leave.
CHAPTER 27
AERAX
Aerax did not pray to Vela, but that goddess seemed to turn the night in their favor as he sailed with Lizzan, Caeb, and the Lithan prince to the windward side of the island. For they were helped along by Preter’s wind, and though the moon was high and full, Vela’s face was covered by a thick blanket of clouds and they approached the island under concealment of full darkness.
From the shore, they stole their way though a silent village to his mother’s inn, where they would wait for dawn.
Never before had Aerax truly understood Lady Junica’s desperate arguments to save the island. Yet within the inn, looking out to his mother’s garden and thinking of how many times he and Lizzan had played within these walls, knowing it all would soon be gone brought a soft ache to his chest. And as he took her to the bed where they’d watched so many others, where Aerax had learned all the things he used to please her, it also seemed fitting that they would be the last, as if the purpose of this place had been fulfilled.
Unrestrained his heart was with every kiss and touch. Unrestrained his body was as she urged him inside her again and again, until they were utterly spent and lying quietly together.
It was near dawn when she slipped from their warm bed, and he heard the splash of water in a basin, saw the gleam of a blade as she shaved the sides of her head. A full Kothan soldier again, though they would leave all their armor behind. Leathers and furs did not make so much noise as chain mail, and it was stealth that they would need this day.
When she’d finished and gathered the crown of her hair into a tail that fell the length of her back, Caeb came to rub his face to hers, then growled plaintively. With a quiet laugh, she slung her faded cloak around her shoulders and left the chamber with the cat to let him out the door.
More slowly Aerax dressed, and found her standing at the open shutters overlooking the garden.
Where a soft blanket of snow covered the ground. Dumped by the same clouds that had covered Vela’s face and offered such welcome concealment—as if already, favor was turning away from them.
“Lizzan,” Aerax said hoarsely, gripping her shoulders and spinning her to face him. Her skin was bloodbare and her eyes haunted by shadowy fear, but the jut of her chin was as stubborn as ever as she looked up at him. “Let us abandon this place and head south.”
She gave a watery laugh and cupped his jaw in her hands. “Run now, when all our friends will be killed by stone wraiths? As the Destroyer returns, we will look away from all who suffer, and sit content somewhere instead of fighting. Is that our path?”
It could not be. Gritting his teeth against the pain filling his chest, Aerax pressed his forehead to hers. “You must promise me—”
“Never to leave you?” Her thumbs swept over his cheeks. “I swear that it will not be willingly. I will fight to stay with you as hard as you will fight to keep me.”
“Then promise to always love me,” he said from a raw throat. “For if I must fight to keep you with me, then I will. And I will do anything, Lizzan. Whether it makes me villain or monster. I will become anything.”
And Aerax knew very well what he would become, after he’d heard the story of the chain Lizzan wore—a man no different than Varrin, or any of the snow-haired kings who’d lived before.
“And always I will love you,” she promised, pressing her trembling lips to his. Then on a shuddering breath, she buried her face in his neck. “This snow may also be a gift.”
A broken laugh shook through him. “How?”
“So that I will have something to drink as we make our way to the crystal palace. I took a sip from the wineskin . . . but it is not water anymore.”
Because Vela had no power here. He stiffened. “And your necklace?”
“Still protects me, or I might have cut my head to shreds with that dull razor.” Her arms tightened around him. “But let me tell you, Aerax . . . I want to drink all of the ale in that wineskin. All of it. I thought for certain that I did not thirst so much anymore after all this time. But instead