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“I’m listening,” the king said, holding his hands in a fist before him.
“You’ve got to do something about Atlas,” Kirsi began.
He went rigid beside me. I tried to take his hand, but he refused, steeling himself.
“He needs somebody—or something—to occupy him. He’s following us around like a lost puppy. And sometimes three’s a crowd,” she said, sharing a look with Nym. “I love Atty, I really do. But he’s driving us crazy because he cannot be alone.”
If only they knew how truly lonely he felt all the time. The hurt in his eyes nearly broke me as he listened to his friends, the only companions he had in the world, speak about him as if he were only a problem to be solved.
“They're saying these things because they love you and they care for your happiness, Atty,” I tried.
He couldn’t hear me, though, not over Torryn’s next words. “We need to give him a job. Something to keep him busy. Maybe with other people he can befriend.”
“I can’t believe we are having this conversation.” The queen rose from her chair, shaking her wild hair as she looked them all in the eyes. “Atlas would do literally anything for any of you at the drop of a hat. It cannot be so bad that you’ve called a meeting.”
Kirsi stood also, placing her hands flat on the table between them. “He sent spiders under our door for days until we agreed to go to the tavern with him. And not because he couldn’t go by himself. Because he’s afraid he’s going to meet someone. We love him, too, Rave, but he’s using us as a buffer for women. And to keep him busy so he doesn’t have to be lonely.”
The Dark King cleared his throat. “I’ll ask him to gather the Yule logs for this year’s Solstice.”
Torryn turned in his seat. “That’s a dangerous journey for him to make alone.”
“It’s a job that needs done. Do you want to go with him?” the king asked, lifting a dark brow.
Atlas seemed to hold his breath beside me, waiting for the answer he already knew would come. Since we were here now without the man he called a brother.
“Not particularly. But I guess we give him the task, and if he asks me to join, I’ll do it.”
“Don’t worry, Tor. I won’t,” Atlas grumbled.
Present hissed a laugh as the walls faded away, and Atlas held a hard glare at his boots.
15
When I woke to a chill and rolled to find him gone, I jerked upward, pain searing my ribs as I searched beyond the glass walls of his magical dome, only to find him sitting in a bank of snow having a heart-to-heart conversation with one of the horses. I couldn’t hear his words, but I could feel his sadness as if it were my own.
He’d left an opening in his magical barrier and dropped all of his blankets on me sometime in the night. Who knew how long he’d been out there? Still, he’d thought of me enough to make sure I didn’t feel trapped. And that felt like progress.
I folded the blankets and stacked the pillows and furs before he noticed the movement. When he shared a forced smile and lifted from the ground, dusting the wet snow from his bottom, the horse knickered and tossed his head back, as if sad to leave their private conversation.
“Ready for this?” he asked.
“Do you want to talk ab—”
“No. They’re good people, Marley, and they mean well. Let’s just leave it at that.”
“But Tor—”
“We’ve got at least one more night stuck together. As soon as Future comes and delivers her final blow, we can be done with this. Let’s just let that be enough.”
“Stuck together?”
His jaw tightened as he dared me to disagree. I didn’t.
The ride into the Forest Coven was short, but no number of warnings could have prepared me for the onslaught of grief as we crossed that bridge. The second we passed over the spot the Harrowing had struck Laramie, the world seemed to shrink. Atlas stopped breathing.
I reached across the sleigh and took his hand. I expected him to shut me out. To push me away again. But he didn’t. He gripped my fingers, his giant palms swallowing them as he closed his eyes and titled his head back.
“Just breathe, Atty.”
