Earth's End (Air Awakens, #3)(2)

Vhalla took a few deep breaths. She was still the property of the crown. This man owned Vhalla until she gave him his victory in the North. And, if the ultimatum he gave her a few days earlier still stood, her freedom also hinged on ending all affiliation with his son—an affiliation that had begun nearly a year ago, an affiliation that had turned her into the secret lover of Crown Prince Aldrik.

“Was I unclear?” The broad-shouldered Southern ruler took another step closer.

Tension was heavy in the air, and the soldiers behind her held their breaths.

“Vhalla, good—you’re awake.” Vhalla turned to see Aldrik’s tent flap closing behind Elecia. “I need to check your condition.” The woman passed between the soldiers, linking her arm with Vhalla’s. It was the most contact the dark-skinned woman had ever initiated. “Come.”

It was the order in Elecia’s voice that Vhalla finally heeded. She let the other woman lead her back toward the tent she’d just left. But her eyes remained locked with the Emperor’s in defiance. He could not keep Aldrik from her, not so long as she drew breath.

“Get in there,” Elecia muttered, practically throwing Vhalla into her tent and on top of Fritz in the process.

“What’s wrong with you?” Vhalla blinked up at the glaring woman, who looked nothing like the concerned cleric who had just escorted Vhalla across camp.

“What’s wrong with you?” Elecia hissed, dropping to her knees across from Vhalla. “Did you lose what little intelligence you had in that fall? Now is not the time to be testing the Emperor.”

“I don’t give a damn about the—” Fritz’s palm clasped forcefully over Vhalla’s mouth, stopping her treasonous words. “Can we all take a breath, please?” Fritz held out his free hand toward Elecia.

Vhalla glared at the curly-haired woman. Friend or foe, she still didn’t know where Aldrik’s cousin stood. The pain and anger glittering in Elecia’s emerald eyes revealed to Vhalla that the other woman shared the same difficulties figuring out their relationship.

“How is Aldrik?” Vhalla asked the one thing they could easily discuss.

“No.” Elecia shook her head. “I will ask the questions.” “Excuse me?”

The other woman had succeeded in catching Vhalla mentally off-balance and seized the moment. “How did you and my cousin become Bound?”

Out of all the questions Vhalla would have guessed Elecia would ask, that one she wasn’t expecting. Vhalla choked on her words, blindsided. “H-how?”

“I would have expected you not to tell me,” Elecia sneered. “But him?” The woman tugged on her dark corkscrew curls, overcome by doubt. She recovered quickly, turning the emotion into rage. “What did you do to him? What did you threaten him with to make him keep silent?”

“How dare you!” Vhalla wanted to claw the other woman’s accusatory eyes out. She wanted to tear her limb from limb. “If you think I would ever do anything to hurt him ...” She could barely form a sentence she was so angry.

“Both of you, stop.” Fritz had never sounded so commanding, and both women startled at the sudden interjection. “You’re not each other’s enemy, you fight the same fight.”

Vhalla scowled at Elecia, and the other woman mirrored the expression.

“Elecia, you know Vhal wouldn’t do anything to harm Aldrik.” Fritz turned to Vhalla. “And Vhal, you must know how worried Elecia has been, for the prince and for you.”

Elecia pointedly glared at a corner of the tent, clearly frustrated she’d been outed by Fritz.

“How did you know?” Vhalla swallowed her prior frustration. “I wouldn’t have, if I wasn’t healing you both. Most clerics, sorcerer or otherwise, wouldn’t have.” Elecia didn’t miss an opportunity to brag. “But I noticed that as you improved, he did as well. His magic was also different when I inspected him closely with magic sight. I’d seen it at the Crossroads when I was healing him, but I thought it was the effects of the poison; his strength masked it when he was well. So, I wasn’t sure until Fritz confirmed it for me.”

Vhalla glared at Fritz, and the Southern man suddenly became very obsessed with the dirt under his nails.

“How did it happen?” Elecia took a deep breath. “I know it wasn’t from the Pass. This is a deeper connection, an older, more stable one.”

Vhalla sighed, rubbing her eyes with her palm. She wanted to see Aldrik. But if that couldn’t happen, Elecia was her best chance at learning the truth about his condition. If finding out that truth meant appeasing the frustrating noble, then Vhalla would do it. “I was the one who formed the Bond ...”

The story wasn’t new for Fritz. Vhalla had confided in him and her now-dead friend, Larel, months ago. But there were details she’d never shared with him, and he listened with interest. Elecia regarded Vhalla skeptically, as if only half believing the tale of the library apprentice who created magic Vessels that formed a connection—a Bond—with the crown prince and saved his life in the process.

Once she began, Vhalla found she couldn’t stop. The weeks and months poured from her and she told Elecia and Fritz everything. The Bond, the Night of Fire and Wind, how she and Aldrik had widened the Bond with the Joining; how his magic could no longer harm her. Vhalla bore it all before them. They were secrets she’d held so closely and now would give them all up just to confirm he was alive, just to regain the trust of the one woman who held that information.