Nyx laughed, waving her hand at Inara. “Spare me the threats. We both know you can’t do anything to me. You’rehisnow. His puppet. His tool. Which means you’re mine. Don’t forget that.”
With a flick of her hair, Nyx stepped off the branch to hover in midair. “Though if you do, I’ll be happy to remind you again.”
“Where are you going?” Inara called in a harsh voice.
“To give my report to His Majesty.”
With that, Nyx disappeared into the forest beyond the oak’s grove. The Red Cap lumbered after her.
“Bitch,” Inara snarled.
Creaking came from the trunk of the oak tree behind me. Like branches rubbing together. They were interspersed with the low call of something deerlike.
My body went rigid at the sound of hooves whispering over soft grass. It felt like my bones would snap from how tight my muscles were strung. It was a struggle to hold still and not let my breathing or pulse pick up.
At long last, the eldritch passed into view, his appearance just as terrifying and beautiful as the last time.
“Yes, I’m aware it’s not time yet. I don’t need you telling me the obvious,” Inara snapped
Another sound that was between a grunt and a low bugle.
“Oh, shut up,” Inara grumbled before her gaze fell on me. “Aileen.”
I kept my eyes closed, pretending to be unconscious.
“What did those assholes do to you?” Inara whispered.
Her weight settled against my chest. It was negligible, so light I barely knew she was there until tiny hands rested just beneath my broken cheekbone. Their touch fleeting and soft.
“You promised me she wouldn’t get hurt.”
There was grief in those words. A helplessness and rage every bit as potent as the one she’d shown when Nyx had threatened Lowen.
Warmth spread through my chest. She did care.
I didn’t know why she’d pretended with Nyx earlier, but the upset she showed told me she hadn’t abandoned me quite yet.
At least not in an irreversible way.
As hopeful as her reaction made me, I held still, not letting either her or the eldritch being know I was awake.
Inara, I might have chanced it with. Him, no way. Not after our last encounter.
Something told me this being wasn’t on a level I could understand. As unknowable and mysterious as a black hole.
Or more aptly—the sun.
Sound flowed from him, lifting and falling in that strange call that sounded somewhat like an elk’s bugle. The words of the conversation I could just barely detect incomprehensible and fathomless.
Inara sliced her hand through the air. “I don’t care what you and Brin have planned. Aileen was never supposed to be part of it.”
A pause.
“Yes, I know what’s at stake,” Inara declared loudly. “The Summer Lands can burn for all I care. No one saved us when we needed it.”
Except him.
The words blared loudly in my head. Somehow my whimper of pain went unnoticed, the two of them too focused on each other to pay attention to me.
