Rafe spent most of his day praying she wouldn’t come, hoping she’d been nothing more than a dream, telling himself she hadn’t meant her parting words, but he couldn’t ignore the pang in his heart when he heard the swish of feathers brushing against his curtains in the late, late hours of the night.
“I know you’re awake,” she drawled softly as she stepped into the room, her boots scuffing over the wooden floorboards.
He knew they were boots because the silk slippers most women wore in the castle would have been silent, and the very idea that she was wearing shoes meant for the outdoors provoked a sinking feeling in his gut. Still, he kept his back to the balcony, cheek resting on his hand as he breathed slowly and steadily, feigning sleep on the off chance she might turn around and fly away.
She didn’t.
She sighed, and the wood stool in the corner, the one usually occupied by Xander, creaked softly as it took her weight.
“I had an idea today,” she said conversationally, as though they were two people at a dinner table instead of an intruder and a man who clearly—well, he hoped clearly—wanted to be left alone. “Xander took me outside the castle walls, and we traveled to the houses of everyone who was injured in the earthquake, saying a blessing to Taetanos over their bodies. Some of them were awake but weak, and some of them had yet to open their eyes though their chests still rose and fell with breath. But their families were so grateful—they truly believed a simple prayer from their future king and queen would make all the difference. And I realized, as I said goodbye and they kissed my hand and looked at me through grateful eyes, that I could do much, much more to help.”
Rafe sat up and spun in an instant. “No.”
“I knew you were awake.” Her grin was a triumphant thing that stretched from ear to ear.
“And I knew you were reckless,” he countered, a frown tugging at his brow, “but I didn’t take you for a fool.”
“Is it so foolish to want to save lives?” she asked. “I would think it far more foolish to sit back and watch them die when I know in my heart I could save them.”
He stood and made an imploring gesture with his hands. “It’s dangerous.”
“I didn’t think a man who faced a dragon on his own would ever say something so cowardly.”
The words struck him like a blow. “That was different.”
The princess just shrugged. “Why?”
“Because”—he half growled, half spat the word as he took a step closer—“my life isn’t important. Not the way yours is. Not the way Xander’s is.”
She looked away and back at him before she said, “Your life is important to me.”
“And yet,” Rafe said, seizing the upper hand and trying to ignore something her eyes stirred deep inside him, “you would risk it, and your own, on a—”
“Did you think about what I said?”
All I did the whole damn day was think about you, he thought as a sneer crossed his face, directed more at himself than at her. “No.”
“Liar,” Lyana muttered. “You just don’t want to admit it, because maybe what I said was true. Maybe we were chosen by the gods for something more. Maybe we were chosen for this. To help people.”
“Even if we were, what are you planning to do?” Rafe asked, pointedly eying her wings. “You don’t exactly blend in as it is, and if anyone sees you, they won’t care that you think your power is a gift from the gods. They’ll label it magic and condemn you.”
“I brought a large cloak,” she said slowly.
Rafe noticed the black fabric in her hands, which she rung with her fingers, and he couldn’t help it—he bent over at the waist as laughter erupted, heavy with disbelief. For a moment, he really thought he was losing his mind. “A cloak?”
Lyana crossed her arms and glared. One white wing whipped around, shoving his shoulder and sending him off balance. “I wasn’t finished,” she practically snarled. “I brought a large cloak, so once we get on the other side of the castle wall, it’ll cover my wings, and we can walk from house to house instead of flying. It’ll take longer, but we have less of a chance of being seen. Xander told me the healers were giving all the injured sleeping tonics, so they shouldn’t wake up if we sneak in, and either way, I’ll keep the hood up so my face is covered in shadow. I noticed that nearly every house in Pylaeon has a balcony of some kind by all the windows, so it should be easy enough to slip in and out quickly.”
The gods.
It actually wasn’t a completely horrible plan.
“How are you planning to get out of the castle unseen?" he asked, not yet willing to agree. "You can’t fly, not with those white feathers of yours.”
Lyana smiled sweetly. “That’s where I was hoping you might be able to help.”
Rafe groaned and rubbed his face, his mind in turmoil. On the one hand, it was the most reckless idea he’d ever heard. On the other, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to live with himself if ravens died when he could have helped save them—or if something happened to the princess. The gleam in her eye said she wouldn’t take no for an answer, and he had the horrible feeling that even if he didn’t accompany her, she’d go through with her plan anyway. Rafe knew what happened to ravens caught with magic—the sound sometimes haunted his dreams, that unmistakable whistle of the executioner’s blade slicing through air before a dry thud announced the job was done. Beheadings were public affairs, though he could never bring himself to watch. Instead, he’d observe the crowd. Sometimes, that was worse. The cries of the loved ones. The cheers from everyone else. The haunting fear in Xander’s eyes as he glanced at Rafe, wondering if he would be next.
No.
He couldn’t let that happen.
Not to her.
“I know a way,” he admitted. The words came out in the barest whisper, as though his throat had fought to keep them in. “There’s a passage. My father once used it to sneak my mother into the castle, before he had rooms set up for her among the servants'. Xander and I used it as boys. It’s old, as old as the castle itself. My brother and I used to wonder if it came from a time before the isles were lifted into the sky, when war was common and quick escapes more common still.”
As he spoke, Lyana’s eyes shone with intrigue. She clasped her hands to her chest, fingertips turning pink from being squeezed so tightly.
Rafe shook his head.
What had he gotten himself into?
“Let’s go,” Lyana blurted, taking a step toward the door.
“Hold on.” Rafe grabbed her arm. “Let me see the cloak first.”
Lyana obliged and threw the fabric over her shoulders. It was a deep-black velvet, expensive but not necessarily royal. There were no jewels or gems on it, no markings of any kind, and from a distance, it might pass for something cheaper. Most importantly, when the hood was pulled up, it fell all the way to her nose, making him wonder if she could see. The back was voluminous enough to cover her wings and still trail on the floor.
“Where in all the houses did you find this?” he asked in wonder.
Lyana dropped the hood as she pulled the fabric close. “My grandmother was a, shall we say, large woman, and she used to complain that her wings would get cold when she ventured outside, so my grandfather had this made as a gift. When she passed, he gave it to me because I loved how much it still smelled like her.”
The affection in her tone brought a warm feeling to his heart, a tender sensation he wasn’t used to but liked. Though there was something else too, a subtle sort of yearning as he wondered what it must have been like to grow up with a family like that.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have laughed when you said you brought a large cloak,” he teased.
Lyana shook her head with a satisfied, “Hmph.”
He eyed her hands. “Do you have gloves?”
She pushed the cloak aside to take two black gloves from a pocket in her jacket, pulling them over her fingers.
“What about something for your neck and chin?”
Again, Lyana produced a disguise in the shape of a deep ebony fur that would cover the exposed skin beneath her hood.
“Not the first time you’ve ever snuck out of a castle,” he guessed, unable to fight the desire to smile at her antics.
Lyana studied him as he, too, donned gloves and a dark outfit meant to blend with the night, then pulled a hood over his eyes, shrouding his features. “Not yours either.”
He nodded at her. “Come on, then, before I change my mind.”
Leading the princess down the halls, he was careful to peek around each corner, searching for guards or servants on their nightly rounds. The passage was in the underbelly of the castle, not as deep underground as his mother’s room had once been, but close. The path was dark and dank. Moisture from the soil seeped through the stones, leaving a layer of slick algae and moss. They moved carefully, and after a few stumbles, Lyana reached out to take his hand for balance. He tried not to think about how comforting her fingers felt, entwined through his, how soothing, how natural. When they reached the end of the passage, he broke hold to open the heavy iron gate, made to look like another sewage hole in the street.
From there, it was her turn to lead. They took a few wrong, circular routes before she finally found her bearings in a city that was still foreign to her, and they made it to the first of the injured. Lyana stared at the building, studying the windows and doors, fighting to remember.
“That one,” she whispered, pointing to a balcony on the left of the second story. “That was his room.”
Rafe nodded, taking to the air with a single pump of his wings to land softly on the platform. He pressed his nose to the window, trying to see through the shadows of the room, until he found a small body curled on the bed and turned, bending to offer Lyana his hand. Careful not to use her wings, she leaped. It took two tries before he caught her forearm firmly enough to drag her up. On the balcony, Lyana slid her knife through the narrow slit in the window, clicking the latch. They were in. She rushed to the child fast asleep beneath the covers, stripped off her gloves, and closed her eyes, focusing on the work.
Rafe, on the other hand, stood guard in the darkness, hardly able to blink as he watched her, mesmerized. The grimace on the child’s lips disappeared. His raspy wheezing eased into long, smooth, flowing breaths. The tight little bundle of his body loosened, more comfortable as the pain seeped from his bones. And Lyana was a vision, lips slightly open, features relaxed. The golden light emanating from her hands glittered like the soft rays of the morning sun sifting through the clouds. And for a moment, he finally saw what she saw. That it wasn’t magic. It was something more. Her god, Aethios, flowing through her, giving her the power to heal the world.
Rafe had spent most of his life resenting his magic. It had saved him, but not his parents. It had made him an outcast, something to be feared. It had made him a fugitive, someone filled with fear. It had turned his brother into a liar and his life into a lie. But standing there, watching her, for the first time Rafe understood his magic was a gift.
Because his magic had saved her.
His magic had created this moment.
And she, and this, were magnificent.