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I swiped a blanket off the foot of the bed—Arran had kicked it off anyway—as well as the book I’d been reading from the table beside my pillow.
Parys kept a steady supply of books coming in from the library. I wasn’t sure how he managed it, but I’d finish one only to find a new selection in its place the next day. He must be in league with Cyara.
Ironic, considering how she’d barely tolerated his presence in the months after Arthur’s death.
But everything was different now.
There was a huge, unfairly muscled male in my bed, for one. Truly, just glancing at his sleeping form was enough to stir my desire again. Despite—or maybe because of—the ache between my legs.
He snored again.
I rolled my eyes and slipped through the doors into the antechamber. I settled in on the chaise, wrapping the blanket around my legs, and let myself fall into the fantasy world Parys had selected for me. For the first time since waking up in my bed, broken into a thousand pieces, I exhaled.
My friends drifted in slowly.
First Cyara, with a tea tray and a long look that told me she knew precisely how I’d spent my night. Parys arrived with breakfast, as if pulled by scents of chocolate croissants and fresh berries with cream. Arran followed shortly after—some preternatural sense alerting him to the presence of another male.
He emerged from my bedroom bare chested, hair rumpled from where I’d dragged my hands through it again and again in the night, and a glower that would have sent any other male in the kingdom running. A walking proclamation. He might as well have pissed on me to mark his territory.
Parys ignored him, drinking his morning wine and reading from the stack of books he’d brought with them. They were historical texts, not petite novels like the one in my hand. I didn’t ask about them.
Gwen and Lyrena came last, taking turns eating—because the moment they picked up a biscuit, someone was sure to try to slit my throat—before turning to sparring right there in the open space of the antechamber.
Perhaps I ought to be out among my court. The Ancestors knew there were things we needed to discuss. But I clung to that moment of normalcy. There had been so few of these days in my life. None, really. Those stolen days with Arran after the Tower of Myda were the closest. Maybe the laughing walks Arthur and I had taken through the goldstone palace in the months after his coronation.
But this was different. It was special. I wanted to etch it into my memory forever.
It was all very peaceful and idyllic.
Until Parys decided to be an ass.
“I think I’ve found the original source of the Void Prophecy.”
I thought I was hallucinating. Or that I’d been transported—against my will—to another realm by the glowing ember of my power.
Could alternate realms exist… not just different physical places, but alternate versions of this reality?
I snapped my book shut, unwilling to even consider it. I was sleep deprived already. Now Parys was going to give me a headache.
No one responded to him—probably out of self-preservation. Which only emboldened him further.
“They’re human,” Parys said. A little louder this time.
My teeth snagged on the inside of my cheek, ripping shreds of soft flesh away and filling my mouth with the tang of my own blood.
“There are so many things wrong with that statement,” I said, pressing my index fingers to my temples.
“The prophecy was made over seven thousand years ago,” Cyara pointed out astutely.
“Which means if it was made by a human, they are long dead,” I finished for her. “Setting aside the ridiculousness of a human priestess.”
Lyrena chuckled, barely breaking stride as she twirled to avoid Gwen’s swinging blade.
But Parys’ brows knit together, missing all their usual amusement. “Half human, half fae.”
I rolled my eyes toward Arran, expecting to see exasperation to match my own.
Instead, he was frowning at Parys. “It happens.”
