“She stepped in front of a blow meant for me.”
I flinch at the raw grief in her voice.
“Meant forme,” she whispers again, quieter.
“Yara—”
“I wish they had killed me instead.” Her throat is thick with tears. “I wish I was the one lying here, and she was still flying high, guiding my soul into the aether.”
My head shakes back and forth as tears track down my cheeks. “Do not say such things, Yara.”
“Why not? It is the truth.”
“Do not wish for death. Not ever. No matter what.” Tentatively, I reach out and lay my hand atop hers, stilling its constant motion with a soft squeeze. “Life is the most precious gift we are ever given. To squander it would be a waste. To stop living in the face of loss…it does a disservice to those who are no longer here with us. Umyr would not want you to follow her into darkness.”
“I do not know how to live without her. There is no meaning with her gone.”
How do you find the words to say goodbye to a love so great, there seems no purpose existing without it? How do you carry on, knowing the rest of your days will be only the palest shadow of something extraordinary?
You do not.
You cannot.
I have no wise words to offer her, no comfort that will ease the pain of such a loss. I can only wrap her in my arms, holding her as she holds Umyr, and let her tears dampen my skin until, at long last, they run dry. When she looks up at me, eyes red rimmed with desolation, her words are a vow.
“I will avenge her.” She rattles out a broken exhale. “Even if it takes my final breath to do it, I will strike down those who took her from me. So help me gods.”
I glance aroundSoren’s kitchen. We are a macabre group. The mood is decidedly somber. We have suffered unexpected losses. Faces flash in my mind.Thisobei, Umyr, Arwen.Many are wounded, not only bodies but souls. The sound of Thisobei’s winged dapple-gray mount rends the sky as she flies in low loops above the royal grounds, mourning the loss of her rider. Atyr’s deeper brays reverberate along with hers, anunbroken refrain that makes all of us wince each time it fills the heavens.
I have never heard a Paexyri in the throes of grief before. I pray I never will again.
“We embark at first light.” Soren’s voice is matter-of-fact. “Two ships. Should one be unable to continue, the other must carry on.”
“Why can’t you portal there?” Mabon asks quietly. “Wouldn’t it be quicker?”
“Would that we could. There is no portal on the island. They will have taken her somewhere in Dymmeria first, then moved her to the prison. There is no way onto the Iron Isle except by boat.”
“My fleet is fastest,” Alaric offers. His eyes appear only partially focused on the room around him. “I will have my men prepare our two best brigs. Anything that can be off-loaded will be, to lighten the load.”
Soren nods. “We will not need the cannons. This mission will be one of stealth and speed.”
“Maybe keep one cannon,” Vaughn mutters, scratching at his blood-crusted beard. “Just in case.”
Jac scoffs.
“The roiling surf around the prison makes anchorage impossible,” Soren says. “See here?”
We all bend close as he taps one finger against the huge map he’s unfurled across the tabletop. It shows the entire eastern coast of Anwyvn, from the mist-cloaked cliffs of Prydain to the protruding Daggerpoint peninsula, down the jagged length of Eastwood and, finally, to the deathly black shoals that surround Dymmeria. Off the southeastern coast of that dark kingdom, there is an island—hardly more than a dot of ink, to my eyes—drawn amid ferocious brushstrokes that indicate an especially turbulent sea.
“Someone will have to remain behind on the ships while the rescue party makes landfall. Alaric, you’re a skilled skipper, perhaps—”
“No.” The blond man shakes his head, a flat rejection. “I’m going ashore.”
Soren does not push him. “Fine. We will have only minutes to get in, get Arwen, and get back out. The prison will be heavily guarded by Efnysien’s men, if not he himself. And, if I know my stepbrother the way I think I do, it will also be fortified with some unpredictable surprises.”
I don’t want to know; I ask anyway. “What sort of surprises?”
“His youthful fondness for cruel pranks has blossomed into a proclivity for decoys and booby traps designed specifically to take lives.” Soren runs a hand through his hair. “Trick doors, false walls, concealed blades designed to cut an unsuspecting victim in two…”