait long.”
“I will watch over them both.” Évandre squeezes my shoulder, and I give him the best smile I can muster. We have seen hercome back from this state before, but I worry perhaps there was more damage done that time than we knew.
Going to the window I lean out and spread my wings, letting my body fall before opening them wide and lifting myself into the dark sky.
I’m not flying long before a familiar shape appears on the horizon in front of me, and soon it grows big enough that I’m certain it is Raban. He’s alone, and I do not know whether to interpret this as a good or bad sign.
As we grow close enough for me to read his expression, I’m not left in any doubt. His brows are creased into a worried frown. “Please tell me you do not have bad news too,” he says as soon as we’re close enough.
“I’m afraid I do. What’s yours?”
“She’s raised the dead again. Monsters too. Alaric let them through the gates so they did not knock the wall down. Is she—?” He breaks off, but I do not need him to finish the question.
I nod. “How far is Alaric?”
“He is riding here as we speak. Not far behind.”
“Then let’s return to her.”
By the time Alaric runs into the tower room, his body is completely healed and the princess looks almost herself again. Only the last smudges of ash on her face and her burned clothing indicate she was so terribly hurt only hours before.
Not a moment too soon. The sky is already losing the deep black of true night. The predawn is swift and will not linger.
Alaric lets out a muttered curse when he sees Guinevere laid out on the bed, but he doesn’t hesitate to go to her. Raban sits beside her with her hands gathered in his, but he releases them when he looks up and sees Alaric.
“No. Stay.” The tall hunter gestures to Raban. “She needs us all.”
Évandre and I step closer as well. Finding a place on the bed, I crawl as close as I can until I can touch the cool skin of her thigh.
She’s utterly still as Alaric cups her cheek and leans close. I try to tell myself this will work a second time. He leans down and grazes his lips softly against hers, and the sight stirs something in me as it always does. The two of them are like two sides of the same coin.
But as he draws back, the princess still doesn’t move.
“What happened?” he whispers, still not looking away from her.
My voice feels croaky when I speak. “It was the king… in the crypt.”
Alaric looks around then, and his face—always pale—is ashen. “I warned her, but she did not listen.”
“She could not bear to let him go,” I tell him.
He falls silent, laying his head on her chest for a long moment while Évandre, Raban, and I look on. “What do you need, princess?”
Évandre clears his throat. “She never got to say goodbye.”
Alaric sits up. “No. Because I tore her away and stole that from her.”
Raban places a gentle hand on Alaric’s thigh.
Something occurs to me then, and I kick myself for not thinking of it sooner. “What if we gave her the chance?”
They all look at me, and I shift uncomfortably. Playing with her dead father’s corpse is not going to be pretty, but if it will help her…
I look at Alaric. “Can you inhabit the body? Bring it here? Tell her she can let him go?”
