Do I believe her? I don’t think I have much choice. I can’t stay here, and it’s clear I’m not welcome to follow Zander.
I look to him now.
“The Legion will be waiting for me.” His eyes drift to my mouth, and something unreadable passes. “This is where we part ways, Romeria Watts of New York City.”
“Right.” Where he was once a stranger to me, now I am one to him, regardless of the nights we’ve shared. An ache stirs in my chest, but I set my jaw. “Goodbye.”
His jaw tenses.
“You have misunderstood,” Gesine says. “You both must come.”
“No,” Zander and I counter in unison.
“She is not safe anywhere around me, and we have different paths,” Zander adds quietly.
“Your path is the same and must be taken together. Romeria, I’m sorry, but the old is now destined with the new, and there is no going back. There is only forward.” Her eyes show sympathy.
I nod. I knew as much.
She shifts her attention to Zander. “The seers have seen the end of the blood curse, and it is at the tied hands of the Ybarisan daughter of Aoife and the Islorian son of Malachi. Is that not what you wish?”
“Yes, I have seen it too. So did everyone sitting in that square today. I know what Romeria is, and that is not how I want to change Islor. Not by killing my people.” Bitterness flares in his voice.
Her responding smile is gentle. “That is Aoife’s way, but that is not the only way.”
“And what will you get out of this? Do not tell me you have risked yourself for the sake of Islor.”
Her fingertips skate over her golden collar. “Freedom for my kind, eventually. Perhaps I will see it before my days come to an end. Perhaps not.”
Shouts ring outside. Elisaf steals another glance from the curtain. “We no longer have another option.” He points toward the opening in the floor.
With a deep sigh, Zander nods.
One by one, we climb down the ladder. My boots splash in murky water that smells of sewage. Torches reveal a dank tunnel that leads into darkness.
With another wave of Gesine’s hand, the counter drags itself back into place, hiding our route. Her sleeve falls with the movement, revealing an emblem that shimmers with a golden glow.
I point to it. “What is that?”
“My affinity to Aoife.” She pulls her sleeve up and holds her arm out, allowing me a chance to study the mark—a circle encasing a golden deer that spans the width of her forearm. There are two more circles in a line above it, only smaller, one with a bronze bull, and the other with a silver butterfly. “I have affinities to three elements, though my ties to water are much stronger than the other two.”
“Find the gilded doe,” I whisper. Is this what my father meant? Find Gesine?
“We will take this tunnel to the rookery where there is a skiff waiting to sail us outside the Cirilean border.”
“I must meet my soldiers in Eldred Wood.” Zander’s voice offers no negotiation.
“And then we will head north together, to the Venhorn Mountains.”
Elisaf groans. He’s clearly not fond of that plan.
“You know what lives in those mountains.” Zander gives Gesine a pointed look.
“I do. If we cannot sail to Seacadore, then it is the safest place in Islor for us until Her Highness has been adequately trained.”
Zander turns to me.
I show him my back. I haven’t forgotten that just five minutes ago he had plans to leave me.