Page 146 of The Last Remaining Light

“We cannot take the main evacuation routes,” Korvel said, returning his attention to the dark passage beyond the door. “The Council exchange will be overwhelmed by now, and if the Vigil Orders have begun containment sweeps in the lower district, every marked refuge will be watched.” His eyes pinned on Caelyn. “Along with those who should be ex—”

“Do not finish that comment, Korvel,” Elowynn seethed.

Snapping his mouth closed, Korvel looked away, his lips thinning.

Alyra’s grip firmed around the hilt of her blade, ignoring the spat. “Then where are you taking us?”

“There is an old emergency shelter beneath the eastern transit galleries,” he said. “It was built after the western district collapse in 611 A.V. and sealed when the newer Council shelters were constructed. Most people have forgotten it even exists.”

Elowynn stared at him, her brows pulled down in confusion. “But you clearly haven't.”

His mouth tugged into something too tired to be a smile. “For better or worse, my lady. I make a habit of remembering things that may prove useful one sun.”

Caelyn gave a faint, humorless scoff beside her. “Convenient habit.”

Korvel’s gaze pinned on him. “At the moment, yes. It seems so.”

The two men held each other’s stare for several breaths. Elowynn felt the pressure begin to gather between them again. It was different from the tension she had known with Korvel before. That had been politics, attraction, calculation, and the uncomfortable awareness of a man who wanted more of her than she was willing to give.

What this was with Caelyn was simpler and far more dangerous.

Caelyn didn't trust Korvel because he had seen the bruise beneath her sleeve, and Korvel didn't trust Caelyn because he had seen enough to understand that Veylspire would kill him.

“Are you two quite finished?” Elowynn asked. “Because I am pretty damn certain that we have run out of time.”

The scratching had intensified now.

Both men looked at her. She lifted a brow in response.

The irritation and firmness in her own voice surprised her less this time. Something inside her had changed since the gala, since Caelyn’s arrival, since the Spire split open above the city. She was tired of being pulled between men who thought protection and control were close enough to share a name.

She was tired of being treated like something to be protected instead of someone allowed to choose.

“We move,” she said, looking first at Korvel and then at Caelyn. “And we do so without either of you deciding this is the correct moment to prove which one of you is more insufferable.”

Lora lifted one hand. “For the record, I would like to know the answer eventually.”

Alyra shot her a withering look.

“I don’t mean now,” Lora whispered to Alyra. “I just mean… you know. Later.”

Korvel stepped into the corridor first, and Alyra followed with her blade held low. Lora went next after stuffing the remaining crystals more securely into the deep folds of her robe, her skirts now bulging slightly.

Elowynn stayed beside Caelyn; one arm wrapped around his waist despite the stiffness in his body. He wanted to refuse the help; she could feel it in the way his muscles resisted leaning against her, as though every instinct in him insisted he should be the one carrying her through danger rather than allowing her to keep him upright. He would refuse anyone else, she knew that.

“Do not be heroic right now,” she said under her breath.

His eyes flicked toward her. “I didn't say anything.”

“You thought it very loudly.”

For a moment, his face relaxed. The expression was gone almost as quickly as it came, swallowed beneath pain and the dark strain Blackwake had left under his skin, but Elowynn saw it. She had learned the language of his small expressions long before either of them understood what they meant to each other.

“You always did accuse me of that,” he murmured.

“Because you always did it. And clearly, five turnings have not changed that.”

His lips twitched, a shadow of a smile forming.