Page 392 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

The faint smell of smoke reached my senses, a continuous tapping sound pulling me from a sleep so heavy it couldn’t have been natural.

But the pain was gone.

That was more than I deserved.

I knew it, even as slumber tucked me back in its blissful embrace.

“How much longer will she sleep?” It wasn’t so much a question as a snarled demand.

“As long as she needs,” Barry scolded. “Let her rest.”

“That was an ordeal,” Smith added, softer. Always the gentle one.

His poor mate… her story had always been horrific, but now it hung heavy around my neck… because I was still breathing. And she wasn’t.

“You’ve got to leave her be.”

A growl sent goosebumps down my skin.

“I’m no healer.” A gentle, feminine voice. Familiar. “But I think her body is recovering from the trauma more than the physical wounds.”

“Her wounds have been sealed for days,” Adrastos rumbled, the words nearly an accusation. “Why can’t I see her waking?”

Well, that was a terrifying thought. Apparently not terrifying enough to keep me conscious, though.

Razor blades were lodged into the flesh of my throat. Or at least, that’s what it felt like as I smacked my cracked lips, blinking into the gloom of a room illuminated only by a flickering hearth and the subtle silver glow of the moon beyond the window. Sucking in a rattling gasp, I turned onto my side, eyes snagging on a full glass of water. I lunged. Or tried to. My arms shook, threatening to give out as I dragged myself to the edge, sighing at the cold condensation beneath my fingers.

Based on the fuzzy memories crawling into my mind and the gnawing pain in my stomach, I’d been out for…

“Three days.”

That low, rumbling tenor snapped my attention to the corner of the room—the one that bordered my old quarters. If not for the ashen cast of the moon across his skin, the prince would’ve been swallowed whole by shadows. Adrastos had his back propped against the wall, shoulder leaning into the glass windowpane as he twirled a dagger between his fingers, enveloped in a cloak of darkness. He didn’t bother to look up, his eyes scanning something outside.

Oh so slowly, I sipped the chilled water. Nothing had ever tasted as heavenly. It could’ve been sweet tea for how gratefully I gulped it down.

“Three days, you’ve slept, and in that time August Porter successfully lured my siblings into the heart of Manhattan for a head-to-head.”

In one of his last reports, he explained that New York was firmly held in Moros’ iron grip. Demon-infested and overrun with Renown, so what was August’s play with that?

“That is the question of the hour,” Adrastos drawled, and I blinked, mind grappling for the edges of shields I’d clearly lost in my recovery. “I have theories, none of them convincing. Moros emerged allegedly victorious, with The Obsidian Crown back in Balaskas hands.”

“The what?” I rasped, voice serrated with rusted edges.

“Obsidian Crown,” he repeated. “The lore says the crown is used to control a great magic⁠—”

“Like Rhiannon’s diadem?”

“A matching set,” Adrastos said, eyes flicking across me and to the door to the hallway. His glower seemed permanently carved into his features as he glared at the space where floor met threshold, where a shadow shifting in the light beyond told me one of his men was likely outside it. “Only this one harnesses the power through reins held by another.”

“Like a Blood Bond?”

“Nearly as vile, yes.”

“Moros means to… control a power player? Ally?”

“Alvara has been crushed into compliance through highly effective methods of manipulation. So long as he keeps his talons in her, she needs no crown.”

“So, August?”