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Ellie stared at him, dumbfounded. “Excuse me?”
“You said that I can’t hold my liquor. I had no liquor,” Emmett explained, popping his head up.
“Then why are you—”
“Wine, ladies. Sweet, delicious Frenzian wine.” Emmett smiled a wide, toothy grin that wrinkled the corner of his eyes. How they hadn’t noticed he was drunk in the first place was beyond Graeson. The man was utterly wasted.
“Dead.” Ellie’s head fell into her palms as she began to trace circles into the ground with her steps. “We’re all dead.”
Terin shifted on his feet, his gaze falling to the ground.
This was it then. The game was up. Graeson had failed yet again. Even if the Tetrian women didn’t back out, Kalisandre didn’t believe him. He could see that as clearly as the Glaciers in the Northeast. He exhaled, the breath long and shaky as he attempted to regain the little control he had maintained since his encounter with Kalisandre.
We will not leave her. She is ours.
At the sound of the god’s voice, Graeson’s jaw flexed.
Kalisandre is not something that can be claimed,Graeson spat back.
Graeson would not force her to listen to him. Because when she had been given the choice, she had chosen power over him. A crown over him. A title.
What is a title? A title is nothing when—
Enough,Graeson shouted.
The god within him growled.Is it her choice when that bullheaded king has wrapped her mind around his little finger?
Graeson tightened thelocks on the mental door, but the god within him was right. Graeson would give up everything he had to save Kalisandre from Domitius. Even as foolish as it may have seemed to the others.
Perhaps it would have changed things if he had told Kalisandre the entire truth. But that wasn’t what he wanted. Graeson didn’t want her to choose him because ofwhathe was but ratherwhohe was. And this rescue mission was greater than his mother’s vision. His feelings about Kalisandre aside, they could not let Domitius have her. If she became as strong as he believed her to be, there would be no hope for the coming war. Her manipulations thus far had been simple party tricks. There was more that she could do. Graeson felt it when her gift knocked on the door to his mind.
But he couldn’t do that if his anger won.
He needed a distraction. He needed space.
The last thing he wanted to do was talk this out with the others. Inside the guest house, Graeson felt trapped. There were too many of them sharing this three-bedroom house. There was no privacy, not even a dark corner he could slink into and hide among the shadows.
Pushing himself from the wall, he grabbed his cloak from a nearby chair and threw it on.
“Where are you going?” Moris asked, concern bunching his brows together.
“Out,” Graeson gritted out.
“Out?”Dani asked, pushing away from the couch, her hands falling to the side. “Are you serious right now?”
“Mhm,” Graeson mumbled.
Dani rushed forward, slamming a hand against the door. “And where are you going to go, Graeson?”
Graeson brushed his hand through his hair, tugging at the strands. “I don’t know, and I don’t care.”
Dani shoved him in the chest. “If you do something stupid—”
He tossed her arm off him. “I’m not going to see her. You can calm down.”
“Then why—”
“Rescuing Kalisandre is not some foolish, lovesick mission of mine. Think about what will happen if she remains in Domitius’ hold. Terin, think about what your great-grandmother did to Vaneria, her reach. Do we really want Kalisandre to get that powerful and be in the enemy’s hands?”
