The Broken Elf King (Kings of Avalier Book 2)
The Broken Elf King: Chapter 10

When I came to, I blinked rapidly, trying to get a sense of where I was. The last thing I remembered was saving the king’s life on the beach.

My fingers brushed the surface beneath me. We were no longer on the sand.

I looked up, my hazy vision clearing as I was able to finally take in my surroundings properly. I was lying in a bed; the window was open and there were birds chirping outside. The walls were plastered in a beautiful floral wall parchment and the hardwood floors were a rich brown. It was a lovely room, but not one I was familiar with.

“You’re awake!” A healer I recognized from the infirmary rushed forward.

Magda.

She was Raife’s most trusted healer, wearing her white healing smock. She placed two fingers to my pulse. “Strong heartbeat.” Then she held a healing wand over me and scanned it up and down my body. “Wonderful readings. How are you feeling?” She looked down at me with a smile, her gaze running quickly over my hair, which I guessed was whiter than before.

I nodded. “Fine. Is Naia okay? The king?”

Her face faltered a bit but she recovered with a smile. “Everyone from the beach attack is alive and well, and the assassins were caught and put to justice.”

Her gaze flicked again to my hair and I ran my fingers over it. “Can I see a mirror please?” I sat up and she ran to the chest of drawers, returning a second later with a handheld mirror.

I pulled it up to my face and gasped. My entire hair was white. All but one brown streak in front.

Magda reached out and grasped my arm. “What you did for the king… we’re all really grateful.”

I stared at her hand on mine and then frowned. “Where is my marriage ring?” I noticed immediately that the swirly yellow gold was missing. I peered over at the dresser but there was nothing on top but a hairbrush.

She shifted uncomfortably.

“Magda, where is my ring?” I didn’t mean to sound forceful, but my tone came out icy.

She exhaled, her shoulders falling as she looked away from me and a few inches to my right as if she couldn’t meet my gaze. “The king is going to tell everyone you died saving him. I have been given the pleasure of being your personal healer and housemaid—”

“What the Hades did you just say!?” I dropped the mirror on the bed and threw the covers off my legs. “Died? Where is Raife?”

My hands shook as I glanced down at my body to see that I was in a thin dressing gown. I couldn’t exactly storm out of the palace in this, but at this point I didn’t care.

“My lady, I have been tasked with informing you—”

“You will address me as queen. Now WHERE IS MY HUSBAND?” I roared, tears streaming down my cheeks as my scream gave way to a sob. Why was she calling me lady? Did he break up with me? I saved the bastard’s life and he dumped me, told people I was dead? I’d kill him. Oh Hades, I’d kill the bastard myself for this.

Magda looked alarmed, holding her hands out in an effort to calm me. “He’s back at the palace. You’re safe here. I’ve taken a Vow of No Harm on you. This is the only way to keep you safe my la—my queen.”

Shock ripped through my system. He was back at the palace? “Where am I?”

She shifted nervously. “In a lovely safe cottage, all provided for by the ki—”

I stormed forward, grasping Magda by the shoulders. “Cut the crap right now and tell me what’s going on.”

She swallowed hard. “The king said he could no longer be married to the most hunted woman in Archmere, that it wouldn’t be safe for you. The entire realm is talking about you, wondering if you can bring back their dead family members. They are bringing several-day-old bodies to the castle, asking for you to breathe them back to life.”

I deflated then; the fight completely left me.

He was right. Raife had said that if people found out about my gift, they would hunt me down.

“Where am I?” My voice was smaller this time, weak.

Magda softened. “Somewhere at the edge of the Briar Ridge Woods. The king has forgiven your debt and you will remain here forever in every comfort possible. Food is delivered weekly, the house and land are paid off—”

“Forever?” I snapped out of my melancholy and brushed past her to exit the room. I came out into a hallway and went right, which opened up into a living room with soft white and cream furniture. The wall of windows revealed I was nestled in a dense forest. Walking over to the front door, I threw it wide open and stepped outside. My bare feet touched upon damp moss and I did a full spin.

Thick trees for as far as the eye could see. No homes, no villages, just a mountain miles away.

“I’m a prisoner,” I breathed.

“You’re safe,” Magda said.

I spun on her, eyes wide. “I’m in the middle of nowhere! I’m trapped. How could he do this to me?”

Her lips pursed and she motioned that I go inside. “We will do a lot to keep those we love safe.”

Love? This wasn’t love. He wasn’t even here to tell me himself.

Holy Hades. The king dumped me and then made me his prisoner. Never in my wildest nightmares did I think he was capable of this.

FIVE DAYS. Five days living in the woods with Magda was all it took for me to go insane. I was grieving the loss of a relationship I’d barely had, and a man I loved who’d clearly never loved me back. I felt trapped in the woods with no one to talk to but Magda. She wasn’t so bad, she was pleasant. Too pleasant. She just smiled and said nice things all the time. There was no fire in her.

Me: “I hate it here!”

Her: “I’m sorry, dear.”

Me: “I want to speak to the king.”

Her: “You can’t, dear.”

Me: “I’m leaving this place, screw Raife!”

Her: “You don’t know where we are, you’ll die in the woods. Just lie down and I’ll braid your hair and then make us some blueberry muffins.”

She was a pleasant captor but a captor nonetheless.

Today my new reality started to set in. The king was going to tell the realm I died, which meant my aunt was still stuck in Nightfall with her medications running low. Raife had thrown me to the dogs and hidden me away like a problem. Well, screw that. I wasn’t going to live out in this cottage for the rest of my life.

“Magda, I was wondering if my slave master sent any hair dye with our last shipment for me?” I asked her.

She didn’t like me calling Raife my slave master, but that’s what he was at this point.

Twice a week, a trusted Bow Man brought in fresh fruits and vegetables on horseback. Yesterday it was Cahal. He didn’t meet my gaze as he handed Magda the food. When I asked him to take me back to the castle with him so I could speak to Raife, he simply spurred the horse and rode off.

Bastards. All of them.

Magda sighed. “What do you need hair dye for, my dear?”

Because I want to run away and not get recognized. Having all white hair with one brown chunk as a rumor of a blessed swirled around wasn’t ideal.

“I don’t like this look. I want to look like myself,” I told her, grabbing the ends of my white hair.

She pursed her lips. “Would it make you happy?”

When I got close to her I could feel her desire for me to be genuinely happy. She pitied me and how the king left me here after I’d saved his life. She took her charge as my healer very seriously.

“It would,” I informed her. It was half true. I didn’t care what my hair looked like but being one step closer to breaking out of here would make me happy.

“Alright, I’ll be right back, then.” She moved to grab a basket and a knife from the kitchen and I frowned.

“Where are you going?”

“The king didn’t send hair dye, but muska root is a deep reddish brown that’s as close to your old color as we are going to get out here. I can boil it and make the dye myself. My mother taught me how so we could hide her grays.” She winked.

My heart pinched. Leaving her here was going to be hard. Not because I worried for her— she’d be fine, she knew where the heck we were and she had a Bow Man visiting every three days—but she would take my running off hard, as a betrayal and a failure.

Over the next several hours, Magda boiled the root and made a condensed reddish brown hair dye for me. Then she gingerly applied it to my locks while I sat and stewed in my guilt. When she was done I looked in the mirror and genuinely smiled. It looked really good, redder and darker brown than the color I was born with, but good. The part of my hair that had still been brown was much darker now that the dye had been applied over it, and as I peered closer, into the mirror, I saw that the right half of my eyelashes had turned white also. Hopefully, no one would notice, because I didn’t want dye to get into my eyes.

I smiled at her. “I love it. Thank you.”

She looked pleased with my happiness, and whistled as she cleaned up her work. We settled into our nightly routine then, me reading one of the hundreds of books Raife had sent here, and her knitting by the fire.

When I got up to make our final cup of nightly tea, I almost backed out of putting the valerian root in hers.

The fact that I told Raife I loved him and saved his life and he repaid me by locking me up in the woods, I just couldn’t get over that. I had to get out of here.

Dropping a large pinch of powdered valerian root into Magda’s tea, I added extra sugar and brought it to her. She took a sip and made a face. “Sweet,” she told me.

I gave a nervous laugh and sipped my plain tea.

Twenty minutes later she was yawning. “Alright, dear. Let’s get you to bed.”

I nodded, standing. “Let me just go to the washroom first. My tummy feels upset,” I said, and walked down the hallway to the washroom, locking myself inside.

If there was any question to my being a prisoner here, it was erased each night when Magda locked my bedroom door. I was not allowed to leave and that thought terrified me. I knew she was doing her job, at the command of a broken king, but I wasn’t meant to be caged.

Not now. Not ever.

I sat in the washroom for five minutes before I heard Magda come to the door. “It’s late,” she said, sounding sleepy.

I flushed the toilet and made my voice sound in agony. “Ohh, my stomach is cramping. I think it was those eggs we had. I’ll be a while. Why don’t you lay on the couch for a bit?”

Silence. And then, “Okay, dear.”

I paced the washroom for the next twenty minutes, trying to build up the nerve to go out there and check on her. I knew that if I had to fight her I could overwhelm her easily—but I liked her, I didn’t want it to come to that. I also knew she had a raven to get word to the king quickly, and I wanted to have a head start before he started looking for me. If he started at all. He might very well just want to be free of me and this would absolve him of any guilt he had to protect me in whatever sick way he thought this was.

After what I assumed was thirty minutes of silence, I reached out and unlocked the door, slowly turning the handle in my sweaty palm.

Please be asleep, I prayed as I crossed the hallway and peered into the living room. There, slumped in her knitting chair, was my slightly snoring captor.

I released a shaky breath and then tiptoed into my room, quickly changing into traveling clothes, then reached under the bed to pull out the stuffed pillowcase I’d been collecting things in all week: dried fruits and meats; a map of the realm I’d hand drawn to the best of my ability; an extra set of clothes and a meat knife; a canteen, and a blanket. Lastly was the angel novel I’d been reading. The king had sent it from the castle. It pissed me off that he’d do such a kind thing. Dump me, lock me up, but send my favorite book?

Idiot.

Hoisting the sack over my shoulder, I walked as light-footed as possible to the back door, the one just off the hallway that was farthest from Magda’s earshot. With trembling fingers, I reached for the lock and turned it. The door creaked a little as I opened it and my heart leapt into my throat.

Shhh, calm down, I told myself as the terror rushed through me. Slipping out into the night air, I closed the door as softly as possible and then ran into the woods like I was being chased.

I didn’t know if there were Bow Men around, or ravens or what. I just knew that other than sitting on the porch at midday I was not encouraged to go outside. The moon was high in the sky, but it told me nothing about where I was going. I’d have to wait for sun-up to gain my bearings of east and west. Nightfall was east, and I intended to save my aunt myself if the king was going to abandon her.

I DIDN’T WANT to get too far away without knowing what direction I was going, but I also didn’t want to be too close to the cottage if Magda had woken and sounded the alarm that I was gone. I ended up walking four hours in one direction until I found a small logging village. There was a giant pile of stripped logs outside the gates. I climbed on top of them to keep away from prowling animals, and then promptly fell asleep out of exhaustion.

Men shouting and the warmth of sunlight on my face woke me in the early morning hours.

“There’s a woman up there!” one of them yelled in Old Elvish.

I sat bolt upright, rolling my blanket into a ball and shoving it into my pillowcase. Peering down at the men bleary-eyed, I smiled politely and waved.

The elf men looked at me with shock. “Miss, what are you doing out here?” He spoke Old Elvish too, and I thanked the Maker I knew how to respond in the same tongue.

I cleared my throat. “Traveling to see my aunt. Got a bit lost. Where am I exactly?” I asked as one of the elf men, an older man in his fifties with kind eyes, stepped up onto the logs to reach a hand out and help me down.

“You’re in Southport, miss. Where does your aunt live?” I took his hand, keeping my ears covered with my hair and let him pull me up into a standing position. Elves weren’t against hybrid humans or anything, but if the realm thought I was dead or missing, the queen, a human-elf hybrid who could supposedly bring back the dead, I would have trouble on my hands. The odds of some logging elves going to a royal wedding were slim though, so I felt good about chances.

“Buckshot Valley,” I lied. Buckshot was the closest bordering city to Nightfall that was still within the Archmere realm.

The man whistled low. “You’re a day’s ride on horseback to Buckshot. Were you going to walk?” He looked confused as he helped me to the ground.

A day’s ride on horseback meant probably three days’ walk. Two if I was lucky. That bastard Raife had put me as far from the Nightfall border as possible.

“I ran out of coin or I would have hired a horse,” I said and shrugged.

My dress was nice but not as nice as the ones I wore while working in the palace, so I didn’t look rich.

He nodded, looking down at me with pity. He glanced over at a younger, lithe elf with long brown, braided hair. The young man held a giant axe over one shoulder.

“Say, isn’t your brother Reeves going to Buckshot tomorrow? To pick up those new axe heads?”

The young man nodded. “I can ask him if he’ll accompany her.”

Relief rushed through me. A day’s horse ride away from the Nightfall border was ideal. As long as this guy wasn’t creepy or anything, I didn’t see a problem with it.

“I would be so grateful,” I informed them.

The young man tipped his head into the now-open gates of the quaint logging town. “Knock on the blue door. My brother’s wife will feed you, take you in for the night,” he said.

I didn’t relish staying another night, but walking two to three days, possibly in the wrong direction, didn’t sound great either.

“Thank you,” I told them and shouldered my pillowcase as I walked into town.

As I strolled through the open gates, I noticed the town was without the modern touches of the Archmere castle, and yet I loved it even more. It had all the architectural details of the elvish homes—arched doorways, gold inlay, curling vines—but instead of electricity they seemed to still use kerosene lamps and fires out here. It was as if I’d stepped back into time. Little children ran around a large well in the center of town laughing as they played chase, and a few dogs lazed about in the morning sun. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to replace the “blue door” but I smiled when I looked at the little row of houses in town. There were no more than fifteen of them all smooshed together in a circle, and each one had a different-colored door. Purple, red, orange, green, gold, black, white, and I smiled when my gaze landed on the blue one. A young elvin woman was out front beating a rug with a broom.

I passed a few people who waved to me and we exchanged friendly smiles. If I didn’t need to go and save my aunt, I’d plop down right here in this village and live there forever.

“Hello?” I greeted her in Old Elvish, assuming she would speak it as well.

She turned, looking surprised. “Hi.”

“Are you Reeves’ wife?” I asked.

She wiped her hand on her bright yellow apron and made a fist. “Yes, I’m Flora.”

I’d never done a traditional elvin greeting, but I’d read about them in my father’s journal. Not even the king did them. They were old-fashioned and going out of style, but I didn’t want her to think me rude so I made a fist and we clacked forearms.

“Well met,” I told her, tipping my head in respect. “I’m Ka—Kala.” I quickly made up a name.

“Well met.” She smiled.

Wow, this place was like a time capsule of old elvin ways and ideals. My father would have loved it. The very thought caused a pang of sadness to flicker in my chest. I missed him and my mother terribly, which reminded me of my aunt and her seizures.

“Reeves’ brother said your husband might be able to transport me to Buckshot Valley? I need to see my sick aunt and I got lost last night.”

She frowned. “You’re traveling at night? Alone?”

Crap.

“Well, normally no, but my sister Magda is heavily pregnant and couldn’t go with me. Her husband has to stay and work. I thought I would make camp by nightfall, but then I just… got lost.” Wow, I was almost too good at lying.

Compassion flickered over her gaze. “Of course Reeves can take you to Buckshot. Come inside. I’ll introduce you. We’ve got some leftover breakfast, and tea if you’d like. You’re welcome to stay the night too.”

I relaxed, looking forward to a warm meal and nice bed. “Thank you so much.”

She set the broom against the brick wall of her house and then rolled the rug up into her arms. Pushing the door open, she called into the house, “Reeves! We have a guest, darling.”

The way she spoke to him, with such sweetness and respect, it made me think of Raife. I’d meant it when I said I loved him. I had fallen in love with him. It wasn’t a fake relationship for me. I wanted to call him darling and come home to him like this and it killed me what had become of us, how quickly he’d discarded me.

A man stepped out of a back room and into the kitchen. He was bigger than his brother, not only taller but wider too, and handsome.

“Hello,” he greeted me with a head bow.

“This is Kala. She’s lost and was looking to get to Buckshot,” his wife told him.

He was staring at me, his eyes going from my hair down to my face in a look that made me uncomfortable.

“I’m going to Buckshot tomorrow. I can take you,” he offered.

“Thank you,” I said, worried again about the way he was studying me.

I noticed all of the dried flowers then. They hung upside down in bundles all around the kitchen. “Beautiful flowers. Are they from your garden?”

They both shifted uncomfortably. “We… had a death in the family last month. The flowers are from the mourning,” Flora said.

I instantly regretted saying anything about them. “I’m so sorry.” I rubbed my hands nervously on my dress.

“Hungry?” Flora seemed eager to change the subject, and I nodded.

Reeves pulled out the chair for me at the table and gestured that I sit down. I did, and he sat across from me, still staring at me oddly.

Did he recognize me? He couldn’t. This was too small a town.

“You look familiar. I can’t place it,” he finally said, and my stomach dropped.

Flora looked over her shoulder at us, keen on knowing where her husband might know me from.

“Maybe the festival last week?” Flora offered.

He shook his head, gaze going again to my hair. “Do you have a sister?”

I almost said no, but then remembered my cover story. “Yes,” I said with relief.

He relaxed a little. “Was she at the sailing competition last weekend? When the king was attacked?”

My entire body froze and he noticed, stiffening himself.

Flora spun from where she was heating something on the stove. “Were you there too? It gave Reeves such a fright. And then to replace out our queen is blessed! The village has been talking about it all week. Oh, how I hope she comes out of her unconsciousness.”

No, no, no…

I needed to leave. I was stupid to think I could travel alone. That’s what Raife told everyone? That I was unconscious for days on end?

“I wasn’t there. Neither was my sister,” I said quickly. Too quickly.

Flora didn’t seem to notice, but Reeves was watching me like a cougarin about to pounce on his prey.

“It was pretty incredible to see the queen bring him back from death like that,” Reeves said, not looking away from me, not even blinking. “Her hair went white, but for a small chunk right here.” He reached for the darker reddish-brown part of my hair and I jumped up, bolting for the door.

Everything happened so fast then, I could barely track it. I was almost to the door when Reeves crashed into my back, bringing me to the ground. Flora screamed, and then he rolled off me, pulling me up by the arms.

“Reeves, what the Hades are you doing!?” Flora yelped at her husband.

When I faced him, I expected to see a menacing snarl, but he was… crying—full-on fat, hot tears streamed down his face. “Can you bring back the dead? Is it true?”

Flora was holding a plate, looking like she was about to whack her husband over the head on my honor. When she saw the state of her husband and processed what he’d said to me, she lowered the plate and stared at me with hope in her eyes. “It’s her?”

He nodded. “She’s dyed her hair but it’s her. I was there. I saw her bring him back from the dead.”

“Can you?” Flora asked. “We can pay you, not much but anything we have is yours if you can bring our baby girl back. We buried her out back last month. The pox took her.”

Flora’s bottom lip quivered and I shook my head violently. “No, you don’t understand. I didn’t bring him back from the dead, and I can’t do any more healing or I’ll die.”

Flora’s mouth popped open in shock, but Reeves fingers squeezed my shoulders. “She’s lying! I saw her breathe life into the king!” he shouted, and the tears stopped flowing. Now the menace was there.

Fear sank into my gut. What would these people do to me? Did they really think I could bring back the dead? A month-old decaying body? The Maker created us, and when we died we joined him again. We didn’t come back.

Right?

Flora must have seen the falter in my eyes. She pointed to the flowers. “The village brought me flowers, but why would I want to watch them die too? I want my little girl back. Can you at least try?”

Reeves wasn’t letting go, and I was stuck between my desire to actually attempt to help this poor couple and my will to live. Raife said I had a death wish, but I didn’t. I was just a sucker for people in need.

“Flora, Reeves, I’m going to be honest with you both,” I said, and Reeves’ grip loosened a little, as if he sensed I was going to help them. “I just got this gift a month or so ago and I’ve already used most of it up. With every Breath of Life I give, I lose some of my own life. It turns my hair white, which is why I dye it. When all my hair goes white, I will die, having given all my life away.”

Flora sank into herself as if understanding my plight. Reeves just narrowed his gaze. “Almost used it up, so you don’t know how many more breaths you have left?” Reeves asked.

I swallowed hard. “No. And I don’t know if I can bring back the dead either. I’m not the Maker. Raife was near death, not dead.”

Silence descended onto the room; this family was stuck in the darkest grieving period of their life. They weren’t thinking clearly, they saw a way to bring their little girl back, and by the wild look in Reeves’ eyes he would do anything to see her again.

Reeves looked at his wife then. “Lock the door and go down to the room and rest.”

Oh Hades.

My stomach dropped. I bucked backwards, but his grip dug in like an iron clamp.

Flora’s eyes went wide. “What are you going to—?”

“I won’t hurt her, you have my word,” Reeves told his wife. “Go on now.”

“No!” I screamed. “Please, I—”

He spun me, tucking my back against his chest as his hand came around my mouth.

“Reeves!” Flora stepped over to him but he cut her down with a look I couldn’t see.

“I’m getting our baby girl back. Stay inside.”

That’s all it took for Flora to abandon me. Her questions stopped, her footsteps stopped, she gave up. She wanted her daughter back more than she wanted to protect me, and I understood that.

I respected it even, to a degree.

With a deathly grip, Reeves dragged me outside kicking and screaming. I tried to headbutt him, bite his fingers, kick him in the balls. Nothing worked. The man was built like a horse and stronger than one too.

“Maybe the Maker gave you that gift so that you could bring people back. Maybe he sent you to me,” Reeves said.

I tried to shake my head vigorously, but he kept his hand so firmly around my lips I could barely move. He pinned my neck in place. It took my eyes a second to adjust to the sunlight of their backyard.

“Stop fighting me. I won’t hurt you. I just want my princess back.” He was crying again; I could hear it in his voice.

I froze against him, not because of what he said but because my gaze had just landed on the gravestone at the fence line of their small backyard. Small sprouts of grass had poked up through the dirt mound of her burial, a sick reminder that even in death, life goes on. Why someone would want to bury their child in their own backyard, I didn’t know. I could never stare at that mound of dirt all day and do anything productive.

It’s so small, I thought.

When we neared, my eyes went to the name scrawled across the top.

Molly Rae.

I let out a whimper and Reeves loosened his hold. Maybe he thought he was hurting me. Being this close to him, to Molly’s body, it was too much for my empathic gift to take. I’d been pushing against the overwhelming feeling of grief coming off of him, but now it crushed me under its weight. I went limp and he lowered me to my knees as I broke into sobs before the small grave.

“Please. Please bring her back.” Reeves let go of me and picked up the shovel that was beside the mound of dirt.

He was insane with grief. Dig up a body that had been dead a month? No one wanted to put life into a half rotten corpse even if it was possible.

Reeves stuck the shovel into the ground just as a booming voice ripped through the backyard.

“Stop! On the order of the king.” Raife’s deep timbre resonated from behind me and Reeves froze, seemingly snapping out of what he was doing. Two Bow Men rushed to either side of him and took the shovel from him, pinning his arms behind his back.

I was still on my knees. The feelings of loss and grief were still freshly running through me. They quickly gave way to anger over Raife. My anger. Betrayal. He left me, broke up with me through someone else, and then basically imprisoned me in the woods alone. Why the Hades was he here?

“Arrest him.” Raife’s voice was closer now, and as much as I didn’t want to talk to him or deal with him, I couldn’t let them arrest Reeves for this.

“No.” I stood, and the Bow Men froze. It was Cahal and Ares, and I knew I’d gained their respect.

I spun, prepared to glare down my fake husband, but when I saw him it was like a punch to the gut.

Here’s the thing about falling in love. Once it happens, you can’t take it back, you can’t slow it down or stop it. It’s like a runaway horse with a mind of its own. I’d fallen for Raife, and even though I wanted to kill him right now, I couldn’t deny how handsome he looked, how safe he made me feel, and how much his protective blue-eyed gaze affected me.

“He didn’t hurt me.” I looked into Raife’s eyes. “He’s grieving. Have a heart.” I reached out and touched Raife’s chest as if saying, You, too, remember what this loss is like.

“He kidnapped the queen of Archmere—”

“Queen?” I placed one hand on my hip. “Is that right?” I held up my ringless hand and Raife’s cheeks went pink.

The Bow Men exchanged a look and started to move Reeves inside, giving us the garden alone. Four more Bow Men were perched on the fence, arrows drawn, but they were out of hearing distance.

Raife sighed. “I haven’t made a public statement yet about your condition.”

It was like he’d reached in and yanked out my heart.

“My condition?” I snapped. “So you’re breaking up with me? You’ll tell everyone I died or I’m in a coma and never talk to me again?”

I felt stupid, because this was a sham from the beginning.

He actually had the decency to look stricken.

I doubled down. “You didn’t even leave a note, Raife. I saved your life and I didn’t even get a note!” I snarled, stepping closer to him. “You at least owe me the decency of a goodbye.”

The closer I got to him, the more I felt the emotions coming off of him. It was like I’d stepped into a windstorm of feelings. Shock, adoration, fear, protection, anger, desperation, grief.

He took a step backwards, as if sensing what I was doing.

“It’s for your own good, Lani! Everything I do is to protect you. Can’t you see that?” Raife said, and then gestured to Molly’s grave. “Look at this. Five more minutes and you’d have been wasting your final breath on a rotting corpse. Your last breath. You’d be dead.”

I swallowed hard. “You don’t know that,” I said, fingering the darker chunk of my dyed hair. The last chunk I had.

“I didn’t ask you to save me, you know,” he said, lowering his voice. “I would never want you to die for my expense.”

I glowered at him. “Now who has a death wish?”

He reached up, rubbing his temples. “What am I going to do with you?”

I shrugged. “Let me try to bring back their daughter and then you can be rid of me,” I said morbidly.

His hands fell away from his temples and he gave me a searing look. “Don’t ever say that. They can have more children, Kailani. I can’t make more of you.”

My heart nearly stopped beating; he sounded like he cared. I was so confused about him, about us, and I hated him for it.

I never should have agreed to this stupid fake marriage in the first place!

Raife turned and peered at Cahal, who was now standing at the back door. Raising his fingers, he gestured the Bow Man over to us.

When Cahal saw me, his cheeks reddened as if he was ashamed to have been a part of hiding me away.

“Take her back to the castle and sneak her into my room. Don’t let anyone see her or talk to her. Understood?” Raife asked.

He nodded, bowing deeply. “Yes, my lord.”

His room? I opened my mouth to ask what was going on, but I couldn’t replace the right way to form the question, and by the time I did Raife was halfway across the yard.

“Raife Lightstone!” I yelled after him and he froze, turning to look over his shoulder at me. “Remember what it felt like to lose your siblings before you judge that man in there. He didn’t hurt me,” I warned him, and his face fell. He looked as though I’d slapped him.

With a nod he moved, slower this time, to the back door of the home, seemingly to dole out judgment on the couple. The other four Bow Men who’d been perched on the fence fell to the ground and followed their leader inside.

Cahal reached into his bag and pulled out a traveling cloak. Handing it to me, I shook it out and pulled it down over my shoulders, and then up over my head.

“Come on, we must go before the other Bow Men notice where I’ve taken you.”

I frowned. “Doesn’t he trust his Bow Men?”

Cahal gave me a frightening look. “He trusts no one with you, my queen.”

My queen. So I still had some power, that was good to know. I wondered if I ordered him to take me to my aunt if he would have to. He was duty-bound to the Archmere crown. But I knew he’d follow Raife’s word above mine.

I frowned, allowing him to quickly lead me away from the backyard and to a waiting horse.

“He trusts you,” I told him.

Cahal laughed. “After he threatened to kill my entire family if you were mistreated or taken under my watch.”

Geez, he did that? He was so protective over me I didn’t know what to make of it. Was it because I could give him information in his fight against the queen? Or was it to protect my gift unless he needed my final breath? Or maybe it was something else entirely. I dared to hope it was that he cherished me. That somewhere deep down inside of him he had allowed himself to fall in love as I had.