A Vow So Bold and Deadly (Cursebreakers, #3)(76)

So now it’s been three days since I reached their camp, if I’ve been able to keep track correctly—which is rather doubtful. Seven days since I left Rhen with Lilith. For the first few days, I’d think about the moment she appeared in my chambers and tears would fill my eyes, but desperation would drive through the pain and exhaustion. I’d ride hard and fast, galloping across the terrain of Emberfall as if I could outrun my tears, as if I could just get to the border, get help, and we’d rescue Rhen from Lilith.

But a few days ago, the tears stopped coming, and now I just feel … resigned. Hopeless. I thought it would be so easy. I need to find Grey, I kept saying. Like the Syhl Shallow soldiers would gasp and say, “Well of course, my lady.” Like I’m a real princess. Like we’re not about to face them in a war.

There was a period of time where I thought the Syhl Shallow soldiers would just kill me. A period of time where I wished they would kill me, because when they first chained me up, my imagination ran wild and I thought for sure I’d be raped and left for dead. But it seems like a lot of their officers are women, and while no one is gentle, no one was forcing me up against a wall and ripping my clothes off, either.

I would kill someone for some water. Then again, it feels like a Herculean task to lift my head, so maybe that’s not a good idea.

Maybe I’ll be left here long enough that I’ll die anyway.

I’m sorry, Rhen.

I was wrong. New tears can form.

Booted feet stomp somewhere on the other side of the heavy wooden door, but I ignore it. I’ve stopped hoping for food. I’ve stopped hoping for anything.

But the lock rattles, and the door swings open. I’m staring up at a new soldier in green-and-black-trimmed armor. His expression is so severe, his eyes so fierce, that I almost cringe—until I blink and realize I’m looking at Grey.

For a moment, it almost takes my breath away. I’ve been so desperate to find him, and now he’s here. He’s here.

It seems so impossible that for a terrifying moment, I think I’m hallucinating. He looks the same and different all at once, like he suddenly takes up more space in the world.

“Are you real?” I whisper.

Another green-and-black-clad soldier drops to his knees by my side. I almost flinch away, but then he says, “Harp,” in a familiar voice, and I discover I’m looking at my brother.

“Jake,” I rasp. “Jake.” My voice sounds like I haven’t used it in a year. Tears spill from my eyes.

He puts a hand against my forehead, my cheeks. “She’s burning up. Get these chains off her. Hey!” He turns his head, and I notice other soldiers have followed them into my cell, but they all blur into a mass of green and black. “Bil trunda,” Jake snaps.

I stare at him for a long moment, because I can’t tell if he’s speaking another language or if my brain has finally given up. Jake’s dark curly hair has grown long enough to fall into his eyes, and any softness in his face has been carved away.

His eyes search mine, and he draws back a bit. “They said you were injured.” His voice is gentler now. “Where are you hurt?” Another soldier approaches with keys, and Jake all but snatches them from his hand. The shackles fall away from my wrists, and he barely has time to unchain my ankles before I use all my strength to launch myself forward. The movement makes my leg ache and protest the movement, but I don’t care. My arms close around his neck, and I don’t ever want to let go.

“Jake,” I whimper.

He catches me. Holds me. “It’ll be all right,” he says softly, and I’m reminded of all the times we’d hide in his room, when Dad’s crimes caught up with us. Jake would whisper empty reassurances to me then, too. “It’ll be all right, Harper.”

But that wasn’t all right. And this won’t be either.

“Her leg,” says Grey. “Jake, she is bleeding.” He turns his head and speaks to one of the other soldiers. “Bring some water.”

My brother eases me back against the wall, and I look up at Grey. My brain keeps insisting this isn’t real, that I haven’t succeeded, that this is a fever dream.

“Scary Grey,” I whisper, and my voice breaks.

Proving worthy of his nickname, he wastes no time on emotion. He drops to a knee beside me and draws a dagger.

I suck in a breath and grab Jake’s arm.

Grey’s eyes meet mine, and those haven’t changed. He’s coolly intent, focused. “Do you no longer trust me?”

Maybe I shouldn’t. We’re on opposite sides of a war. But I stare back at him, and even through the fever and the exhaustion, I think of everything we endured together, from the moments when he first kidnapped me till the time he offered Lilith his sword on outstretched hands in a bid to save my life. I remember when he fell through the door of my apartment, broken and bleeding, desperate for my help. I remember the passion in his voice when he stood in the shadowed hallway, when he was the Commander of Rhen’s Royal Guard, and I’d first agreed to be the Princess of Disi. When Grey challenged my trust. When he made me understand what I’d agreed to.

My duty is to bleed so he does not, Grey said then. And now my duty is to bleed so you do not.

Now I’m the one bleeding, and he’s waiting with a dagger in his hand.

I swallow. “I trust you.”