“I am not weak.”
Tristan didn’t flinch. The only indication that he felt anything from Austin’s voice was the way his head tilted and his lids lowered a fraction. “I can feel that,” he agreed. “And I saw your power plainly on the beach, too. One who can order a ghoul to kill itself with their voice alone, while”—Tristan hesitated, clearly choosing his next word with care—“spent, is far from weak.”
There was an admiring note in Tristan’s voice. And it felt to Austin like he was telling the truth, not humouring him.
“Hm.” Austin let his animosity settle.
Outside the main hall, dark pathways led off the courtyard. Night had fallen, and though a bright moon hunghigh in the sky, the earth was largely dark. Austin hesitated, not quite sure which shadow led back to his room.
Tristan stepped down into the courtyard and paused on the bottom. He glanced up at Austin and waited. Out of the hall, it was too dark to read his expression. There were only four steps down, but enough light shone behind him to turn them all into one dark shadow. He’d have to step carefully. Or trip.
Austin held out his hand. Tristan reached out and took it.
“Carry me,” Austin said. “Unless you’re too spent and weak?”
Tristan’s fingers tightened around Austin’s hand. Without a word, he moved, bending down and very carefully lifting Austin from the ground. Austin flinched anyway.
Tristan picked the dark tunnel Austin had been eyeing speculatively and came to a stop at Austin’s room. “I can set you down on the bed,” Tristan offered in a very formal, polite voice.
“Here.”
Austin hissed as his feet touched the ground.
“One moment.” Tristan strode off, leaving Austin standing in pitch black. Austin waited until the slap of foot on stone receded, and then he felt for the door handle. He leaned in the doorway, waiting.
Tristan returned before Austin could get annoyed about waiting. Austin looked in the general direction of his head.
“Here,” Tristan said.
A moment passed.
“ ‘Here’ what?”
“It will help your muscles.”
Oh. He was trying to hand Austin something.
Austin put his hand out, palm up. Tristan placed something glass and jar-shaped into his grip. Austin carefully closed his fingers so he didn’t drop it. “Goodnight,” he said, and waited to hear it returned before shutting the door.
Chapter Seven
Eli brought Austin breakfast in a garden rich with verdant greens and large blossom flowers. Trees had been guided to grow overhead, offering dappled shade from the hot morning sun. Austin managed a few bites of a plain orange-fleshed fruit, but the rest of the food was too strong-smelling to even look at. He sipped a warm green tea in the hope it would soothe the itch in his throat. He worried the cuts were infected, the pain worse today than yesterday.
Perched on the edge of his chair, Eli politely triple-checked that Austin wasn’t going to eat anything else before falling on the leftovers like he was starving. He kept checking nobody wandered by and spotted him between bites.
“Dozens send in requests to meet Prince Tristan daily,” Eli explained between mouthfuls. “Depending on the reason, Char either grants them an audience with Prince Tristan or Captain Inx, redirects them to a more suitable sector in the city, or tells them to petition Prince Hal directly. The requests that Char lets through always involve the need for a guard or physical intervention, like you saw with Eloise last night, and they’re always held over meals. Prince Tristan doesn’t like to be interrupted when training his men.”
“Training?”
Eli indicated behind them. “Prince Tristan’s personal Troop trains here, either from scratch or brushing up on skills, and the city guards are sent over to train sometimes too. Many travel across the continent to join their ranks. But you either have to be very, very good or very, very determined. They’re not as strong as they are because they take it easy. Plus, Prince Hal sends over tutors every month to teach them all about his justice system. I hear he sometimes even comes over to give lectures in person.”
Austin looked in the direction Eli had indicated. He couldn’t see much, just the hint of a huge trellis roof propped up between buildings.
The cry of a seagull drew Austin’s eye toward the ocean, to the wide expanse of its impenetrable blue. An itch under his skin let him know that Connor was on the other side of the Tear in Ireland. This side of the Tear, Austin could shake off the discomfort. What he couldn’t shake off was a gnawing worry that something bad might have happened to Liam. He’d only been going down the road, so he likely would have arrived back to Wilbur at the cottage.
Imagining what might have happened made him itch worse than Connor’s distance. He needed to go back. But his muscles were seized and sore, despite the cream he’d liberally rubbed everywhere, and there was a weakness in him that felt bone deep. He wouldn’t make the swim, not without help. It was too precarious to order the ocean to bring him back. He’d got lucky washing up here, but if he washed up helpless in front of Wilbur, he might never see daylight again.
There was the other part of his power, of course. The beguiling part. Hecouldtalk someone into helping him. This close to the ocean, if he held Tristan’s arm and purposefully drew on it—
