The carriage slowed to a stop several paces from the hut.
Lucien did not wait for the coachman to open the door. He pushed it open himself and stepped down onto the packed dirt, the late afternoon sun warming his face but doing nothing to ease the cold knot in his chest.
Rowan followed, quiet and watchful.
Lucien's boots carried him forward. Each step felt heavier than the last. His pulse thundered in his ears. The native doctor's hut stood only a short distance away now, its door weathered and simple. Behind that door was Elian — the man he had searched for, obsessed over, and nearly lost.
He stopped just short of the threshold, one gloved hand hovering near the wood. For a fleeting second, fear rooted him in place. Then the image of Elian's face — smiling in the cabin, flushed against the wall of his chamber, broken and bleeding in the infirmary — burned through the hesitation.
Lucien pushed the door open.
