The violentthud-umpof beating wings pounds the air before a whetted shriek slices down.
I swallow, knowingshe’sup there. A beast I’ve never seen but have so often felt the watchful gaze of, her possessive intrigue now scraping across my face like a claw.
“Calm, Cliár.”
Arkyn’s order blasts through the cavern as he moves into my peripheral, toward the head of the table. He turns with a dash of his tattered cloak, draping against the intricately carved seat I heard he scavenged from some poor fuck’s tomb.
“Apologies,Sire.” He flaps a hand at Kaan, then digs into his pocket, pulling out something he flicks between his fingers. A copper weald. “I’d offer you a plate of food, but you already have your mouth full.”
Kaan’s eyes widen on the instrument, all the color draining from his face before he thrashes, blasting stifled words I can’t make out. All the while, my heartdrums. Like Bulder has his fists in my chest, busting them about.
Stop fighting, Kaan. Please.
That’s exactly what he wants!
“Yes, I know. I said we’d share a meal.” I can hear the smile on Arkyn’s face as he balls his hand around the weald, then sets his chin on his fist. He lifts his other like a claw, using his thumbnail to gouge the ravaged skin on his fingertips. “But since seeing just how much you’ve grown to look like Pah, I’ve decided I’m not interested in hearinganythingyou haveto say. You’ll just have to sit there and listen. Think you can manage that …brother?”
My breath catches.
Kaan’s brows crush together as he searches the darkness within Arkyn’s hood, the statement appearing to have stumped him as much as it has me.
I was under the impression Kaan only has two brothers. Cadok and Tyroth.
Two brothers.
One sister.
A pah you could wipe the floor with.
My gaze cuts between the two, taking in Kaan’s confusion and Arkyn’s air of nonchalance.
Is Arkyn a half brother? If so, why is Kaan only learning about this now … chained to a chair within a cavern that knows the fried reek of torture?
I focus on Arkyn, seeking his tells, when Kaan’s earlier words come to me like an echoing premonition, filling me with a cold, sinking sensation.
Revenge is the loneliest deity of them all, Moonbeam.
Creators, is that what this is? What drives the Scavenger King? Feral lust for some manner of revenge?
“Thisone, however …” Arkyn’s head turns in my direction, and I meet ruddy eyes burning within the shadow of his floppy hood. “Why, I love nothing more than to hear her words. But she so rarely speaks for me. Only when shewantssomething. Isn’t that right, Fire Lark?”
The name mocks my flesh with the promise of pain.
From the corner of my vision, I see Kaan’s eyes bulge. See him stiffen, like the room just filled with mortar.
Arkyn clicks his tongue, then slams the copper weald on the table beside my plate. So hard and loud I flinch, repressing a shudder as he lifts his hand from the instrument—boasting it. A quiet threat glinting in the firelight.
As if I needed a reminder of exactly what he’s capable of.
He taps his finger against the weald … again … again … then snatches a serving spoon stuffed in a pile of steamed vegetables and scoops some onto my plate, loosening me from the coil of anticipation screwing into my soul.
I exhale through my nose, slowly, taking the small reprieve to scour the table. To hunt for something—anything—that can help get us free. GetKaanfree of this twisted, fucked-up situation.
My heart hitches at the sight of the pale-brown parchment lark I dug from Sereme’s desk, tucked between bent candlesticks, still bearing the fold marks from when Kaan pressed it into a square.
Arkyn must’ve scavenged it from his pocket …
“Good eyes,” he murmurs, then leans forward and plucks it off the table, revealing the uhloo I gifted Kaan coiled behind it.
