“Once we are over the mountains, there will be eyes on us from the shadows just in case we run into any trouble. You won’t notice their presence unless we find ourselves in need of them.”

“As in… spies?”

“Of sorts.” He shrugged vaguely. “They are a guild of creatures with specialized abilities called the Shades. Each member was handpicked by Rathe himself, and they have pledged their lives to me. They will ensure our safety.”

“Are you sure that’ll be enough?” A group of spies sounded pretty solid in the protection department, but I was still a little skeptical. “I know you said we’re avoiding the areas the king’s bigot supporters haunt, but… you don’t want to take at least one guard? Just to be extra sure?”

Cair paused in his tracks, looking down at me with a soft smile. “You do not have to fear for your safety, sweetheart. I may not be a trained soldier, but I will fight for you, if need be.”

“No, no, I’m not really scared of that,” I assured him, taking his hand in mine. “I know you’ll keep me safe, but… I can’t protect you.”

He huffed a small laugh. “You underestimate your abilities,” he said pointedly. I smiled, though it fell flat. “Besides, I am protected by the Royal Blood ward. No subject within our kingdom can kill me.”

“They can still kidnap and torture you,” I reminded him, the words tasting like bile on my tongue. “And we’re going to the Outerlands, beyond the official borders of the kingdom. An outsider could kill you, and just to point out the obvious, if those journals were right, Zadok is an outsider. What if he didn’t move out there of his own accord? What if he was banished by the king and now holds a bloodthirsty grudge against anyone with white hair and a scowl? He could cut us down on sight.”

The only assurance we had was that the loophole on the ward wasn’t really known among the common folk, but would that still be the case? The royals knew, of course; the king relished it. It was a game for him to send anyone he considered a threat to the kingdom’s peace to the one place they could actually be a threat to him. Fucking arrogant asshole. Alex and I were only privy to the information because of mate privileges, but since the guy we were heading off to find used to be the king’s adviser, it wasn’t a huge leap to assume he was aware of it too. Who knew how far a scorned male would share that juicy gossip?

The whole island could know by now.

“He won’t be given the opportunity to get that far,” Cair insisted. “Those who are following us will come out of hiding at the first whiff of danger.”