Her remark fell gently but with tremendous power over him, and he gave her waist a tender squeeze. “Aye, but I will always think fondly of the Hunter in me who first came upon you in the forest.”
She poked him in the chest. “Aye, a stubborn one?—”
“Determined,” he declared and tightened his hand at her waist, “to keep you safe, and he always will.”
Footsteps echoed in the corridor, turning them silent and watchful.
Tavish entered, leaving the door partially closed behind him and cast a glance around the room. His posture was rigid and his face carved into something close to stone.
He stepped aside, announcing, “King Dravic.”
The two doors swung wide, drawn open by two of the king’s elite guards.
King Dravic entered as though the room belonged to him by right of existence.
He did not hurry. He did not pause. He moved forward with the quiet confidence of a man accustomed to obedience, his dark sleeveless cloak flowing behind him, his gaze sweeping the chamber with practiced authority. Power clung to him, not the loud kind, but the dangerous sort that waited, patient and assured, for others to bend.
Adira followed several steps behind. She walked silently, her head bent slightly, her movement a bit uncertain. She was dressed in clean garments, a brown wool skirt and tan shirt, marking her role as a servant. Her eyes moved constantly, her way of reading faces, the room, measuring tension, absorbing every unspoken exchange.
When she spotted Elara, her gaze lingered for a moment, a light of recognition in her eyes that faded to worry as her gaze shifted to the king.
The king stopped at the head of the table and pointed to a chair to his left. Adira quickly sat.
His dark eyes settled on Dar. “I received word you entered Driochmor.”
He had not raised his voice, but there was accusation in every word.
Not a bit of fright marked Dar’s response. “Aye, word I had sent to you.”
Dravic stared at him, letting the silence linger uncomfortably before he said, “You entered Driochmor without my command. You crossed an edict laid down by my grandfather himself.” His mouth curved slightly, not in humor. “You had best tell me why I should not call it treason.”
Elara felt the weight of that moment settle into her bones and wished for a vision that would ease her worries, but none came.
Dar stepped forward, his voice steady, ready to defend himself and his wife with words, or sword if necessary. “My wife suffered a vicious attack, leaving her with a wound that healers told me she would not survive. I took her to Driochmor to save her.”
The king’s expression did not change. “Continue.”
“She died,” Dar said bluntly. “Her heart stopped. Her body cooled.”
Elara watched as Adira looked between Dar and the king, her folded hands resting on the table tightening. She sensed the coiled tension.
“Yet she stands here. How?” the king prompted.
Dar didn’t hesitate to deliver the news. “By the healer you seek.”
“Yet you return empty-handed, mission failed, but your wife saved,”—his hand fisted and came down hard on the table—“by the very creature you were sent to deliver to me.”
“She is ethereal, her form nothing but mist, nothing that can be captured,” Dar said.
Elara felt the king’s gaze bore into her, searching, calculating.
“How did death feel?” the king demanded.
“I felt nothing, my king,” she said with a slight bow of her head.
“And what of your visions? Did they not warn you of this?” he asked, anger strong in his tone.
“Nay, but she was in a vision where she told me I would not find her, but that I would find a man who would change the tides of war.”