Chapter 720: I Would Have Forgiven An Enemy

AELINDRIS PALACE - THE PRINCE’S CHAMBERS

Tristan Aelindor woke up screaming her name.

The healers heard it first because the healers were closest, and the sound that left the prince’s throat was the sound of a man whose body had been unconscious for fourteen hours and whose first conscious act was to reach for the woman who had been holding his hand when he went under and whose hand was gone.

"Where is she?"

The question hit the healer nearest the bed with enough force to make the man step backward, because the question wasn’t a question, it was a demand wrapped in a voice that was shredded from seizures and hoarse from unconsciousness and carrying a fury so raw it had zero polish and zero diplomacy and zero interest in either.

"Your Highness, you need to rest, the corruption—"

"WHERE. IS. SHE."

The second healer looked at the first healer. The first healer looked at the door. The door looked like a very attractive exit strategy for men whose job description did not include telling a Crown Prince that his wife had left the kingdom while he was unconscious.

Vesper appeared in the doorway.

"She left, Tristan," she said, in a tone that suggested she had been waiting since the moment the portal closed to say it. "With your brother. Hours ago. She took one look at you seizing on the floor and decided the wolf king was a better investment."

Tristan’s eyes moved to Vesper with a slowness that was more dangerous than speed.

"What did you say to her?"

"I told her the truth. That her presence was the obstacle. That you would heal faster without her hovering over your bed like a professional mourner. That the kindest thing she could do for the man she claimed to love was to get out of his way. She already knew what she had to do."

"You told her to leave."

"I told her what every healer in this palace has been too cowardly to say out loud."

Tristan threw the blankets off his body with a violence that sent the bedside table crashing to the floor, the water pitcher shattering against marble, the sound of breaking ceramic joining the sound of a prince whose composure had been shattered by a woman in a doorway who had just confessed to exiling the love of his life while he was too unconscious to stop it.

"ARMOR," he bellowed at the guard outside his chamber. "MY ARMOR. NOW. AND TELL THE CAVALRY TO MOUNT."

"Your Highness, the corruption is still—"

"I don’t remember asking about the corruption. I remember asking for my ARMOR."

Fin watched Tristan Aelindor transform from a man in a sickbed to a man at war in under ninety seconds, and the transformation was the most terrifying thing he had witnessed since the genocide of Frostborne, because at least the genocide had been committed by strangers and this was being committed by love.

???

AELINDRIS SOUTH BORDER

Lucian felt the disturbance before his scouts reported it.

His wolf form had been running for two hours, River asleep on his back, her body curled against his fur with boneless trust, exhaustion having defeated her grief by pure attrition.

Her hands were still tangled in the fur at the base of his neck, and her grip had loosened as sleep took her, and the loosening was the first time in fourteen hours that her body had stopped clenching against the world and allowed itself to rest.

Then the air shifted.

The wind carried ozone and green magic and the atmospheric signature of a Fae portal being torn open at scale, and the tear was close, less than a mile ahead, positioned at the exact point where the coastal road narrowed between two cliff faces and the narrowing was a chokepoint.

Lucian’s stride broke.

He slowed, then stopped abruptly, his massive wolf body locking on the road because his senses had found a threat and his heart had already found family.

River stirred, the stopping having disrupted the rhythm that rocked her to sleep, her body surfacing from unconsciousness slowly.

Lucian shifted from wolf to man, catching her before the distance registered.

She blinked a few times, her pink eyes glassy and unfocused.

Lucian set her on her boots gently, not letting go of her until she found her balance.

Then he looked ahead.

The chokepoint was occupied.

Three hundred Fae warriors stood in formation across the narrow road, their armor catching the late afternoon light in a wall of gold and green that stretched from cliff face to cliff face.

Tristan Aelindor sat astride a white stallion, wearing armor he should not have been wearing, carrying a sword he should not have been carrying, radiating a fury so immense that the air around him distorted the way air distorts above a furnace.

The dark veins were worse. They had climbed past his jaw, branching across his cheekbone, threading toward his left eye.

Lucian stepped in front of River.

Two brothers, who had carried each other through rivers as children, were now facing each other on opposite sides, each with an army at his back and love in his chest that he would die before he let go of and the other would not accept.

His gold eyes were carrying something that wasn’t anger and wasn’t fear and wasn’t strategy. It was genuine concern.

"Tristan, you should be in bed—"

"Take one more step and I will put you on your back so fast your wolves will hear your spine hit the stone before they hear the command." Tristan’s voice cut through the coastal wind with a sharpness that made two of Lucian’s front-line wolves flatten their ears. "You don’t get to pretend you’re worried about me. You forfeited that privilege when you stole my wife while I was seizing on a goddamn floor."

The word stole landed on Lucian’s chest and stayed there.

"I didn’t steal her, Tristan."

"You took her out of my palace while I was lying unconscious, while the floor still had my blood on it. You waited until I couldn’t stand, and then you went to my father and convinced him to let you walk out with the woman I have loved since I was a child, someone I love more than my own kingdom. If my border patrol hadn’t tracked you, your kingdom would be on fire right now because I would come for her with everything Aelindris has. I would have forgiven an enemy for this. I will never forgive a brother."

"Tristan. We had to—"

"I KNOW WHY SHE LEFT." Tristan’s roar came off the cliff faces and returned louder. "You think I need it explained? You think I’m standing here with three hundred soldiers because I’m confused? I’m not. She stood in front of me and explained every reason, and every reason was about saving me, and every reason was correct, and I STILL WOULD HAVE CHOSEN HER OVER MY OWN SURVIVAL, LUCIAN. That was MY choice to make. Mine. Not yours. Not hers. Not our father’s. You took my wife AND you took my right to decide what I’m willing to die for."