Fay sputtered and coughed, choking on nothing, much to my amusement.
“I’ll take that as a no,” I teased.
Fay grumbled something as she tucked errant locks of curls behind her ears.
“No, we haven’t completed the Bond yet,” she griped, wistfulness and longing coating her tone. It only surprised me further.
“But you want to,” I hedged.
Fay sighed, her shoulders drooping beneath the blanket as she leaned her head against the side of the chair, lolling it until she could see me out of the corner of her eye.
“It’s complicated.”
“So uncomplicate it,” I said with a shrug. “Tell me about it.”
“It’s a long story.”
“I have time,” I said, refusing to let her weasel her way out of this conversation. Fay grumbled something else, but I pleaded with her. “Please, Fay? It’s beenmonthssince I’ve had legitimate time with you, and even longer since I’ve been able to talk to someone who isn’t my brother or my husband. I miss you, and I want to know what’s going on in your life.”
Fay’s face softened, and I knew I had her.
“We’re going to need wine,” Fay finally relented.
“That I can do.”
“Andthenhe says,”Fay proclaimed loudly before taking a giant breath and lowering her brows and voice, imitating Rohak. “‘We’ll finish this later, Faylinn. Once you come back to me.’”
Fay’s rather full glass of wine sloshed down the sides as she held her arms up in almost a square, as if she were trying to make her body look bigger.
I giggled uncontrollably at both her poor imitation of Rohak and her utter frustration.
“I mean, whosays that? I’d just given him the best head of his life and then he just . . . leaves me wanting?!” She crashed into the chair with a groan and a shake of her head, wine spilling down her wrist and onto her pants. “Oh, shit,” she said as I continued to giggle.
“I cannot empathize with you, but I can sympathize,” I said with a slight hiccup, patting her hand much harder than I intended. It only served to slosh wine over the sides of both of our glasses, sending us into unprovoked hysterics once more.
It was the middle of the day, and we were absolutely, with complete certainty, drunk.
I’d called for a bottle of wine from the kitchens, but we’d finished it in record time as we discussed some of the less intimate details of our time away from each other. But once the second and then third bottles disappeared just as quickly as the first, all bets were off, and no topic was untouched.
I snorted at the thought. Fay wasdefinitelystill untouched by Rohak and more than a little annoyed by it.
We sat in comfortable silence, each of us slurping loudly at the last of the wine in our glasses, lost in our own thoughts.
For the first time in a long time, I was at ease and relaxed. Even a bit hopeful that this is what life could be like once all of this was over and the gods were eliminated. Fay and I could have drunken days together without the constant impending doom, a fear that lingered like a bad cough in the deepest part of winter.
Maybe we could live near each other—close enough that our kids could growup together, if I ever had them, and she could help teach the littles. Or whatever she wanted to do.
“What are you going to do when this is all over?” I asked, leaning back in my chair to look at the ceiling. The stones were spinning and undulating in such an intricate dance that Ihadto watch.
“Have as many babies as Rohak will put in me,” Fay said with conviction. “Then maybe open up a library or write a book or do something that isn’t inscribing runes on people’s bodies when they don’t want them.”
I hummed, fingers tapping the glass lightly as my feet swung lazily over the chair’s arm.
“What about you?” Fay asked in return, her voice as faraway as my thoughts.
“Nothing that has to do with war or destruction or hurting people,” I admitted softly. “I’ve had just about enough of that for three lifetimes, let alone this one. I’d give it all up if I could—these powers, my titles, everything.”
The heaviness and truth of that statement hit me square in the chest, knocking the breath from my lungs for a moment. Ihatedwhat I’d been forced to become and knew that if I thought of all the lives I’d altered or taken simply because I was born to be a godling, I would spiral.
