Page 82 of Ignite
“And when would we have had time to go over everything?” Leda’s shoulder shoves into Adrian as she passes him, her eyes rolling. I can’t help the small grin that tugs at my lips. “When Lu was saving his ass from the Vale, or maybe when they both could barely keep their eyes open by the time Zeph brought them back?”
I may already have sisters, but she’s the closest thing to having another one. A pain-in-the-ass older sister, but a sibling nonetheless. My smile fades when my sister’s face flashes into my mind. I miss them. I really fucking miss them.
Leda stops on Lu’s other side, her arms crossed.
When she looks at her sister, I see something I don’t remember seeing before I got stuck in the Vale. Leda’s gaze softens, and she raises a brow at Lu, a small grin on her face. There’s a fondness in her eyes that wasn’t there before.
To anyone else, they might think Leda looks like the stone-cold warrior she is. But I can see through it—can see how much love she has for Lunaria.
I shift on the ground with a twinge in my chest as I wonder what else I’ve missed.
“Graylen,” Lu says, so heartbreakingly gentle, pulling my attention to her. She’s chewing the inside of her cheek again, and I know I’m not going to like what she’s about to say. “We have to go back to Crea.”
A dull buzzing drones in my ears.
Crea is the last place I want to be. The last place I want Lunariato be. Moros is there doing Divine knows what. Everysecond I was there, it felt like a blanket of darkness had been laid across my shoulders, looking for a way into my soul.
And now we’re returning.
Right now, we’re safely on the side of the Zenovia Mountains with a queen who supports her people. We’re surrounded by magic and wonder, along with a raw wild that freely flows through the land.
But that isn’t Crea. We’re going back to a harsh land overrun with dodder vines—a direct manifestation of the darkness plaguing it. Not just any darkness, but one directly from Vidaris herself. A tingle twinges at the base of my spine as fear creeps up my back.
I take a deep breath. I’m not in the Vale anymore. Lunaria is by my side. We’re in it together.
“It almost sounds like you just said we’re going back to Crea, little princess,”I say slowly through our connection, my gaze locked with Lu’s.“Somewhere I explicitly remember you saying you would never go back to.”
My chest rumbles as my magic presses against it. I’m begging for a quick outlet. And like the fucking perfect woman that she is, shesmirks. Her nervousness briefly falls away as the world dissolves into only her and me.
“Do you always believe what I say?”she murmurs into my mind.
Heat surges through my veins, warming the space between us. It focuses me. Pulls my attention away from the buzzing in my ears.
“Every single word,”I send back immediately, wondering if the teasing in my tone translates through our thoughts the way it would have had I said it out loud.
She huffs a soft laugh and mutters,“Liar.”
A throat clears, breaking the spell.
“Start gathering our things,” Leda growls to Adrian.
He opens his mouth to protest, but her eyes narrow, and hestomps away. But not before I catch the flush that tinted his face as he watched Leda. Interesting.
When he’s back in the cave, well out of earshot, Leda crouches down to face Lu and me.
“Adrian doesn’t know the entire reason we’re going,” Lunaria whispers, her gaze tracking Adrian as he sifts through a pack.
Lu’s conversation with Daimon floats into my mind. I remember praying to any Divine that would listen for my legs to hold me up until he left, but there was something Lunaria said that snapped my attention back to her.
“This is about Nightfall,”I guess.
The legendary dagger, said to pierce any darkness. When Lu said she knew where it was, I assumed she was bluffing. But then she explained the jagged white stone that she had in the Vale—not a stone at all, but a piece of Nightfall.
Lunaria nods, absentmindedly touching her vest. “Moros has it,” she says aloud. Her nostrils flare as her gaze bores into my mind. “And we’re going to get it back.”
Leda raises a brow, looking between us as she realizes she missed something, but she stays quiet.
I knew that was coming—could feel that Lu already had set her mind to something.
