* * *
3 pmOnyx was very naive. 3 am Onyx is fucking hammered.
Onyx, Stellan, Anna, and I stumble out of the party at the inn in the early hours. I am loosely sat atop Stellan's shoulders, Anna sitting on Onyx's beside me.
"Stellan! You're leaning to the right!" I screech, nearly falling off. This is how I’m going to die. Not in an epic battle like I always imagined, but drunkenly toppling from the shoulders of my promiscuous best friend.
"Am I? Feels like I'm upright to me!" He shouts, the four of us cackling like toddlers.Fuck me, we're all beyond hope.
"You alright up there?" Asks Onyx, looking up at Anna.
She grins, giving him a thumbs up. "Let's go, O."
"Go O. Go O. Go O. Sounds funny," slurs Stellan, walking way too fast as I try to ride him. No. That didn’t come out right. I’m notriding himriding him, just riding him. My head is fuzzy.
I am letting them all crash in my room so that we can have a breakfast cooked by Espan's chef delivered in the morning. "If we sneak in this way it's so much quicker!" I yell, not intending to yell, as we creep through the opulence of the Royal Accommodation Halls.
Oh dear. I am much too drunk for this. Stellan takes his hand off my thigh for a second and I scream, half falling off. Onyx bends over to laugh, forgetting Anna is on his shoulders. She plummets in a blur of dark skin and white braids onto the stone floor. In my drunken state, it becomes the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life, and I’m grateful that the alcohol dulls the pain as Stellan and I slam to the floor beside her.
A slither of light from an opening door bathes us in a soft glow, and Rexxan steps out of a library, spotting the four of us shrieking on the floor.
I want the ground to swallow me up.
He says absolutely nothing, so I panic and decideIshould. "You're upside down," I observe, cleverly.Nice.
"And you're catastrophically drunk," he notes, with an arched eyebrow.
He holds out a hand to me, pulling me to my feet and steadying me when I wobble, one warm hand on my waist. Once I am reassuringly upright, he crouches down and extends a huge hand to Annaliya. She tentatively takes it, letting him pull her to her feet. She wobbles, her hand on his bicep, and he steadies her with orange eyes on hers. "Can I let go? Are you steady?"
"Wow...you're...big."
"Okay, that's enough, Anna," say Onyx and me, prizing her off him. I am filled with something that feels suspiciously like jealousy. Blame the wine, Ren. Blame the wine.
* * *
Rexxan's moodsswitch so quickly. Just a few days later and he is unrecognisable. He's in the worst mood ever.Theworst mood ever. He has successfully shouted at everyone today, stalking Espan’s palace like a wolf sulking outside its den. The staff are in hiding. Hell, even I am in hiding until I finally muster the courage to talk to him. "Are you...err….”
"Am I what, Renna? Spit it out," he snaps, not looking up.
"Okay? Are you okay?"
"Fine. Busy." Everything about his body language screamsfuck off, but to me, he just seems sad beneath the angry.
"Well, is this you finished for the day? Do you want to have dinner with me?"
"I can’t tonight." His voice is harsh, but if I didn’t know him better, I’d have missed the regret in his eyes the second he said it. Something is eating away at him.
"Okay," I say, raising my hands in defeat. Rexxan and I have a healthy relationship with each other here, despite the chaotic stress of our jobs. We’re two people who prefer to be alone when in a bad mood, and I can respect that.
I make plans to go out with Annaliya instead. She finishes putting her braids into a bun, posing in the mirror. "Shall we invite the other one? The really pretty one?"
"Lynna? We could invite her. She works about eighteen hours a day though," I twirl a knife around my fingers absentmindedly, walking a few hallways down to Lynna's private apartments here. Lynna and Rexxan are talking outside her door, and I open my mouth to make a joke but something stops me. It’s the look on Rexxan’s face, I think, like he’s one step away from snapping.
I don’t know why, because I would—and do—trust Lynna with my entire life, but a hint of betrayal swirls in my stomach. I’d like to imagine that neither of them would do anything, but the younger, more irrational part of my brain wins over.
"I think Lynna is…busy?" Mumbles Anna, as we watch Lynna and Rexxan disappear into her apartments.
"Yeah. Busy."
