Page 132 of Commanding Blood And Bonds
“For Hearthkeeper,” Dad said, “she smuggled food and medicine to imprisoned Paladins behind enemy lines. Eventually planned their escape.”
I frowned. “Then why does no one know her name?” Someone like that should’ve been a legend.
“She wasn’t one for the spotlight,” Ma said softly. “Preferred her actions stay unsung. But we knew. Of course we did.”
“And the final trial?”
“She completed the Shadowed Path by entering an abandoned crypt in the old country,” Ma continued. “It was rumored to be cursed, but she didn’t care. She went in to retrieve an ancient relic of Bellpost proper, and braved the labyrinth alone. She brought it home.”
“What relic?”
“A trinket,” she said. “A ring from the Hadrianna line.”
“But she knew it could buy peace with The Six,” Dad added. “So we used it as an offering. It worked.”
“The Council’s been secure since,” Ma said.
Expose corruption.
Restore balance.
Reclamation.
Those were the themes of Valora Lamb’s trials.
And now they were the very blueprint of her vendetta.
TWENTY-SEVEN
THE DELEGATION
AUGUST
“Help me.”
The whimper was so faint my sleep-deprived brain almost missed it. I blinked, trying to clear the exhaustion from my eyes as I scanned our group—Alec, seated beside me against a tree trunk, his gaze locked on Ally with lethal stillness, and half a dozen Terramyst wolves lying nearby. Ally was still in the other realm, but for the first time in days, her brow furrowed in distress. The first sign of emotion we’d seen.
“Did she—”
Alec answered with a single nod.
It was probably the longest I’d ever gone in any life without speaking to him. We’d exhausted every topic in the first forty-eight hours—Adrastos’s escape, the odds our souls were intact, whether we could keep protecting Fae without pissing off a powerful earth-wielder who wasn’t ready to be benched—and had promptly gotten our asses handed to us.
I cracked my spine with a stretch and crouched, dry throat working to swallow as I watched her.
“Please. Help me.”
The second plea had me on my feet. Alec was a heartbeat behind as we closed the distance. One of Kingsley’s wolves raised its enormous head, snowy coat shimmering under the moonlight.
I crouched in front of her, every instinct begging to pull her out of whatever madness had taken hold. She’d been drawing from our bond for days, and as I shot Alec a look, I signed shield’s up, using the language he’d been teaching me. Grayshell and Westerlund used it before our mental bond was forged, and though we’d stopped asking questions, it was comforting to feel my shield ripple and know Alec was reinforcing it.
“No,” Ally gasped, tears welling, voice breaking. “No.”
I glanced at Alec again, silently asking for answers, but he only shrugged, just as lost.
“Ally.”
“No, God, please no.”
