Renaud pulls me against his chest and I do nothing. Confused, tired, angry and sad. He buries his face in my hair.
“If our love ends in your death,” he whispers, “it won't be by my hand. We will live with this, Aerinne, even if by living we destroy each other. But I will not lose you. Not even for my sisters. Not even to avenge my son.”
“Let her go now,” the shadow angel says. “She’s injured. She will die, Renaud. She’s still too young.”
I open my eyes to searing pain and hammers at my temples. I taste salt on my lips and lift the back of my shaking hand to smear away a stream of blood. The hard ground is cold and wet beneath me and as I stare up into the night sky, the thunder and the lashing rain, gentles to a soft keening rather than ravaging grief. The remnants of the dream begin to fade, no matter how I try to grasp them. Not a dream?—
Darkan. Darkan?
Yes. Dark angel, you call me, and I have become that for you.
The storm.
I told you not to go out in it.But there's nothing in his voice except the same weariness as mine.
TheDra?—
Yes. Sleep awhile longer, my halfling.I will wake you when it’s time. I am here.
Numair kneels above me, his expression terrible. “We sent for Ishaan, Rinne. Hold on. We have to leave the stake in or you'll bleed out.”
No, no I don't want to sleep. Dark angel. The Dragon.MyDragon. . .Renaud.I almost grimace, butamdistractedfor a searing moment by the beloved name entombed in the darkest corner of a locked mind.Rani?—
When it’s time.
When my eyes close, there's no mist to greet me.
The name is gone. But not the ever present feeling that something has always been missing. That something has been taken.
Chapter
Twenty-Two
RANIEL, OF THE PRINCESS
Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.
—Romeo and Juliet, Act 5, Scene 3
“Aerinne! Wake up!”
Juliette's expression stops my heart. I don't want to hear another person has died.
“The Prince is in the courtyard.”
“What?” I say. Juliette rips away my light bedcovers. “I was impaled only four days ago.”
Ishaan made it to me in time, though I’m told he’d had some choice words to say about my decision making process, and isn’t that familiar verbiage. He’d healed damage to intestines, resealed torn blood vessels and givenstrict instructions. Evidently he was pleased to note my hard head took minimal damage.
“I’m supposed to be on two days bedrest and?—”
“Tell it to the Prince. He asked for you, and he refused to come inside.”
She drags me to the closet that doesn't exactly function as a repository for clothing. But my Ninephene styled Court robes do hang in it. I would have preferred a pile in the corner of the stables, but I was vetoed.
“I think that's for the best. We aren't prepared and. . .” My cousin pauses after she yanks cobalt robes off a hanger. Not dress robes, but suitable for a morning call from a Prince. “He's like Nora. But?—”
