Page 104 of Omen of ice
Daroose sighs. He turns and starts back the way he came, pausing for a moment. Without looking back, he says, “Valen doesn’t deserve you, Keltania.” And then he’s gone, swallowed by the mountain.
I turn my head to the sky, searching for a bird to take a message to Levina. She needs to know what’s going on. Unfortunately, I can’t feel anything. Either I’m too far from Valen to tap into the druid power or there just aren’t any birds around. Given the state of the forest, the lack of wildlife isn’t surprising.
Eventually, I give up and decide to try a bit farther down the way. Resigned, I make my way back to the path, but I’m cut off by a small reddish-brown blur that streaks across my field of vision.“Fae! Fae are here! Fae!”
My first instinct is relief. Valen regrets how we left things and sought me out so we could continue to Ventin together. I close my eyes and concentrate on the forest, on the trees and the plants. I’m able to pinpoint which way someone is coming from—but by the time I realize it isn’t who I hoped, it’s too late.
“Hello, Aphelian,” Valen’s aunt Liani says with a snarl.
34
Valen
I should have gone after her. Letting Tania wander into the woods in the middle of the night was foolish. Her anger was justified. Her words cut deep, but when my mind cleared, I knew she didn’t mean them.
Not entirely.
Delkin stands at the top of the ridge, hand extended to Benj. Once he’s up, I take his place, and my father pulls me onto the next ridge. “Another few miles and we’ll be there. Are you sure she’ll meet us?”
“There’s no doubt in my mind.” Tania wants the link broken just as much as I do—if not more since learning the truth. If she doesn’t show, she’ll be stuck with the shadow of my presence for the rest of her days. “She’ll be there. She wants me gone because, apparently, being tied to me isdestroyingher.”
“It is,” Benj says casually.
I stop walking. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Delkin glares at his brother, then turns to me. “Tania is very ill. She has been since before you reached Vey Brill.”
“Ill from what?” Daroose said she’d smelled wrong. Was that what he meant? But when I asked, she told me it was nothing!
Being linked to you is killing me…Shit!
“Maybe instead of trying to hide things from each other, you should have talked.” Benj shakes his head. “Things would have turned out differently.”
“Humans aren’t compatible with Fae magic.” Delkin frowns. “It’s been killing her for weeks now. I gave her a way to keep it at bay—”
“The braid. She said she lost it sometime after the sniffer.”
Delkin nods. “I don’t think she lost it. I think the magic simply was too powerful. I believe it dissolved when she froze the Winter Guard. If her high priestess doesn’t break the link soon, Tania won’t survive.”
“What do you mean, she won’t survive?” Panic wells in my chest, and a bubble of anger begins to form. How could they know about this and keep it to themselves?
Benj shakes his head. “She’s human, Valen…”
Maybe they’re wrong. “She’s human, but we’re linked and I feel absolutely fine.”
“Since the magic is Fae, it’s only affecting her. Probably why you didn’t even realize anything was wrong. It’s likely that each time you used your magic, it got worse for her. Neither one of you could have possibly known…”
But he’s wrong. I felt…something. But I was so self-absorbed that it never occurred to me.Fuck. She even told me and I brushed her off.
“But you knew.” The accusation is bitter and full of venom. “You knew how sick she was, and you said nothing to me?”
“I understand your anger, Valen.” Delkin rests a hand on my shoulder. “But she asked me not to tell you. I was honoring her wishes.”
“How honorable of you,” I snap. “That’s not really the kind of thing you keep quiet.”
I don’t know where we stand, but I know that I care for Tania. I’m still not sure what it means or to what depth those feelings go, but I know one thing with absolute certainty. I will not allow her to suffer and die out here alone.
…
