Ciaran had never been so conflicted to see his family vacation house.

He was torn between wishing the whole journey had been as easy as the final stretch, and wishing the final stretch had been as complicated as the rest of the journey, to delay their attack as long as possible. He couldn’t shake the feeling that each step brought them closer to their doom.

The manor rested in a shallow valley beneath them. The building was a beautiful mishmash of round and rectangular windows, curved towers, and sharp roofs with intricately carved gable trims. In the center was a courtyard. A wrought iron fence surrounded the sprawling green grounds, patrolled by guards in far more casual uniforms than what was expected in the royal palace. From here, Ciaran could just make out his bedroom window overlooking the courtyard.

His hands were trembling again. Asra placed her own hand on his shoulder.

“Will we be safe to camp here tonight?” she said. “Or should we head back into the woods a bit?”

He folded his arms to quell the trembling. “No, I don’t think we’d be safe here. But I do know somewhere that would be, and it’ll give us an entrance to the manor that Nolan doesn’t know about.”

“How could there possibly be an entrance Nolan doesn’t know about?” Asra said, wrinkling her brow.

“I had it built in secret, and it’s protected by magic. I’m the only one with a key.”

Asra pursed her lips. “What about Vincent?”

Ciaran looked away from her. “No, I very specifically hid it from him, too. I needed it for … ” His face burned, and he couldn’t bring himself to say it. “You’ll see.”

Asra raised a brow at him, but true to her nature, she did not ask any further questions. It was a trait that had frustrated him to no end when they’d first met, but that he’d grown to appreciate—just one of the many ways he’d come to appreciate her over the last couple months.

Ciaran led the trio down the hill along the bottom of a steep cliff. When he was confident he was close, he looked to Bane and said, “Where is it, boy?”

The dog lowered his head to the ground and sniffed, following the trail to a patch of dirt. He sat next to it and stared up at Ciaran.

“Good boy,” Ciaran said as he dug through the damp earth until his fingers landed on a metal box. He lifted it from the dirt and pulled out a marble-sized lodestone inside.

“Not as strong as your concealment spells,” Ciaran said to Asra with a wink as he lifted the lodestone to a spot on the cliffside. “But good enough to avoid detection by us puny humans.”

Magic snapped from the lodestone, and a large door materialized where previously there was only stone. Ciaran turned the knob and held his arm out to the open door.

“Clever,” Asra said.

“I told you I picked up a few things from Vincent. Same concept as the disguising spell we’ve used.”

“It’s not … ?” She took a deep breath. “How far does this tunnel go?”

“Not far, don’t worry.”

Asra hesitated for just a moment, then stepped past the door, Ciaran following behind. He closed the door behind them, then held the lodestone up to a spot inside that would reinstate the spell outside.

The short stone hallway led into a small alcove in the cave system. Cliffs surrounded them on all sides, and high-reaching canopies of pines and spruce covered the sky, only barely allowing the light of the full moon to filter through them. To the right, steam rose from hot springs. To the left stood a small wood cabin—a shack in comparison to the manor it led to. Ciaran led them toward it, but when they reached the front, his hand froze on the doorknob.

After a moment, Asra said, “Are we going inside or what?”

“Yes, of course,” Ciaran said, and he pushed the door open and flicked on the light switch to his right.

There was a small bed in the far right corner, unmade. A shower only large enough for one person stood in the opposite corner, towels and soaps piled next to it in a clumsy heap. Adjacent to a small dining table was a cold box, the lodestone inside whirring—no doubt it would be out of magic soon.

Ciaran finally forced his eyes to the center of the cabin, to the feature he dreaded most—and which dominated the small building: A series of tall shelves, each filled with liquor bottles, some full, some half-empty, many completely drained. Empty bottles were piled next to an overflowing rubbish bin.

Asra inhaled sharply when she stepped inside, her eyes sweeping over the scene in front of her. Her mouth moved wordlessly for a moment before she spoke, and Ciaran could tell she was trying her damnedest to find a tactful remark. Heat crept up his neck.

“Well,” Asra said finally. “I see why you needed to keep this secret from anyone else.”

Ciaran took a deep breath. He couldn’t meet Asra’s gaze. “I would have cleaned some of this up, but … well, I never expected anyone else to ever see it.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Asra said. “We won’t ever need to come back after tonight.”

Ciaran almost laughed in relief. Asra’s pragmatism and stoicism were sometimes things he could learn from. Not everything was worth wallowing over.

Ciaran stepped toward the tower of booze in front of him. His hands had been shaking all afternoon. Even now he had to stuff them into his pockets to try to hide it from Asra. Would he even be of any use tomorrow if he couldn’t get it under control? It would only be a few sips and he’d be back to normal, at least as normal as he ever was.

“Do you need me to keep an eye on you?” Asra asked. Her voice was gentle: It was an offer, not a threat.

“No,” Ciaran said. “I’ll handle it.”

He took hold of the shelf and heaved it downward. The unit swayed, then toppled down, bottles of liquor shattering and pooling beneath the ruined furniture, like blood from slaughtered livestock.

Asra paused for a moment, then laughed and shook her head. “Well, that’s one way to handle it.”

Ciaran took a shuddering breath, and his stomach grumbled. “Do we have anything to eat still?”

“You just ate less than an hour ago.”

“I know, and I’m still famished.” He sighed. “I think it has to do with the alcohol. Or lack thereof. The last few times I stopped, I was starving for days afterward.”

Asra narrowed her eyes at him, in an expression reminiscent of the open contempt she showed him when they first met.

“What?” Ciaran said.

“You weren’t starving,” Asra said. “You don’t know the concept of starving.”

Ciaran laughed nervously. “It’s just a turn of phrase.”

“An ignorant one. Your people are starving. You’ve never gone without food in your life.”

Ciaran sighed. “I acknowledge the disparity, Asra. That’s something I hope to address as king.”

“You really think that’s how this works?” Asra said, rounding on him with her arms folded. “You put someone good on the throne and then all the problems with the monarchy just vanish?”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“I—” Ciaran ran a trembling hand through his hair. “Is this really how you want to spend what may be our last night alive? Arguing about politics?”

Asra looked for a moment as though that was exactly how she’d like to spend her last night. Ciaran wondered if the woman knew how to exist without fighting over something. What would she do when this was all over and she didn’t need to fight anymore?

Eventually she sighed and said, “No.”

She tossed him her bag, and Ciaran pulled out their leather pouch of boar jerky and some dried fruits. He brushed the dust off the dining table and tucked in.

“We need to finalize our plan to kill Nolan,” Asra said.

Ciaran sighed and nodded as he tore a piece of jerky. He’d pushed that conversation off for as long as possible, and now it was time to face it head-on.

“What’s this secret entrance you have?” Asra asked.

“There’s a tunnel here that leads straight to my bedroom. Hidden like the entrance here.”

He shifted in his seat as he ran through the excuses for his disappearances from the vacation manor over the last decade. “Oh, I was hunting in the woods with Bane. The butler didn’t inform you? I made sure to tell him before I left … ”

“Okay, so we have a way in,” Asra said, tapping her fist against her lips thoughtfully. “How do we get to Nolan once we’re there?”

Ciaran envisioned the inside of the manor—a sprawling maze of hallways and rooms, swarming with guards and gods-only-knew what kind of spells. He then thought of the outside, of the courtyard beneath his bedroom window.

“There’s a courtyard,” Ciaran said slowly as the pieces fit together in his head. “Right outside my bedroom. Nolan goes there in the mornings to meditate.”

That was one of the few things he could be sure of regarding Nolan’s habits in the vacation manor. He never missed his morning meditations, no matter where he was.

“Not alone, I’m presuming,” Asra said.

“No, but far fewer guards than usual. If you’re quiet, you could sneak up behind them and … ” His voice trailed off. These were likely people he knew.

“Pick them off?” Asra finished for him.

He laughed nervously, rubbing the back of his head. “Yes. In a non-lethal manner, perhaps?”

Asra’s silence was all the answer he needed.

“Or perhaps I could convince Nolan to send them inside?” Ciaran said quickly. “That way we could, ah, reduce the bloodshed … ?”

“The less time we allow Nolan to talk, the better. We don’t know what he might have up his sleeve.”

Ciaran’s stomach lurched. He’d never considered that he wouldn’t be able to say goodbye to his brother. Admittedly, he hadn’t given much thought to how the deed would actually be done. He had vaguely envisioned some sort of fair trial, where nobles and courtiers could determine who should rightfully sit on the throne.

But Nolan was firstborn, groomed from a young age to rule, and granted the crown through natural succession—and he’d been a strong leader since then. There was no jury in the kingdom that would believe Ciaran should hold the crown over his older brother.

“I’ll need to distract him at least while you deal with the guards,” Ciaran suggested.

“No,” Asra snapped. “He can’t know we’re there. We have to take him completely by surprise. You said yourself, you haven’t been there in years and you don’t know what defensive measures he may have. We can’t give him any warning.”

Ciaran ran a hand through his hair and decided changing the subject was the best course of action at the moment.

“I’d like to take a soak in the springs,” he said. “Would you care to join me? I think it will help us rest and recover before tomorrow.”

Asra narrowed her eyes at him—no doubt she saw through his attempt to escape this conversation—but eventually nodded.

She followed him out of the small cabin to the edge of the springs. Ciaran stripped his shoes and clothing, but paused at his smallclothes.

“Would you mind if I undressed all the way?” Ciaran asked.

“You humans are the ones who have a problem with nudity,” Asra said. “I couldn’t care less.”

And perhaps to emphasize her point, she ripped all her clothing off and tossed them to the ground. She tested the water’s temperature with her toes, then sank into the spring with a heavy sigh.

Ciaran laughed, then removed his final garment. As he eased himself into the water, every muscle and joint sang in relief.

He stole a look at Asra. Her arms were sprawled along the rim of the springs, her head leaned back against the stone behind her. Ciaran couldn’t help but smile at the scene. As much as Asra would hate to hear him say it, she deserved a little luxury.

There was something both terrifying and mesmerizing about the way she lounged in what had previously only been his private reprieve. It was like gazing upon a wolf resting in a paddock of lambs. He focused on her hands as they trailed back and forth through the water to avoid his gaze resting on her nudity. She didn’t seem to care, but it still felt crass to look without invitation.

Although the action didn’t keep his thoughts so innocent. He thought of the warmth of her hands as she healed him many times over, the pulse in her wrist when he’d held her hand by Margot’s campfire, and again in the fox hospital. The thought of her skin on his was one of the few things that had pushed him through the agony of his withdrawals as he wavered on the edge of life and death.

“What?” Asra said.

Ciaran had no desire for her to learn what he’d just been thinking of and found a safer topic instead.

“You said something to Vincent,” Ciaran said. “About Nolan. About him being better at something?”

She furrowed her brow. “Vincent had a spell set up in the jail. A tracking spell. You didn’t see it?”

He thought of the dark edges of the room. Dogs could supposedly see better than humans in the dark. It made sense that Asra would have seen the lodestones where he couldn’t. He shook his head.

“He was trying to get me to show him where my town is,” Asra said.

“Why?”

Asra shrugged. “The usual reasons nobility have, probably. To get an edge over the king. Nolan was a lot more subtle about trying to get information out of me. He treated me like a friend. An equal. I wanted to be treated like a grown-up so bad, and he knew that.”

Ciaran couldn’t help the pang of jealousy, as odd and unfounded of a feeling as it was. Nolan had never treated Ciaran like anything but a child.

Asra looked to the cabin beside them, her brows furrowed.

“What?” Ciaran asked.

Asra looked back to him. “You offered me your last bottle of moonshine.”

“Did I?” Ciaran asked, rubbing his temple. “When was that?”

“In the tunnel, after the dragons. You offered it to clean my wounds.”

“Oh. I suppose I did.”

Asra’s brows knotted further. “Ciaran, you would have died without it.”

He barked a laugh. “To be fair, I had no idea this withdrawal would be so bad. Let’s not give me too much credit here.”

They fell into a comfortable silence. Ciaran relished in what may be his last few moments of comfort, watching Asra swirl her hand in the water. The longer side of her bobbed brunette hair brushed her shoulder. Ciaran’s gaze followed the curves of the spirals of her sigils, around her arms, up her neck and face, to where they framed her eyes. He’d thought her yellow eyes made her look like a predator when they first met, but he knew now how soft they could be when she wanted them to.

He was so distracted by studying every detail that it took him a moment to realize that her hand had stilled and she stared absently at the water’s surface.

“What’s the matter?” Ciaran asked.

Asra smiled sadly and leaned back against the rock behind her. He thought he saw a glint of tears in her eyes. “Trying to decide if I should say goodbye to Liam and Sophie. Like I do every time.”

The luster left her body, and suddenly she looked lonely and tired and broken. Just two months away from home had left Ciaran desperately homesick. He couldn’t imagine ten years. He wanted to reach out and comfort her, but he wasn’t sure if she would accept it.

He opened his mouth to speak, but Asra beat him to it.

“Ciaran, I’ve been thinking … ” she began, her voice quiet and wavering.

“About?”

“About …” She twirled a finger in the water. “The conversation we had that afternoon. In the clearing. After the boar.”

“Oh?” He hoped he kept the eagerness out of his voice. He’d thought of that conversation many times since that afternoon, but he’d never found an opportunity to mention it again.

“I think a little stress relief would do us both some good,” Asra said. “While we still can.”

Ciaran smirked and said, “What, one last night of fun before we both die tomorrow?”

He laughed, but the joke clearly fell flat. There was no humor in Asra’s face, just the weight of ten years of fighting and surviving. The bags under her eyes seemed to pull down her very soul.

There was no fight left in her. She had resigned herself to death. The thought chilled him to the bone, despite the heat of the water. Asra’s obstinate defiance of death was the only thing that got them to this point.

He had to convince her that there was a reason to make it through tomorrow alive.

He nodded and said, “I’d like that.”