to give thanks, when he met the eyes of his captain.
“You should get to safety,” Helen said, though not an ounce of her believed he would. And without prompting, they knelt together to heft another piece of debris.
“Did you send for help?” Xander asked as they worked.
“On their way.”
“My mother?”
“Being notified.”
“Where’s Rafe?”
She didn’t answer.
He looked at her, heart thudding in his chest. “Helen, where’s Rafe?”
His captain’s gaze just slid to the rubble.
Stupid idiot.
Stupid, selfless idiot.
In an instant, Xander understood exactly what his brother had done.
Thank you.
There was nothing to say to Helen after that, to say to anyone. Nothing left but heavy breath and almost silent tears as every able-bodied person in the town square worked to clear the wreckage. The guards arrived shortly, lending their hands to the cause. And then the healer soon after, scurrying to where the recovered bodies had been laid—some barely moving, most horrifyingly still.
Xander had lost count of the stones he’d moved, one after the other after the other, until finally, a shout stopped him.
“Your Highness! Your Highness!”
Xander turned toward the sound. The peddler who had been showing him simple metal bracelets before the earthquake was frantically pulling at stones and tossing panicked glances in his direction. He raced toward the spot, stomach dropping as he saw what the peddler had seen—two pairs of feet intertwined, one wearing rich leather boots and the other elegant lace slippers, the sort not found on the city streets.
Lyana and Rafe.
“Helen!” Xander shouted. “Guards!”
They sped to heed his command, helping to strip the mound, the sight turning more and more gruesome as each rock was pulled away. There was a deep gash in the princess’s calf, but it was nothing compared to the injuries sustained by the raven on top of her. Rafe's black wings were bent and crooked, unnaturally slick in the sun. Snapped bones jutted through his crushed feathers. Water from the fountain splashed across their bodies, carrying streams of red through the cracks in the cobblestones. One of the guards lifted the tip of Rafe’s wing, exposing the bodies underneath.
Xander stepped back with a gasp—not of fear, but of the sort an intruder might make if he’d accidentally stepped into the middle of something he wasn’t supposed to see.
They could have been lovers.
Rafe’s arms, now slack, cradled either side of Lyana's chest, although they must have once held her weight. Her palms were pressed against his abdomen, fingers still gripping the fibers of his shirt. His face was buried in her hair. Hers was nestled against his neck. Their legs were entwined. The entire scene was oddly intimate in a way Xander didn’t quite understand. If not for the blood and the gore, they could have been in a bedroom, doing something else entirely.
The guard gripping Rafe’s broken wing turned a questioning gaze on his prince. But the move was enough to bring them all back to reality as the raven on the ground began to scream—a wild, uncontrolled sound.
“Careful!” Xander snapped at the guards, deflecting his sudden anger to the easiest target as he rushed to his brother’s side. “Rafe, Rafe.”
Grunts and groans were his only response. But as difficult as they were to hear, it was far, far superior to silence. Because it meant Rafe was alive, and that was all Xander needed to know. Because if his brother was alive, he would recover. He always did.
“I want four of your best men to carry him back to his rooms,” Xander said, turning to Helen.
She stepped forward, murmuring so only the closest guard could hear, “You mean to the healers, surely?”
Xander's face hardened. “To his rooms. And not a soul is to disturb him. Understood?”
Suspicion sharpened her eyes, suspicion and defiance, but she held her tongue and nodded, remaining loyal before a crowd, though there would be questions later. Questions about why and how his brother had managed to survive yet another event that had killed so many others.
Xander had no time for that now.
As soon as Rafe was peeled away from the debris and lifted into the sky, he fell to his knees beside the princess, who, unlike his brother, had yet to utter a word. Xander slid his arm beneath her neck, careful with her head as he raised her torso onto his lap and used his other hand to rub her cheek. Her dark skin was still warm. Her lush lips were parted. Her dress was wet and wrinkled, but there was no obvious injury aside from the gash in