Page 15 of Curse of Darkness
“No.” Baylor’s face clouds over. “You need a personal guard at your side. Someone to protect you and Amaya. Finn’s part Sylvaren. Nothing can get past him. The Fetch’s kidnapped you once. We can’t risk it again.”
“Then I just leave Andraste to the goblin king’s mercy?” It hurts to even think the words. “She’s mysister. She risked everything to give us the crown. She kept my daughter safe. ShesavedAmaya. I can’t just let Edain go after her alone. I can’t just… abandon her.”
And I cannot do it myself.
“If Andraste is in goblin territory, then no army in the world is good enough to get her back,” he warns.
“A small party, perhaps—”
“Two, maybe three….” But he’s shaking his head. “They would have to be the best trackers in the world.”
It’s a suicide mission.
I grind the heels of my palms into my eyes. They won’t stop leaking.
A gruff snarl echoes from behind the bars. “Sssend me….”
It cuts through the tears.
“What?” I lower my hands.
Lysander grabs the bars and flinches as the iron burns him. Something shudders through him. “Sssend me.”
We both turn to him as he growls and rests his forehead against the bars. Something’s happening. Something… monumental. Fur twitches along Lysander’s spine.
Baylor’s eyes burn with intent. “It’s breaking. The curse is breaking.”
It is…?“But how?”
My mother’s curses are powerful and vicious.
“There’s always a way to break a curse,” Baylor growls.
Some loophole, some trick that inverts the magic.
“But we’ve tried everything,” I whisper.
His gaze focuses sharply on my face.
It’s like the dawn clears. He knows. He knows what it is….
“We haven’t tried this.” Baylor reaches for me and swipes the wetness from my cheeks. Striding across the room, he paints my tears across Lysander’s face.
Lysander howls, collapsing to his knees. Fur ripples and recedes down his spine, his back bowing and tendons standing out in stark relief. A hand appears, fingers digging into the floor.
I gasp, hurrying to Baylor’s side. “Xander!”
“His fury and hatred for you kept him tied to the beast-form,” Baylor says incredulously. “It’s your tears. The tears of an enemy he’s been trained to hate. The one thing that can cut through his rage: His love for you. It’s breaking the curse.”
Magic bursts from Lysander in a wave, golden light pulsating through the dungeon. He howls again, wracked with pain as his spine arches, and as the howl extends it somehow becomes more fae.
A scream.
A male screaming.
I grab the bars, desperate to see what’s happening, but Baylor hauls me back a step, wary even now. My hands tingle; a mild burn from the iron in those bars.
“Xander?” he rasps.
