Chapter 21

Mara’s POV

Ronan did not take his hand away. He looked at the place where my fingers still circled his wrist, then at my face.

“Was it Elara?”

“Yes.” I had waited twenty-three years to hear her voice, and I could hardly bear that she had used it to warn me about the man beside me. “She said not to choose you.”

His breath left him slowly. He had no argument against a mother he had never met, and I saw him look for somewhere to put his hands.

Lucien had heard only my side of the conversation. “If the voice found you through the echo, she may be close enough to hear us back,” he said. He passed me the water flask from his belt. “Drink before Soren asks you twenty questions.”

It was such a small, sensible kindness that I nearly cried. He noticed and