The Broken Elf King (Kings of Avalier Book 2)

As we set off on horseback with our trusty escort, I snuggled into Raife’s back, feeling more at ease with our relationship than I had in a long time. We had somehow made amends, and now we were a team again. Even if it were just as friends which was not ideal, it was a step forward. Because a true friend wanted the other person’s dreams to come true, even if it crushed their own. I realized then that Raife was probably incapable of love at this point in his life and I’d been living a fairy tale thinking a few kisses or one night together would suddenly make him fall wildly in love with me.

This was a five-year business arrangement, and Raife deserved that after everything he’d lost.

Heading out of Thorngate and to the portion of the eastern woods that Autumn had marked on the map took only a half day’s ride. But that half day put us in the dead of night at the Nightfall border. Autumn had sketched a farm on the map with a bright yellow barn, and then had drawn a broken fence. From there she’d shown certain landmarks through the woods that led to the gates of Nightfall City.

The map showed that when we finally got to the gates, there was a picture of a tree split in two, like lightning had struck it, and then an arrow showing that you went under the gate. I had no idea of the landmark, as I didn’t make an effort to memorize trees, but I hoped we’d figure it out once we got there.

We found the farm with the yellow barn and Raife had our group stop.

“Kailani and I will go on alone from here,” Raife said to his lead Bow Men.

Both Cahal’s and my eyes widened at his statement.

“What?” we said in unison.

Raife pointed to the map and the words Three people only written on the bottom.

“I assume this means more than three people would be seen, or not fit or whatever the instructions are,” Raife says. “Once we get Kailani’s aunt, we will be three.”

“My lord, you’re the king, you cannot go into Nightfall territory alone,” Cahal said, and I nodded in agreement.

“I have to go or my aunt will not leave with you,” I said. “But I can go with any of your Bow Men,” I told Raife.

Cahal bowed deeply. “I would be honored—”

“No. She’s my wife, I will keep her safe,” Raife snapped.

My wife. I hadn’t heard him say that enough, and even though it was all for show I would never tire of it.

Raife was good at loving people while not truly loving them. He was fiercely protective but undeniably cold. I wondered in that moment if I could do this for five whole years. To hear him say romantic things like “She’s my wife. I will keep her safe,” and have my heart beat out of my chest as I stared at his soft lips.

Cahal looked unnerved. “My lord, I would never question your authority, but the Nightfall queen could capture you, she could kill you and Kailani, and then we’d be left with no one.”

Raife shook his head. “You’d have the council. They’d form a quorum. Besides, if Drae Valdren can sneak into Nightfall and kill the queen’s oldest son, I can sneak in and steal Lani’s feeble aunt.” There was determination in his gaze.

Cahal and I shared a knowing look. Was that what this was about? He wanted to prove that he could also one-up the queen?

I placed a hand on Cahal’s shoulder. “My friend, Autumn, does this every moon to visit her sister and nephew in Archmere. The fewer of us that go, the less likely we are to be seen.”

He looked stricken, like he couldn’t possibly think of letting his king go into enemy territory alone.

“Stay here. That’s an order,” Raife commanded, and ended the argument before it could begin.

“Yes, lord.” Cahal lowered his head.

With that, Raife and I dismounted the horse and went back into the carriage to grab some supplies. We took a small pack with water, and dried fruits, in case we were delayed, but intended to be back by morning light. There would be no sleep and lots of walking, but getting my aunt to safety before the war started was important to me. Healing her seizures was important. The Nightfall doctors said with each one her brain could be damaged. I knew Raife was risking a lot on this mission, but I didn’t see any other way.

As we cut across the farm, peering at the back fence for a break in the wood, I reached out and squeezed Raife’s hand.

“Thank you for doing this.” I held his hand, hoping to get across to him how much I appreciated him, but he just gave me a curt nod and dropped my fingers.

The familiar pain of his icy cold rejection wormed into my heart but I brushed it aside. This was just what we were now. It was a good thing I was the empath and not him. I wouldn’t want him to know how much I’d wrapped my happiness up in him and how badly he hurt me with small actions such as dropping my hand.

Suck it up, Kailani.

“There it is!” Raife said as we tiptoed across the field and over to a corner of the fence. These sleeping farmers had no idea their king and queen were traipsing through their pasture at odd hours of the night. Sure enough, there was a gap in the fence big enough for a person to slip through if they went sideways. Every inch of the Nightfall border was walled off, from Fallenmoore to Necromere. It was stone and at least ten feet high. The queen made every citizen take a rotating “civil duty” weekend to build it about twenty years ago. Keep the pests out, she would tell us. On top of the wall were guard posts every few miles. This was right in between two of them. About four of the large stones were missing, allowing a person to squeeze through if they crouched.

Raife stared at the breach in the wall and rubbed his chin. “I’m torn between wanting to close this off after tonight to keep Nightfall soldiers out of Archmere, or leave it open so that we can sneak in at a future date.”

Always thinking like a king.

“My vote is to leave it open. If Nightfall really wanted in, they would just climb the fence and jump over.” Which we could have done as well, but it increased the risk of being seen by the guards up top.

He nodded. “I think you’re right.”

I’d read a war theory book in his bedroom yesterday while I was stuck there for several hours. So I knew a little about what he might be thinking.

Raife ducked down, going through the hole in the fence first, and I held my breath, waiting to see if it was safe to follow.

“Come on,” he whispered.

I crouched down and looked through just as he held out a hand for me. Taking his offered assistance, I allowed him to pull me through, and stood before him, brushing off my dress. He didn’t back up to give me space, so I stood right up against his chest with the wall at my back.

With our bodies this close together, my heart ratcheted in my chest so loudly I was certain he heard it.

“If things get dangerous, I want you to come back here and wait for me, okay?” His voice was deep, and the protective vibes coming off of him were so strong I could feel my jaw tighten.

I laughed nervously. “You’re the king. If things get dangerous, you need to come back here and I’ll press on.”

“No,” he growled, holding my gaze. “I’ve had enough of your heroic efforts to last me a lifetime. If I tell you to run, you run. Got it?”

I hadn’t really known what my empathic gift was. All my life I’d just sort of kept to myself because people overwhelmed me. Now that I knew what it was and that the feelings weren’t mine, they were his, it still confused me. Because in this moment, underneath all of that protectiveness, was a deep love. Or at least what felt like love. Was that my love for him? It felt different, like a raw love mixed with so much fear. Because I wasn’t afraid to love; I welcomed the feeling.

“Okay, Raife.” I reached up and trailed my fingers down his jaw.

His eyelids fluttered, but then that fear surged up so strongly that it drowned out all the adoration left in him and he stepped back.

He’s at war already, I thought. A war with himself.

And there was nothing I could do about it.

“Stay behind me,” he muttered, and then took off into the woods.

With a sigh I followed him and shoved down all of the tumultuous feelings I was having.

We trudged through the woods, following the map. Raife kept his hood pulled up over his elvin ears and an arrow nocked into his bow. I was a foot behind him the entire way as we wound through the path that Autumn had left us on the map. There were little clues letting us know we were going the right way. A flat stack of rocks, a ribbon tied to a tree. I assumed this path kept one out of sight of any of the woodland guards, and I was right, because when the giant Nightfall castle loomed in the distance I nearly cried out in relief.

It was my home—filled with bittersweet memories, but my home nonetheless.

Raife stopped abruptly and I slammed into his back.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Nothing. It’s just… bigger than I thought.”

I nodded. The Nightfall queen was a visionary, an inventor, a builder. Everything was big, strong, made of steel or stone. Made to last and made from the blood, sweat, and tears of the Nightfall population. What the humans lacked in magic, they made up for in good old-fashioned hard work.

We were still hidden in the tree line and I watched his face as he stared up at the looming fifty-foot stone wall erected around the city. His gaze flicked to the dozens of archers patrolling the top wall, and the river moat that ran around the entire city. His eyes held wonder, disappointment, and determination. Or maybe that’s what I felt from him.

“It’s nearly impenetrable,” he breathed. “For a large army to breach that will take…” I let him trail off, knowing his mind was working out the kinks of his eventual war plan. While he stared, working through all the different ways of attack, I turned around every few seconds and scanned the tree line for Nightfall warriors. I had thought up a cover story if we were caught by soldiers, but I was hoping that didn’t happen, because I wasn’t sure if Raife would go for it. Humans couldn’t smell supernaturals. So long as Raife didn’t show his ears we should be okay. I’d made him take off any insignia of Archmere before we left. The queen did employ a few sniffers, but they were rare. Not many fae wanted to betray their own kind for gold coin.

“We should move.” I finally dragged Raife away from his gawking and towards the two sharp rocks that matched the ones on the map that Autumn had drawn. She’d sketched a log and then a plus sign and then a boat. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but I was hoping it would make sense when we reached the two sharp rocks.

Raife followed my lead, and I quietly celebrated when I noticed the two rocks jutting out of the ground just a few paces to our right. The rocks were at the edge of the river moat, and when we reached them I looked down at the hollowed-out log on shore and grinned.

The log was a boat. Log, plus sign, boat. And it looked like it wouldn’t fit more than three grown men, hence why this route was only enough for three.

Bless you, Autumn.

She had no idea that she was saving my aunt right now. I’d have to eventually get word to her as well, and get her out of the city before an attack. But there was a slight chance she would spread word to others and then the queen would find out, so I’d have to figure out a way to just take her and keep her locked down until after the attack. Though it seemed we were months away from that, so all I really needed to focus on now was my aunt and healing her of her seizures.

Raife reached down and grasped the edge of the hollowed-out log, using the rock to steady himself as he set his bow inside and then stepped down. The two sharp rocks were large, and we were positioned between them, so unless you were standing on the high castle wall directly in front of us, you couldn’t see us. Raife stretched out a hand for me and I grabbed it, aiming one foot for the boat, and then pushed off the ground. The small log canoe wobbled and I had to suppress a shriek as I fell forward. Raife caught me by the hips, falling backwards with my weight, and then I was suddenly on top of him. Heat bloomed to life between us and I felt his entire body stiffen beneath me.

I swallowed hard, trying not to think about how much I loved him underneath me. How much I missed his body pressed against mine. How much I thought about the one time we’d laid together.

With little effort, he hoisted me up into a sitting position, but not before glancing quickly down at my lips.

It felt like a small triumph that he was still thinking about my lips, but before I could dwell on it Raife grabbed a rope and got into position to pull us across. It was a pulley system, I realized. The boat pulled back and forth, so no matter what side you were on you could pull it back over. I wondered if Autumn had made it or someone before her. The river wasn’t terribly wide, but there were all kinds of rumors about the queen poisoning the water so that if you went in you would die. This forced the residents to use the front gates, which were monitored. I saw some leather gloves in the bottom of the boat and handed them to him.

“Don’t touch the water. Rumor says it’s poisoned,” I told him, keeping my voice low.

He scowled at the murky water and then took the gloves, putting them on. “Of course it is.”

Looking up at the high wall and the guards patrolling it, Raife waited for his chance to cross, eyeing the tall reeds on the other side of the river. The grasses were high, maybe three feet, and we could easily lie flat and inch across to avoid being seen. When he felt it was a good time to go, he pushed us off the edge of the river and then pulled the rope quickly but silently. I crouched down as far as I could go as we were directly exposed in the middle of the river. Raife grunted and puffed as he heaved forward with each pull, sweat beading his brow. His muscles strained against his tunic as he hauled us across the water at breakneck speed. Before I knew it, we were across and I reached out and held on to the tall reeds, hiding us in them as we waited for the alarm that we might have been seen. Raife ducked as well, laying his head against my shoulder and fiddling with the land anchor. A minute passed, and then two. No arrows flew, no horn sounded. We were clear.

Raife pulled out the map and we consulted it under the moonlight. There was a big black circle about ten feet from the river’s edge. It was at the base of the tree split in two, and it was marked with one word: hole. That’s where the map ended.

Hole.

He looked at me pleadingly. This was my hometown after all. But the thing about growing up in Nightfall was that our queen was constantly paranoid of assassination. We had curfews, and if we wanted to travel we had to register. We didn’t just frolic along the palace walls staring at trees. I shrugged, looking at a few trees ten or twenty paces away.

Autumn was drunk on elf wine when she made this. The word hole was barely legible, and the split tree, if you looked closely, wasn’t really split in two so much as it could have just been a bad drawing of a tree from a drunken girl.

Tipping my head in the direction of the trees, I hiked up my dress and began to crawl on all fours through the tall grass.

“You should have worn trousers,” Raife muttered behind me.

I scoffed. “Nonsense, I want to look pretty while pulling off a rescue,” I joked.

Trousers would have been smart, but I hadn’t even thought about it until now. The poor silk of my dress was already getting stained.

Rest in peace, beautiful dress.

We reached a cluster of four trees and I sat in front of them, still hidden in the tall grass. Raife seated himself next to me, looking down at the map. “None of them are split in half, and what does hole mean?”

I sighed. “Listen, Autumn would never intentionally lead me astray, but we were really drunk that night.”

Raife’s eyes danced with something I couldn’t place. “Yes. I remember.”

My belly warmed at the way he said it, and I wondered if we’d done something I wished I remembered.

“So maybe her drawing just wasn’t good. It has to be one of these trees.” I pointed to the four of them before us.

Raife nodded, looking perplexed. “Okay, and the word ‘hole?’ Once inside the city, it shows us coming up a storm drain. Is storm drain ‘hole’ in Autumn’s drunken language?”

This was absolutely not the time to giggle but I couldn’t help it. “I think it might be,” I told him, and then chewed my lip. Was there a hole in the tree with a key to the storm drain? Had she meant to finish the map but we got drunk and it slipped her mind? I wished I remembered everything from that night so that I would know. Getting on my hands and knees again, I crawled to the base of the first tree, inspecting it.

I went to the second tree but found nothing. It was as I was crawling over to the third that my hand suddenly came down to the ground and fell into a—

“Hole!” I whisper-screamed, losing balance. I threw myself to the side so I wouldn’t fall into the giant gaping hole in the ground. It was impossible to see with the tall grass surrounding it unless you were close to it, and it looked wide enough for a very large man to crawl down.

Raife crawled up beside me and we stared down into the hole. It was completely black, which was actually terrifying.

“Are we supposed to go down there?” I asked him. “Do you think this is the storm drain that leads into the city?”

Raife frowned. “I hope it’s a secret tunnel to the queen’s bedroom. I’ll slit her throat in her sleep and end this war before it starts.”

I knew he was dead serious, so I didn’t laugh.

“I highly doubt that the queen would have a secret access unguarded like this.” I felt around the outside of the hole and my fingers caught the edge of cold steel. I gasped. “It is a storm drain!”

He looked impressed for a moment, and then stuck his head into the hole before coming back up. “I hear slow trickling water,” he confirmed.

It was dry season, so hopefully that meant we weren’t about to go swimming.

“Do you mind jumping into the dark scary hole first?” I asked with a nervous laugh.

Raife gave me a winning smile that made my stomach flip over. “Always,” he said, and there was something about that word and the way he said it that melted my heart.

With a fearless wink, he leapt into the dark abyss and I immediately heard the splashing of water as he landed. “Jump down, I’ll catch you!”

I swallowed hard, closing my eyes, and then jumped up into the air, and down. His arms came around me, hooking under my knees and back, holding me to his chest. I was plunged into complete darkness, only the beating of Raife’s heart and his strong arms to keep me sane. A purple light then illuminated the space and I looked up to see that it was coming from him. He was staring down at me with a serious look on his face.

“Being close to you like this… it’s the best feeling in the world,” he breathed.

I forgot where we were then. Who I was. What was up or down. I was just lost in his eyes, which were glowing light purple with elvin magic. What was he talking about? It came out of nowhere but I didn’t care. I just smiled.

“You take the pain away. I forget what it’s like not to be consumed by grief and revenge all the time,” he clarified, and it was like I’d been plunged into ice cold water.

Oh.

He wanted to be close to me because I was an empath, not because I was… me.

“Glad to help,” I said with a wan smile. Was this what it was like for his mother too? Always having people want her for her power? I wished she were still alive so that I could ask. It would be nice to know another empath.

I noticed a metal ladder behind him. “Ladder for the way back,” I pointed out, hoping to cut this tension. In this moment, I wasn’t sure I could stay fake-married to him for the next five years. It would be painful for me.

He started to walk to the castle and I tapped his chest. “You can put me down now.”

He shook his head. “You’ll ruin your dress. And your shoes aren’t right for this.”

I wasn’t going to argue with that, so I allowed him to carry me the next hundred or so feet under the castle wall, all the while absorbing the emotions coming off of him as if it were second nature.

Guilt. Sadness. Fear. Lust.

I used to think that the lust was for me, but now I wondered if he was just thinking of one of the previous girls he’d bedded. This whole empath thing was new, and picking up on emotions in real time was hard to discern.

I sighed, wishing someone would come along and take away my heartache and rejection as easily as I could take his.

Raife stopped beneath a big metal storm drain with another ladder hanging from it and looked down at me. “You think this is it?”

I nodded; I’d been tracking how deep in we’d gone. “One of many, but this is closer to the west wall, which is where I lived. It’s pretty quiet at night since it’s full of neighborhoods.”

Raife heaved me onto the ladder. I clung to it as he then reached up and pushed the steel drain up and over with a grunt.

“Shhh,” I told him.

He paused, and then pushed again. It wasn’t scraping, so I was guessing this was in the grasses by the community garden. I didn’t know where every storm drain was, but I knew generally where we were, and that was the only grassy area near the west wall. When the drain cap was completely off, I climbed up the ladder and peeked my head out a few inches.

I didn’t expect my heart to ache when I looked upon the sleepy street of my old neighborhood, but it did. We were in the gardens, one of my favorite places, and I could see the university off in the distance, and the queen’s palace. Autumn’s cottage was within stone’s throw, and so was my aunt’s. Tears welled in my eyes. I wasn’t prepared for the emotions of it all.

“All clear?” Raife asked below.

I wiped at my eyes and nodded, hoisting myself up out of the drain. I stood and Raife popped up out of the hole in the ground too and stood beside me, looking around wildly with his bow drawn.

“Put that in your cloak,” I told him. “They will assume you are human if you are with me.”

He obliged and tucked it into his waistbelt, under his cloak with the hood pulled up. I watched as his eyes darted around in fascination. Grabbing his hand, I pulled him onto the cobblestone walkway and past the rows of houses. My street was three more over, and we’d have to pass McFee’s Tavern to get there. Technically, it was after curfew, but the guards let us drink at the tavern and go right home if we didn’t get in fights or vandalize property. I wondered if any of my friends from the university were inside right now.

Penelope? Matt? Did they all think I was a slave sold off to some horrible master who whipped me daily? As we approached the tavern, a figure walked up out of one of the alleys.

I recognized his guard’s uniform immediately.

Wasting no time, I pushed Raife into the wall of Mrs. Honeycutt’s house and then pressed my lips to his. He froze, seemingly in shock at my sudden kiss, but then the guard’s voice made its way to us.

“Hey, you’re out after curfew,” he snapped

Raife’s lips parted then, his tongue stroking mine; his hand came around to grasp my butt. I moaned in surprise, not even caring if this was all for show, and heat flared to life between us. The guard’s voice was closer this time.

“Lovebirds… time to go home or I’ll have to take you in.”

We broke away panting, locking eyes for a moment, and I forgot about the guard or the fact that we were doing a high-stakes rescue mission. It was just Raife and I in this moment.

“Get your lady home.” The guard looked at Raife and Raife nodded, threading his fingers through mine, stroking my palm and then pulling me away from the guard and towards the tavern.

My legs felt weak from that kiss, but I knew Raife had only played along for the guard. “See, top marks in theatre,” I told him.

Raife gave me a side glance, and I was surprised to see hurt there.

“This is my street,” I said before he could speak, and pointed to our lane just beyond the tavern. Music blared from the open windows of the neighborhood pub, and I wondered who was playing tonight. Moxie and the Heartbreakers? The Radical Six?

Raife screwed up his face. “What is that awful music?”

I laughed. “Rock.”

The drums were loud and nothing like they had in Archmere. It probably just sounded like a bunch of noise.

Grasping his hand, I broke into a run down my street and towards the little brown cottage with the bird feeder outside. I hadn’t seen my aunt in over a month. Not since they were yanking me away as a slave.

Autumn promised to bring her news that I was alive and well in Archmere, but I knew she wouldn’t believe it until she saw it. She was very protective over me, much like Raife.

Raife kept scanning the street, left and right, until we reached my door.

The little sign I helped my auntie paint when I was four years old hung above the doorway. “Love grows here,” it read. The pink and purple flowers were chipping off, but the black lettering was still legible. We’d painted it after I moved in with her, after my parents died and she assured me this would always be a home where I felt safe and loved. I bent down and pulled up the pot near the door, grinning when I saw the key was still there.

Slipping the key into the lock, Raife and I stepped inside and I closed the door quickly behind us. The house was dark and quiet, and I knew she would be sleeping at this hour. I didn’t want to scare her by looming over her bed, so I called out loudly into house, “Auntie!”

We passed the little sitting room and I called out again, “Auntie, it’s me!”

There was a rustling in the back of the house, near her room, and then I heard her, “Lani?”

I broke into a run then, going left at the kitchen and then down the hall to her open door. She was sitting on the edge of her bed with the light turned on. Her blankets were at her waist; she was wearing one of her floral nightgowns. I looked at her with tears in my eyes. I didn’t even give her a chance to speak, I just crashed into her with the biggest hug, pushing her backwards on the bed. Her throaty laughter filled the room and it was the best sound, the sound of my childhood, of happiness and better days.

I pulled back to look at her, and the second she saw me she broke into a huge grin. But what I saw stopped me dead in my tracks.

Half of her face wasn’t moving. She seemed to notice my reaction and touched the slack side of her face. “I had another seizure yesterday, a bad one. The medicine doesn’t work anymore.”

“Raife!” I called, but he was right there, swooping in front of me. He pulled back his hood.

“Hello…” He knelt before her and extended his hand. “I’m Kailani’s husband, the king of the elves.”

My aunt looked like she was in shock, which was understandable. “So it’s true.” She reached out and took his hand. “You shouldn’t be here,” she told him. “The queen hates you.”

Raife gave her a dazzling smile. “Well, the feeling is mutual.”

“Raife is the greatest healer in the realm, Auntie. He’s going to fix you,” I told her.

Raife held a hand over her head and squinted as if he were reading a complicated text. He frowned, and then nodded as if understanding something.

“What is it?” I asked.

Raife looked at my aunt instead of me. “Your seizures are caused by a growth in your brain. As the growth gets bigger, it damages the surrounding tissue.”

My heart felt like it had stopped beating. In all our tests and all of our machines here in Nightfall, we hadn’t figured that out. “A mystery illness” they called it. Seizure disorder of “unknown cause,” they’d said. They drugged her instead of finding the root cause, and now in ten seconds Raife had figured it all out.

“Please tell me you can fix it.” I knelt beside him and took her hand.

Raife gazed at me with a smile, and then at my aunt. “I can. It will take a few sessions at the infirmary in Archmere. The goal is to slowly shrink the mass. If we do it too quickly, it can disturb things and cause another seizure. With the mass gone, you should get full facial movement back immediately.”

I’d been watching my aunt this entire time, stony faced, in shock, but at Raife’s words she burst into tears and then pulled him in for a hug.

“Bless you, child,” she whispered and I smiled.

Watching my auntie call the king of the elves a child brought me great joy. And to my surprise, Raife reached around and returned her hug.

When they pulled back, my aunt looked back at me. “You got married without me?” She picked up my hand and inspected the ring. Raife had given it back to me so that the palace staff didn’t ask questions if I was seen without it.

I glanced at Raife and he nodded. I’d told him that I could lie to anyone in the realm but I wouldn’t lie to my aunt, so she would be the only person we would tell.

“It’s fake. In order for Raife to get what he wanted from his council and to pay off my debt. In five years, we will file for a dissolution,” I told her.

She frowned, looking from Raife to me. “Oh,” was all she said, dropping the ring back down.

“Naturally, no one knows that, so I would appreciate your discretion,” Raife added.

My aunt nodded. “As long as you treat her with respect and kindness, I don’t care what kind of little arrangement you two have going on.”

I squeezed her hand, grateful she was taking this well and knowing one hundred percent that she was lying when she said she didn’t care. She wanted me to marry for love—she’d always told me so—but she was trying to be agreeable. Raife sensed the lie too, because he made the face he always did when he knew someone was lying. Like he smelled something distasteful.

“Shall we get out of the place?” I asked my aunt.

She stood, looking around her room. “How long should I pack for?”

Raife and I shared another look. The war on Nightfall was his thing, and I didn’t want to spill the beans and jeopardize the mission in any way.

Raife cleared his throat. “It would be my honor if you would come live at the palace with Kailani and I for the foreseeable future.”

My heart warmed at the way he’d worded it. My aunt seemed surprised at that, her mouth popping open, and then she looked at me as if needing confirmation.

“Auntie, you can’t come back. You can only pack one bag,” I told her, hoping she understood I would never ask this if it wasn’t important. Life or death.

She swallowed hard, seeming to understand that it would be unsafe to come back, and unsafe meant war.

My aunt nodded. “Doesn’t matter. Stuff doesn’t make a home. Family does.”

My heart pinched at that.

Over the next ten minutes she packed her bag, bringing items that surprised me. All of her silver, which made sense, but not a single piece of clothing, I guessed because she could make more; she was an expert seamstress. She brought her favorite tea mug, a bunch of my baby pictures, and pictures with my mom and her growing up, all of her jewelry, and a bag of her favorite cookies.

“Ready.” She beamed, always in a chipper mood, and I tried not to react to the fact that half of her face wasn’t moving. Raife gave me a sweet smile, letting me know he would heal her and all would be well, and then we moved to the front door. I gave my aunt a quick rundown of the escape route, knowing that lowering her down the ladder and into the tunnel would take the longest time and we’d be the most exposed.

“The guards patrol right in front of the tavern. It’s a bit longer route but we should pass the industrial complex instead,” my aunt offered after I told her we were confronted with a guard on our way here.

Raife looked to me to take the lead and I nodded. It was a good idea. The industrial complex was only busy in the daytime, and rarely had but one guard at night. I used to sneak over there as a teen and shoot at glass bottle targets with friends with our rock launchers we made in school.

“Let’s do it,” I agreed.

Raife held out a hand. “I’ll let you ladies take the lead.”

My aunt gave me a knowing look, a look that said she liked him, and I tried not to blush. Opening the front door, I looked left and right, making sure it was clear. It was. We all stepped out onto the street and I palmed the key in my hand, seeing no use to lock up or put it back. I wanted to keep it as a memento. My aunt started to walk left, away from the tavern and down the back of the road that would lead to the industrial complex, but then I got an idea.

“Be right back,” I told them, and turned. Lifting up on my tiptoes, I grabbed the “love grows here” sign, having to wiggle it back and forth to loosen the nail that held it in place. When I finally got it off, my aunt was waiting behind me with her small suitcase open.

I grinned, placing it on top of all of her beloved possessions, and then we were ready to go.

We made quick work of the longer route, but as we neared the industrial building I noticed the lights were on in one of them. This was where all of the queen’s machines were made and tested and replicated en masse. A lot of the citizens worked machine factory jobs, but they were usually only working during the daylight hours.

There were shadows moving behind the frosted glass windows and we walked faster, hoping to pass before anyone saw us. Just as we neared the closest window with a light on, a blood-curdling scream ripped through the air and the hair on my arms stood up.

Raife stopped and I did as well, sharing a look with him.

My aunt chewed her lip, eyeing the window, then the scream came again. It was female, and it was clear she was in pain or being tortured.

“Not sure I can sleep at night if we pass by and don’t try to help.” My aunt was always direct and to the point, which was a big thing I loved about her.

“Same,” I agreed.

Raife sighed, pulling out his small dagger, and handed it to me. “You know how to use one, I assume?” He’d seen me fight the slaver the first day, and although I didn’t relish violence I would use it when needed, without hesitation.

I nodded and he pulled out his bow. Turning to my aunt, he held her gaze. “Meet us at the garden storm drain. If a guard stops you on the way, tell him you’re leaving your husband, that you caught him cheating. Make a big scene and make the guard feel uncomfortable.”

My aunt nodded. “Won’t be too far from the truth.”

I winced; her husband really had cheated on her, but it was he who left for the other woman. Raife looked stricken, but my aunt smiled her crooked smile. “His loss. See you soon. Save that girl, or at least put her out of her misery.”

We nodded, but the thought of killing the girl hadn’t crossed my mind, and now I felt sick.