Page 21 of The Last Bell
In mere moments, almost all the Night Guard have shifted into their winged forms, taking screeching flight through the open mezzanine doors. They may be evil, but they’re far from stupid. Without Owalin, they’re mere foot soldiers in a hall of kings.
Some circle overhead as if indecisive, almost majestic in the warm light, their burnished-gold, black, and tan feathers catching the brilliance of the setting sun.
But a volley of arrows from some of the human warriors below has them swiftly rethinking.
“Didn’t Gavriel warn you off playing with broken magical artifacts, lass?” Tye says, swaggering up to me through the bewildered crowd, while River braces his hands on his thighs, his breath heavy. My own breathing is little better, the wave of relief washing over me intense enough to make me sway on my feet. Tye’s pine-and-citrus scent wraps around me a moment before his arms do, the male pulling me against his chest with a desperation that betrays his lingering tension. “By the looks of it, Owalin’s memories of his own self have been destroyed entirely—he may never recover now.”
A few paces away from us, Coal already has the babbling Owalin in his steel grip, bare muscled arms bulging as he lifts him to his feet. Over the male’s silver-blond head, Coal gives me a look of such desperate fury—mixed with heart-stopping tenderness—that I know I’m in for some sort of reckoning with him later. Shade bends over several of the injured, his silver magic flashing while Katita quietly orders her forces to secure the premises in case any Night Guard decide to circle back.
It’s over. Almost over. I turn my face to River, meeting his haunted gray gaze. “Are you all right?” I ask.
“I don’t know whether I want to kiss or kill you right now,” River whispers, running both hands through his hair so it stands up in dark spikes. “Do you have any notion how terrifying that was?”
“A fair good one,” I say blearily, Tye’s hands wide and comforting around my middle. With the adrenaline faded, all I can feel is the exhaustion left behind, pulling at my body and words. “When did you figure out what I was doing?”
“I didn’t.” River rubs his face. “I didn’t know what the hell you were doing until you did it—but I trusted you had something in mind. I trusted you.” He straightens, the force of his attention on me blocking out the slowly growing buzz of the Great Hall letting out its breath. In the corner of my vision, I see the doors flinging open, loved ones streaming into each other’s arms—Katita apparently having decided that the Night Guard threat is really, truly finished. Weeping and shouts of joy collide against the Great Hall’s high-raftered ceiling, making my tired heart lift.
I know that River and Tye and I should go help, talk to the most traumatized hostages, organize food and beds and medical supplies, but I can’t bring myself to move. No matter what River says about having trusted that I had a plan early on, the terror I saw in his eyes when I stood beside Owalin was real enough to hurt us both. To hurt still.
River holds out his arms toward me, the motion as vulnerable and desperate as the gulps of air I still pull too quickly into my lungs. Tye releases me with a gentle push, spotting me as I fling myself into River, my body savoring his woodsy scent on the heels of the bloody charade.
When I lift my face to him, River presses his mouth over mine, his tongue sweeping in with a single conjuring stroke that shatters all inhibitions. Twisting my hands through his hair, I push the male back until I have the king of Slait pinned against a marble pillar, his body willingly surrendering everything to the bond between us.
Somewhere beyond the moment, someone whistles, applause filling the scorching air. I don’t blush. I don’t care. Not about the blubbering Owalin, or the escaped Night Guard, or the entirety of the immortal realms.
“Not that I’m not enjoying the show,” Tye drawls, interrupting the kiss just as River’s fingers start slipping into my waistband, “but is the rat with the spinning balls anyone of importance?”
“That’s Krum.” I pull my head back only enough to mutter the words. “Owalin’s wardsmith. Why?”
“Because he is currently making his way out the back door,” Tye supplies.
“So go fetch him,” River says, his lips already returning to mine. “I’m busy.”
* * *
“You’ve been busy.”Taking the chair opposite Krum, River lays his forearms on the table and cocks his head as if he had all the time in the world for this conversation. And to be fair, he is immortal, so there is that.
Around the elegantly appointed suite, which was Sage’s receiving room only a day earlier, the other males of my quint as well as Arisha, Gavriel, Katita, and the mortal kings all listen in attentive silence. The humans’ faces run the full range of emotions, from Arisha and Gavriel’s morbid curiosity, to Katita’s fury, to utter fear and confusion—the latter especially prevalent on guests from kingdoms on the other side of the continent, who’ve never been close enough to Mystwood and Lunos to give the immortal realm much thought.
“I’ve never been one to idle, true.” Krum tries to open his palms in an irreverent gesture, but the chains Thad forged to shackle the fae wardsmith will not allow the motion. With his silver-gray hair swept back and easy, smiling eyes, he still makes more than enough impact. “There is little more enticing to a magic scholar than working with ancient wards.”
“Then we have fortunate news,” I say, crossing my thighs and smiling at him. With River, Krum, and I the only ones sitting at the interrogation table, I feel like a fish fluttering about a glass bowl for others’ entertainment, but River insisted I sit beside him. “You now get the pleasure of closing the wards back up.”
Krum gives me a condescending look, an impressive feat for a shackled male with a split lip. “That can’t be done.”
My stomach tightens, an uncomfortable shiver running across my skin. Somehow, I believe him. This, the wards, was the entire reason for our coming here. For all that we went through in the mortal world. To hear that it can’t be done…
River’s hand flattens on the table’s wooden surface. “I little like what I’m hearing, Krum.” His words, while quiet, ring with enough menace to flay open a soul. “You are the one who wedged the wards open.”
“I meant what I said, Your Majesty.” Krum shrugs, nary a flicker in his pale eyes. “Your displeasure can certainly rearrange my face and bones—but it will do nothing for the wards.” He purses his lips, regarding River and me as if we’re a pair of slow-witted students he has no time to school.“Oh, stars take me. The only reason I was able to drive a wedge into the wards is because they were cracking already.”
“We are aware of the crack,” River says. “Fixing it is the reason we came to the mortal realm to begin with.”
Krum laughs. “Fixingit? You swaggered from Lunos to the mortal realms thinking that you would, what, patch up ancient magic created in a time when any dozen fae warriors were more powerful than today’s entire world of Lunos combined? How exactly were you planning on accomplishing this feat? A bit of putty, perhaps? A needle and thread?”
My jaw tightens. We needed to find the leak before we could assess how to close it, but saying as much out loud just now sounds more defensive than anything.
“I discovered the leak in the wards dozens of years ago,” Krum continues. “It was how I convinced Owalin to bring the Night Guard here, to live in the mountain in wait for when the gap opens wide enough to be useful. Maybe back then, if you’d been smarter, if you’d studied and paid attention as I did, you might have been able to slow the ward’s breaking. But now? Now there is nothing to be done.”
