Page 16 of Blade of the Nightking

I dropped to my knees beside him, gripping his free hand in both of mine. Nausea rolled through me. His skin was cold. Aedric was never cold.

Tears blurred everything as I pressed my lips to his knuckles and breathed his name.

His eyelids fluttered. His gaze slid to me.

“El…” he murmured, and slipped under again.

Saerena rocked back on her heels and stood.

“No lasting harm.” Relief filled her voice. “He will recover. He is fortunate.”

Hamish dipped his head in thanks, but she was already moving on to the next wounded Fae. The dimmed orb drifted after her like a weary moon.

Malec dragged a hand down his face, looking as if he might fold where he stood. “I don’t see Errol⁠—”

Hamish stiffened. His expression remained carved from rock, but something in the set of his shoulders told me he was bracing for impact. I followed his gaze through the crush of bodies.

A male was forcing his way through the crowd, flanked by two guards. He was tall and broad, nearly Hamish’s equal in size, his scalp balding and his neatly trimmed beard streaked with gray and fading red. Ornate golden armor covered him, catching the firelight in vicious, unforgiving flashes.

He leaned over each wounded Fae he passed, shoving others aside without apology, his raptor-like eyes searching—only the women, I realized, only their faces.

He was looking for someone.

And then he saw Hamish.

His spine snapped straight, his mouth twisting into a vicious line as he stormed toward us, his guards close behind. He skimmed a glance over Aedric’s unconscious form as he passed, assessing him in an instant, then barreled forward and crowded in close to Hamish, jabbing a finger hard into his chest.

“Where… is… she,” he hissed, stabbing with every word.

And for the first time, Hamish flinched. He drew breath to answer, but before the words could form⁠—

“Warden!”

Her voice rang over the crowd, cutting straight through the noise and sending a cold shiver down my spine.

Calantha stepped from a hearth nearby, Errol close behind her. Her circular lens covered her ember eye as she moved through the hall, weaving between bodies, not slowing to look at the dying or the dead.

Errol shadowed her steps, the ragged scars across his face pulled tighter than I’d ever seen, transforming his already battle-hardened features into something genuinely fearsome. Malec let out a long breath beside me, his shoulder easing as he spotted his friend.

Calantha came to a halt before the golden-clad male and bowed low at the waist. “Father.”

When she straightened, he pulled her stiffly into his arms and pressed a dry kiss to the center of her forehead. “Thank the Vein.”

I blinked slowly as understanding caught up to me.

This was Calantha’s father.

Hamish’s father, too.

Only then did the resemblance stand out in stark relief. The breadth of their shoulders. The squared, soldier’s stance. The firm set of their mouths beneath their beards.

But where Hamish’s eyes held a flicker of warmth—something kind, something almost human—his father’s gaze was stripped bare. Cold, shrewd, calculating.

He had turned his back on his son to greet his daughter, and as he released her he did not turn back. It was as if Hamish had vanished from his world the moment Calantha appeared.

Calantha stepped neatly out of the embrace and moved past him to stand at her brother’s side. Hamish was rigid, shoulders locked back, his expression drawn into something impassive and unbreakable. She reached out and gripped his forearm; only then did he drag his gaze down to her.

They held each other’s eyes for a quiet heartbeat—no words, just that subtle, unmistakable exchange of power and awareness that passed between twin minds—confirming they were both standing, both here, both still themselves. She squeezed his arm once and let go, then dropped to her knees beside her lord.