Chapter Thirty-Nine

                                    

                                          
The crow led them straight towards the edge of the Talakova. Phoebe struggled to keep up as they forged after it together; a moon of captivity had left her weak, and she'd already fought herself almost to exhaustion while being towed away. Niccola had to force herself to slow for her sister. Each pause brought vivid images of Dinah closing down on Isaiah. Niccola did not want to know what the woman would do if she caught him. If the City Guard around him wasn't enough. If he too tried to sacrifice himself to capture or stop the necromantic. 
She owed him an apology for giving him that very same fear. More than an apology, really. She wanted to prove she'd learned what he'd tried to tell her: that while old habits died hard, she was no longer attempting to throw herself away when people needed her alive. No longer trying to prove their worst impressions of her. In her search for agency, she had inadvertently given her doubters the very power she'd tried to wrest from them, and only now was her confidence seated where it belonged. 
Unless Dinah told him, Isaiah didn't know she was alive. And Dinah might say the opposite if she thought it would crush him. 
Would Isaiah fight back?
The question wrung Niccola's heart, hopes, and fears simultaneously. He'd never fought against his parents, but if he'd taken control of the Calisian City Guard, he must have. And he must have won. She could not—would not—entertain the possibility that he might have gone the other way, and repeated what his ancestors had done at the time of the Catastrophe. He was better than that. Better than his ancestors, his parents, and all the doubters that had ever conspired to make Niccola give up on whatever she and Isaiah had together. Niccola wanted to work with him again. Wanted to find that synchrony: that perfect complement between their natures and personalities, their skills and inclinations. Wanted to rule together from their respective—or combined—thrones. 
She wanted him to be okay. 
"Niccola!"
She'd pushed too far ahead again. Niccola waited for Phoebe to catch up, her own hands trembling on the half-drawn bow. She forced herself to relax its string again. It would be more efficient to stow it, but she didn't want to let it go. If Dinah appeared, she would let the first arrow fly immediately. 
Unless that was too reckless. She would evaluate the situation, and then shoot.
Talakova be cursed, it was hard to unlearn her old habits. 
Isaiah would call her out on it, she was sure. But she suddenly wanted him to. To keep her in check and remind her not to fling herself into danger for the rest of their—
No, she didn't even know how he felt about her now. She had to apologize first, and then they could talk it out together. Decide together what they wanted to be. 
She'd called herself his partner. 
It was the most stupid, useless, distracting thought to have cross her mind when she was chasing down a necromantic in the middle of the deep Talakova with her partner's—her partner's—life on the line. But it crossed her mind anyway, and sent heat shooting to her face. That was enough. Niccola arrested her speeding steps before Phoebe had to scold her, and locked her focus instead into scanning every inch of the forest in the shifting light and shadows of the lantern. And trying desperately not to fantasize about kidnapping Isaiah and taking him back to Varna with her and Phoebe, shooting his parents a profane gesture as she did so. Another thing to talk about. She stashed that one away, too. 
"We're almost there," gasped Phoebe. 
The first chips of daylight peeked through the canopy that replaced the sky. Niccola was sure her heart would implode if it hammered any harder. She clenched the bow and exchanged a look with Phoebe. They both slowed. Niccola moved and stopped, listening and watching ahead as morning light filtered down to fill the gloom and spare her guttering lantern. It wasn't much further before she heard the clink of metal-scaled armor through the trees ahead. She turned to Phoebe.