“Then perhaps don’t look at me as if you missed the feeling of my fingers wrapped through your hair.”
The effect of his words was instantaneous.
“I looked at you in no such way.”
“Mm, I could disprove it easily.”
“How?” The question was out of my mouth, Terran provoked, before I thought better of it.
“By tearing off every layer of your clothing, and defenses. Your body doesn’t lie.”
No, it doesn’t.
“I think we have more important matters to discuss.”
Sighing, as if reluctantly resigning himself to the truth of my words, he wandered toward the window, looking out at the very rocks below I’d been staring at when he first approached.
“You’ve set off a chain of events that can’t be undone by coming here, Lyra.”
Although that was the entire point of this mission, I refrained from saying as much.
“You’d have preferred to allow your father to descend into a madness that would cause a war? Already, he’s isolated Gyoria, angered even his strongest allies, and destabilized Elydor in a way that hasn’t been seen since?—”
He turned to me. “Your king opened the Gate?”
“With permission from all three clans,” I reminded him.
“None expected the humans to be given land to settle here. That was Galfrid’s doing.”
“I won’t argue this with you. ’Tis clear we have different views on the matter.”
“You think?”
His scowl made me smile. “Like a trexan that guards its den as fiercely as it hunts.”
“Call me soft again, Lyra. I will enjoy proving you wrong.”
His words sent a tingle from my toes to my very core. I would enjoy it as well but had to stop allowing Terran to know that.
“So sensitive, for a Gyorian.”
I goaded him, and Terran knew it. Instead of taking the bait, he turned back to the window.
“I’ll go with you, to speak to my brother.”
My heart leaped at the victory, one more hollow than it should be. I hated lying to Terran about the true purpose of my mission. But that, I reconciled, was a matter between brothers. I’d been tasked with bringing the Stone of Mor’Vallis to Aetheria. That it was carried by one of the most fearsome Gyorian warriors of our time was a matter for Kael and Galfrid to reconcile.
“And my king?”
“I imagine speaking to him will be unavoidable.”
A victory, to be certain. But we needed to get there first.
“I assume your father’s men are searching for you?”
“Aye.”
“My presence hasn’t gone unnoticed here,” I said, joining him at the window.
