Page 11 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

Elias came running in her direction. Panic. Panic in his face and in his shadows. “Hey. Thora!” he called a bit louder, shedding his jacket and throwing it around her shoulders. Something in the way he began searching her eyes chilled my blood, as if he was looking for something that had disappeared. “Thora!”

There was a long beat of silence from everyone after his outburst. Every soldier had turned to look at their queen, and I rose a wall of deep shadows to mask her. That must have drawn her attention, because her head tipped up in their direction just slightly.

“You know that hurts my ears, right?” Thora said casually, shaking off the jacket and throwing it at him. “And your cologne hurts my lungs. Maybe that is what’s warding Visha off, have you ever thought of that?”

Elias sighed. His shoulders straightened and his features returned to stone when he noticed me standing near them.

But I didn’t mind the attention.

Not his.

I minded my brother’s. The attention that had fallen on Thora as he walked to her. My brother rarely showed the concern he felt, but he was showing it now. “Sam notified us. You’re coming to Adriata with me, and you will remain there until this is solved.”

Elias nodded. “I agree. There are obviously traitors among our ranks and we’ve been incapable of making this a home for you.”

“I don’t,” Thora said. “They don’t want to kill me, Elias.”

“No,” he said. “They want to do something worse. Humiliate you in front of your whole kingdom.”

“Didn’t feel that in the least,” she said, patting away some of the falling snow from the top of her head.

Sam cleared his throat, startling Thora when he faded by her side. “Mother says you either come with us, or she will drag you to Adriata herself.”

Thora smiled at him. “Those weren’t the exact words, were they?”

“Mother’s vocabulary is much richer than mine.”

Elias glanced over his shoulder at me, frowning. “You’ve aged.”

That seemed to draw everyone's attention to me. Her’s, too, because she stilled.

“Have you not come across a mirror these days?” I threw back.

“Nice hair.”

“Nice nose. Want me to break it, pretty boy?”

He grinned. “Aw, you find me pretty?”

“The witch you’re obsessed with doesn’t.”

He put a hand to his chest, offended. “She finds me gorgeous.”

“Put words in my mouth again and I’ll cut your tongue,” Visha said, slipping from a portal behind me, and Elias paled. She cast me a short glance. “Was hoping the word of your return was a drunk babble.”

I grinned at Elias, pushing past him and towards the woman who had continued her mindless walk inside the castle. “How do you feel that she likes me more than you?”

From the way her whole body stiffened and how her steps began almost faltering, she’d sensed me following her.

“Thora.”

She flinched even though my tone had been gentle—it had always been gentle with her.

“I’ll take you to Adriata,” I said, keeping a small distance between us.

“No need,” she said, stopping by her bedroom door and pushing it open.

Neo stood in the middle of her room, only half dressed. “You’re really back.” His reaction morphed from confusion to something else, something almost resembling anger. I didn’t want to read him. No. If I knew he was angry about my return, I’d want to know why the man I had once considered close enough to be a brother would be angry to see me back.