Page 114 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

“Your brother came to get her for dinner since she’s been eating alone all day.”

I was an idiot. She must be thinking I’ve hid from her all day. “Who is playing the ghost tonight?”

He put an elbow on the chair backrest and twisted to look at me. “Iskyla’s soldiers haven’t been down here for a whole week. I’m guessing they are strategizing something, or they’ve truly given up.”

“Highly doubt it, so gear up.”

His entire expression turned alert. “You’ve seen them?”

“No, but my shadows have. They have been lurking close to our borders for days, but their presence keeps disappearing and reappearing. They have brought down a Crafter. I can feel the rotten stench of craft all over the cities. Notify Oryn.”

“He hasn’t returned from Eldmoor yet.”

“Get another witch.”

My room was empty, but she’d been there.

I didn’t even need to feel her presence to know. She’d left plenty of evidence behind and she was determined to give me a fucking heart attack. “Shit,” I hissed, kicking away the empty bottles of liquor littering the floor—some of the bottles that had been hidden in my cabinets since I’d been a boy. The type of strong stuff I saved for sipping after I’d worn my organs out during a night out. It usually was the last kick of flavour to help me sleep.

“She is in the night gardens,” Kilian said, leaning against my bedroom door, hands in his pockets and smirking like an idiot.

I pointed at him as I went past the corridors. “You led her to them on purpose.”

“She’s grown up enough to enter and roam wherever she pleases. This is also her home after all. You married her. Voluntarily. Does she even know you suggested that? Or that you threatened Elias with his life if he brought another man to see her?”

Nope. “I’m going to kill you.”

“I’m your favourite brother and you would miss my cuddles!” he shouted behind me and then chuckled.

Thora laid on the grass in the middle of the night gardens, curled up in a ball while cradling a bottle of liquor to her chest. She usually had a good stomach for it, but considering how many empty bottles I’d found, I doubt even I would have been able to handle it all. But my small wife was resilient if nothing else. Sheer force of will gave her wings and sometimes it was stronger than her magic—an entirely different magic in itself. Nothing short of striking.

“Little bird,” I said, standing over her.

“Ssssht,” she shushed, putting a finger to her lips.

“You’re not the boss of me.”

Unfurling from her position, she laid on her back, eyes still tightly shut. She was so gods darn beautiful. How could anyone create something this exquisite? “I used to think death was dreadful, but death is so beautiful,” she said. “After he left, I’d sometimes wish he could find me again and hold me to the edge of it, tell me all his secrets and break my heart to a million little pieces just so I didn’t have to live with it beating in my chest while calling for him. He may have pushed me off that ledge if he wished. I would have gladly fallen.” She opened her eyes and tipped her chin up so she could look at the bleary stars hiding between a layer of rain fog. “But he left me on a boat in the middle of the ocean. Hiding plenty of secrets in its waters. No edge to jump from in sight. And with a restless heart who didn’t and won’t know better than to miss him. Missing him is all it knows.”

My hands seeked to touch her, everything in me seeked her, so I obeyed, crouching down, touching her hair, her face, her eyes, her little pert nose, that tiny swollen mouth. “What is this nonsense, sweetheart?” It was breaking my heart and mending it at the same time. Part of me wanted her to mean them, part of me cared too much about her to even think she meant them, that I’d done such horrors to her.

She sighed and finally rolled her drunk emerald eyes up to me—a whole viridian rain forest staring back at me. “I take it back. You’re so ugly right now, your face is all wrong, all upside down. Eyes for lips and lips for eyes.” Her mouth curled up with a cringe. “But why does my heart still like you?”

My sick one liked her back. “Ask her for me, too.”

“She’s stopped answering me since the day I swore to forget you and tried to let another man in.”

“I think I like her.”

“She’s evil. How could she do this to me? I’ve been so kind and gentle to her. Worried about her to the point I took away pain so she wouldn’t hurt.”

Drunken Thora was a sight to behold. “I’ll have a word with her.”

She went on her back again and opened her arms wide. “Go ahead.”

Barely holding in a chuckle, I leaned forward and left a kiss on her chest. When she sucked in a sharp breath, I left another a little lower down then I laid right beside her. “It’s not her fault.”

“It is,” she said, her voice entirely detached. “How can it not be?