Page 235 of The Revered and the Pariah

Gods. He knew Ellie was fast and powerful in her own right. He’d trained her himself. But he also knew how deep her stubbornness ran. Talon honestly wasn’t sure if she’d flee and leave Rion to die alone. No, she’d fight until her last breath.

Pain lanced through him again. Deep, unending pain. They might have saved Alastríona’s queen, but they might have also just lost Móirín’s future.

***

Arianna didn’t speak. She’d simply stood and Talon had followed.

His queen moved like a ghost and it reminded him of the months she’d spent without Rion. Would she sink into herself further? Could she pull herself together enough to lead at all?

Talon stepped around large boulders and chunks of the fractured city. He glimpsed a stone arm reaching toward the sky as if begging to be unearthed. Stained glass from the cathedral littered the area, catching the late afternoon sun and dotting the land in unfitting color.

A body lay covered in dust to their left, coiled in on itself, and Talon’s heart tugged. He wanted to run to that body, examine it for signs of Ellie, but he kept himself still and nodded for one of the accompanying Móirín warriors to see to it.

Arianna wasn’t paying attention to any of them. If she were, she might have sensed his racing heart and the fear that silently floated around him. They turned the figure over. Talon held his breath, but the warrior only shook their head.

Not Ellie.

They knew. All of them knew. He could sense his warriors’ apprehension as they scanned the rubble, hoping, just as he was, that they wouldn’t find a familiar face.

The place didn’t even look like a city anymore, just a heaping pile of broken roads, shattered wood, and glass debris. The bases of a few homes—or what he assumed to be homes—stood out here and there, but the impact had broken everything and piled it all in on itself.

His eyes burned from the dust floating through the air. He knew they wouldn’t find Ellie’s or Rion’s body out here. They’d be beneath the city’s center, trapped under thousands of pounds of rock. But even so, Talon couldn’t convince his eyes to stop searching.

His warriors drew their weapons suddenly and Talon followed suit, his heart jolting as he rushed to Arianna’s side. Silhouettes of several moving bodies dotted the hazy horizon. Arianna just stared.

They waited for several tense moments and it was only when Talon spotted Avalon at their front that he relaxed and sheathed his weapon. Talon knew they’d escaped. Avalon had been working at the rear of the city during the evacuation.

But something in the way his High Lord smiled at them—no, at his daughter—had Talon’s heart skipping for entirely different reasons.

He counted the warriors trailing Avalon, then spotted two figures limping at their center.

Ellie raised her arm in a weak wave, then Arianna was running. Talon followed, unable to keep his excitement at bay.

Alive. They were alive.

Both were soaked to the bone and covered from head to toe in mud. Ellie had one of Rion’s arms slung across her shoulders and she fought to bear the male’s weight. Rion had streaks of blood running down the left side of his face and something was clearly wrong with one of his legs.

But they were alive.

Ellie, gods, Ellie had to be the most beautiful sight he’d ever beheld.

Arianna slowed just enough to ensure she wouldn’t knock her mate over, but she failed and they both crashed to the ground. Her hands were all over him, her mouth too as they kissed and whispered words no one else should have been privy to.

But Talon hardly cared as he grabbed Ellie and pulled her into a crushing embrace. She returned it and Talon felt her smile against his neck. He didn’t know how long they stood like that, but when he pulled back, Ellie was smiling in the way only Ellie could.

“You,” he said, ready to chastise her, yet finding himself unable to form the words. She was a heroine. She had run in when no one else had.

“I know, I know,” she said a bit breathlessly and Talon wrapped her up again, grateful to whatever god had watched out for her. They certainly had their work cut out for them where she was concerned.

Talon didn’t know how they’d managed it, but he would get the details later. Right now he turned his attention to the male still seated on the ground. Rion kept one hand around Arianna’s waist as she healed the wounds across his body.

Rion’s arms shook. He looked ready to collapse and Talon was certain Arianna was the only reason he hadn’t. He would need several days to recover after . . . Talon glanced at the ruined city again. Gods, he’d actually managed to slow it down. Rion had bought them time. He’d saved so many lives.

Talon looked at the male who had once been his most brutal enemy.

A male who would one day rise as his future king.

He swallowed, his throat dry and stepped toward the pair. Talon didn’t know where the lies began or how they would unravel their tainted history, but they would. One piece at a time.

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