The Hunter and the Mage (The Raven and the Dove #2) - Kaitlyn Davis Page 0,11

ravens escaped, but most remained in the grove."

Xander sighed and ran his fingers over his chin, absorbing the updates. Then he finally stopped and met Helen's weary gaze, aware that for the first time, some of her uncertainty was turned on him. "And what do the people say?"

"Nothing good, my prince." She glanced to the queen, then back to Xander. He held her stare, a silent plea for the truth. "They saw you return from the sacred nest in bloodied clothes, alone and seemingly mad, with the princess nowhere in sight. They fought off a dragon. They spent the night frightened, abandoned by Taetanos, abandoned by you. Word spread early this morning that your brother disappeared. With everything they already whispered, it was an easy conclusion to draw. They say he ran away with the princess, that he bewitched her and turned her against the gods. And there are some who whisper that maybe he put a spell on you as well."

Xander snorted derisively, but Helen didn’t crack a smile. Her expression was grim—grim and unsure, as terrible a combination as he could imagine. "Surely you don’t believe that's true."

"I don't know what to believe," she answered gravely.

His mother eyed him dubiously, but he wasn't concerned about Helen. If she started lying, maybe then he would begin to question her loyalty. This brutal honesty? This was how he knew she was still on his side.

"Lyana was taken," he said slowly, glancing between the two of them. "But she wasn't taken by Rafe."

"Then who?" his mother asked, leaning forward in her chair.

Helen watched on, a deep groove digging into her forehead.

"When we got to the sacred nest, three people were there, two men and a woman, all dressed in priests’ robes. We didn’t notice anything was amiss until it was too late. They attacked as we began to say the vows, and they—they had magic."

His mother gasped.

Helen frowned.

It was enough to inform Xander that keeping Lyana's magic a secret was the right call. If she ever returned—no, when; when she returned—there needed to be a place for her. He was determined to save her, even if it meant he had to save her from his own people too.

"We tried to stop them, but we were no match. They knocked Lyana unconscious and held me back by force. They would've killed me, but the earthquake intensified. It looked like the sacred nest was going to cave in, so they fled, perhaps to meet with that dragon, I don't know. But they didn’t have wings, so wherever they're hiding, I fear it’s a place we won’t be able to follow, a place only their magic can access."

"No wings?" Helen asked.

He shook his head.

"Then how did they get here?" his mother asked, voice quivering in a way he'd never heard before. "Where did they come from?"

"I don’t know, but I intend to find out."

They spent the next hour going through the details and drawing up a plan. The night before, Helen had gone to the sacred nest to question the priests and priestesses. No one saw anything. No one heard anything. All they could remember was a strange force holding them against their beds so they were unable to move. Xander knew the feeling well—he, too, had been wrapped in invisible binds, forced to hold still as a stranger sauntered toward him with a knife. It was magic, it had to be, which meant it was a power he had no idea how to fight. When he found Lyana, maybe she would. Her magic had been different, a light in the dark, healing all his wounds. Even vanished, she was a beacon of hope—one he had no choice but to follow.

"So what do we tell everyone in the meantime?" Helen asked as their meeting drew to an end. "They need an official statement from their queen."

"We tell them it was Rafe," his mother murmured, the usual malice toward his brother gone from her tone, replaced by weariness. "We tell them what they want to hear until we know more—until we know who exactly we're fighting and what exactly they want."

Both women looked to Xander for approval.

This was his brother's worst fear come to life—to have Xander confirm to the world that he was a usurper, a backstabber, a traitor. For the rest of their lives, he would never again be welcomed in the House of Whispers. His room would remain empty. No more late-night conversations. No more sarcastic retorts. No more fighting. No more