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Lonnie, noticing nothing, looked absolutely fucking delighted. “So what happened?”
“He came to realize the error of his misjudgment,” I snapped.
“He nearly got me killed,” Cross spoke over me.
“I will complete the task if you don’t shut your mouth,” I barked. “We have more important things to discuss.”
Cross scoffed, clearly exasperated. “Ten minutes won’t make a lick of difference.”
Cross turned to Lonnie, leaning back in his chair and interlacing his fingers behind his head. Her eyes sparkled with anticipation, waiting for a story.
Running my hands through my hair, I pressed my lips together, resigned.
Not for many years had Cross feared me as others did. Not since we’d served together, and especially not since he was the king of thieves, powerful in his own way. Usually, I liked that about our friendship, but today, I’d never resented it more, and there was very little I could do about it at the moment…not without scaring Lonnie.
I’d have to wait.
“I joined the military while we were in peacetime to make some money to send back to my family,” Cross began. “This was before I realized there were other ways to support myself, you understand, and it was a good job for someone like me.”
“Someone like what?” she asked.
He raised his hair to show her his ears, and I watched her eyes widen. It confirmed what I’d suspected—she thought he was human. But then, she believed she was human too, and the longer I spent with her, the more I wondered if that, too, was incorrect.
“But why someone like you?” she asked. “If you’re Fae…”
The corners of his mouth turned up, and the dimple in his cheek deepened. I stifled a groan. Like everyone else, Cross’s eyes sparkled as he gazed at her, completely enamored by her mere existence.
Every muscle in my body was tense, and I had to clench my fists to stop them from lashing out. I sucked in a slow breath, resisting the urge to kick the legs out from under my friend’s chair and drag her away from him.
“I don’t have any magic,” he replied simply. “But during peacetime, the army wasn’t bad. Lots of guard work, essentially, until a few years after I joined up, Aftermath fell, and then everything got far less fun. There was still money, o’course, but suddenly, we were expected to fight.”
My thoughts turned mutinous.Expected to fight in the army? What a shock…
Here was further proof of the cost of ruling—something I’d always known to be a steep price. It wasn’t only the prisoners who’d become afflicted who’d died, but the young soldiers as well.
“And you were in the same unit?” Lonnie prompted.
“In a sense,” I ground out.
Cross laughed, some of the haunted look vanishing from his eyes. “Prince Belvedere was in charge o’all of us, see? And he would go around to all the units to check up on things. Then, after a while, he started bringing around his kid, showing him off like he was some god among us.”
Again, Lonnie’s eyes shot to mine. “How old were you?”
I shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “To begin with? Perhaps eleven.”
She looked appalled by that, but the context that both she and Cross were missing was that Ambrose had only abandoned the family a year or so before. He was older, and though I likely would have ended up the heir anyway based on power, Grandmother Celia was adamant that we appear strong in the eyes of the people—as if I’d been meant to be on the frontlines all along. “Move this along, Cross. I’d like to do more than reminisce tonight. We have actual plans to make.”
Cross seemed unbothered. “Fine, fine. So, a few more years pass, and the princeling here was brought to my unit and told he could run it. See, we’d just lost our commander, and he got handed the title by birthright rather than actual ability, except then we actually went into Aftermath, and yer man here realized he was fucked.”
My anger sparked. “Anyone would have realized they were fucked.”
“Actually, no,” Cross said thoughtfully. “Not everyone would have. See, lass, we all realized that this was supposed to be a test for the princeling. Either we’d win, or we’d all be slaughtered, but either way, Prince Belvedere was going to spread the story far and wide as proof of his son’s heroics.”
Lonnie’s jaw dropped, and her eyes widened in disbelief. When she spoke, her words were laced with revulsion. “Are you telling me your father was willing to let you die?”
If only it were so simple.
I shook my head, my teeth gritted so tight I thought they might crack. “No. I can shadow walk even when injured.”
