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The uncomfortable kind that needled beneath the marred skin along my burnt arm, rousing a ghostly tingle that no amount of rubbing or scratching would control. For fuck’s sake, why was I feeling like this?
“Malyr is also my friend,” I added, supplying more explanations—or were they excuses?—where she’d asked for none. “He and I went through a lot together.”
More silence.
Perhaps it would’ve been a good moment to get up and leave. Give her some time alone. But I stayed, watching her, running my fingers through her hair one slow stroke at a time as if… as if I was waiting for something. What was it? For her to confirm that I couldn’t have done anything? That I hadn’t failed to keep her safe? That I hadn’t failed toprotecther?
“There was a moment when I hoped you would interfere,” she finally said, amplifying that ache behind my ribs. “It’s silly, I know. But then again, we already established that I’m a foolish girl. Today made that quite clear. It was stupid to expect that Father would bother to get me back. It was even more stupid to hope that you would… somehow protect me.”
A pierce through my chest.
Ouch.
I stared down at myself, half expecting to find a dagger protruding where she’d somehow stabbed me. It certainly felt like it. Hurt me in a place where I’d been numb for so long, right beneath my fucking ribs.
I didn’t like it.
Numb was better.
On instinct, my hand wandered to the leather pouch on my belt. Gray devil’s bark wasn’t easy to harvest this close to the first snow, but I was in no mood to— Ah… fuck. My pouch was gone, if lost in days of drunken stupor or a poorly-placed bet, I couldn’t even remember.
“I’ll see what I can find out about this mess.” I rose and headed for the door, eager to leave this suffocating tightness. “Stay here. Don’t leave this chamber.”
The moment I stepped into the corridor, I shifted into my ravens. We left through one of the hundreds of flight holes we’d cut into the stone and rounded the castle until we managed to slip into Malyr’s private rooms. Wine. Where was the damn wine?
Somehow, myanoawas still staggering behind me a few steps until he finally merged with my human form. Dozens of voices and ten times as many scents crashed down on my senses, hurting my head, turning me nauseous all over again. I grabbed the golden carafe that stood on the desk and the goblet beside it, pouring as I strode toward Malyr’s library. Empty. Aside from a thick swath of shadows that led me to the door to his private gardens.
Carafe abandoned on a side table, I took a sip of last night’s stale wine, and stepped into the green space. Goddess help me, I needed to recover my pouch.
Malyr paced the length of the moss-covered stone bench that stood in front of a small pond where red maple leafs floated on the surface. Shadowy offshoots still danced around his boots, telling me he was far from calm. Good. Neither was I.
“Malyr…” Leaning with his back against the trunk of the maple tree, Asker sighed. The fact that he’d dropped the ‘my prince’ in favor of Malyr’s name told me everything I needed to know about how this conversation was going. “A marriage with Lady Galantia will gain you a bannerman more powerful than any of the other human lords who have sworn you allegiance. It will give us Marla back!”
“If you believe that, then you’re a fool,” Malyr scoffed. “There are two things I swore on my family that I would do: destroy House Brisden, and take Dranada for our new home. I will not renounce one oath to see the other fulfilled.”
Asker propped his elbow against his other arm, letting his face fall into the palm of his gloved hand. “Malyr, conquering the kingdom of Dranada is difficult. More daunting is the task of uniting the human and Raven lords, so you may bringpeaceandunityto the realm after an eternity of war. Marrying the girl would send a powerful message about both.”
“I willnot…marry… Galantia.” Malyr bit out each word, and even suspended his pacing. “Her father is an honorless bastard who doesn’t hesitate to abandon his oath and stab his king in the back, which makes him an unreliable ally, and I will see him answer for the things he did to me. That girl is worthless.”
Asker threw his hands up. “The goddess showed her to me. She is essential.”
“How can she be?” When Asker’s silence gave way to doubt, and the wind rushing into the garden, swaying the branches on the maple and the hundreds of colorful ribbons and threads dangling from them, Malyr shook his head. “I willnotmarry her. End of discussion.”
Another sip of wine. I couldn’t even tell if that was good or bad news for Galantia…
Asker pushed himself off the trunk, nodding solemnly, bunching his big brows together before he stared into the pond. “Without Marla, without your bonded mate, you will have to marrysomeone.Someone who comes with a substantial army. It is the only way to ensure absolute loyalty and avoid betrayal when we march on Tidestone.”
“Yes, I will have to, will I not?” Malyr exhaled a long breath. “The worst day in the history of our kind was the one where some Raven queen decided that we should love humans, marry them, breed with them. My parents fought for their fated bond. And look at me, forced to take a human wife.”
When their argument faded into the howl of the wind cutting along the upper edges of the walls, I deemed it safe enough to step closer. “Maybe if you’d announced adriflike I told you a dozen times, you wouldn’t be in the position of having to marry a human.”
“Sebian’s suggestion is sound—favorable, even—ifwe hurry so you may find your mate.” Asker’s jaws shifted as his gaze settled on the cup in my hand. “It is the morning.”
“Not everywhere.” I took another sip just to piss him off. “Besides, you shouldn’t act quite so surprised.”
Huffing, he returned his attention to Malyr. “Send out pathfinders in all directions so they may spread word of the festival.”
Malyr arched a brow at me. “For just a moment, it was blessedly silent. Then you showed up, putting that idea in his head all over again.”
