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He hadn’t slept.
No one would have trusted him to stand guard. Osheen was probably out in the tunnel, guarding the rest of us while we rested.
But Percival still sat here. He hadn’t eaten from the tray. He hadn’t slept.
I finished my food. Set aside the dishes. Maybe one of the faeries had water powers and could magic them clean.
Half an eye on Percival, always.
I wasn’t surprised to see him draw the dagger—and though I was fast, I didn’t draw my own in response. He held the blade—offering me the hilt.
My dagger. The one I’d tossed him during the battle with the succubus.
“Here.”
I stared at the blade. The hilt, shaped into a wolf with a glinting eye, seemed to stare back at me. “Keep it.”
Percival’s eyes widened. He shook his head, slowly at first, then more empathically—until his dark hair was spinning wildly around his shoulders. “I can’t.”
I lifted one brow. “You can. As a thank you for saving me from the nightwalkers, not once, but twice. You’ll have a better chance of doing it a third time if you have a blade that can actually kill them.”
It was a risk. He might very well stab me in the back with my own blade.
But I had the scabbards.
He backed away, though he didn’t tuck the blade back into his belt. He held it firmly in his hand, but across his knee. It was then that I noticed the other hand—and what it clutched.
“Have you had any luck getting it to work?”
Percival blinked. Then he turned his hand over, uncurling his fingers to fully reveal the large white crystal waiting in his palm. He stared at it accusingly.
“No.”
The vehemence said more than the word.
“But you’ve been trying.”
His chin dropped a fraction of an inch. My chest ached. Not the mating bond, for once. Which meant that wherever Arran was, he hadn’t gone far. Maybe he was the one standing out in the tunnel on guard duty while Osheen and Lyrena slept.
“I lost my brother,” I said.
The understatement of the millennia. Lost didn’t even begin to describe how I had felt when Arthur was murdered.
As if half of me had been torn away—the better half. The king that Annwyn needed and deserved. Leaving me, the pale, disappointing, dangerous imitation, in his place. But now… now I had power. Now I was High Queen, with a strong and powerful mate at my side.
It didn’t ease the pain. It didn’t make it feel any more… right.
Percival was still staring at the crystal. As if he couldn’t hear my words.
I recognized that too.
I knew what words he would hear.
“After Avalon, we will find your sister. I promise.”
His gaze snapped up to me. His hands tightened—around the blade and the crystal. He didn’t say thank you. He didn’t need to, really. It was part of our bargain.
But I’d planned to kill him, rather than honor it.
