I push through Yorl’s words and the firing line and dash toward Evlorasin and Lucien, half-real gold petals scattering as I throw my arms around the prince and then bury myself in Ev’s chest mane.

“Thank you,” I mutter. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

“I felt the yearning of you,” Evlorasin rumbles. “And so too did it become my yearning.” The great wyrm narrows its five eyes at the firing line, the beneathers clearly jumpy and still ready to attack at a moment’s notice. “Will they have me?”

“I’ll make them have you,” I laugh, teary.

“Any bit of help is welcome,” Lucien says, a twinge of uneasiness to it as he tries to speak directly facing the valkerax. He can’t hear it speaking like I can—to him it’s just hissing—but he must be guessing how the conversation is going based on my words.

Evlorasin blinks down at Lucien, slowly and scrutinizing, sniffing the air around him intently. “This is your mated?” Ev snorts. “It seems rather…small.”

My laugh bubbles up, and I hug the beautiful beast closer.

It takes more than a little negotiation on all our parts to get Lysulli to stop ordering the archers to keep constant aim on Evlorasin. Especially when it breaches the firing line with me and circles my body like a lazy dog assuming its place before the hearth. But somehow, between Malachite’s cajoling at Lysulli and Lucien’s fearless, careful touching of the valkerax to communicate its friendliness to the battalion, we make it. None of the beneathers looks happy about letting the valkerax through and behind them, constantly checking over their shoulders as it curls up on the rubble and waits with us.

Lysulli won’t even approach closely, shouting from the firing line instead. “If it kills my men, I kill you!”

“Fair enough!” I shout back, and then put my hand on Evlorasin’s velvety wet nose. “You’ll have to be careful when the fight breaks out, Ev. They won’t be able to tell you from the rest.”

“Then I will battle deep.” The valkerax thrashes its tail. “Where arrows cannot reach.”

“You have to be careful! There’s a lot more of them that can fly, now. I saw them.”

“Care cannot be afforded against blood kin.” Ev’s whiskers undulate in a deceptively calm rhythm. “We are of the song and will only cease for it.”

“Still!” I pout, patting down its mane. “You’ve gotta be—”

The five white eyes slick over to me in their sockets, nictating membranes blinking. “I will not die, Starving Wolf. Not until my kin are free.”

I know how stubborn Ev is. How stubborn I am. A small smile pulls at my lips. “It’s a promise, then.”