“Rooke is verymuchin the picture,” she corrected me. “You didn’t see him, rushing through the end of the ritual, looking desperately at the doors every ten seconds, panicked over you. I did. Trust me, he’s in the picture.”
“I thought Gravelock controlled your mind?”
“He did…right up until he didn’t,” she said, with a secretive smile. “Like I said, he wasn’t all that strong. Whenever hehad to use his magic elsewhere, his control over me slipped. To truly control me, he had to focus. But when he couldn’t do that, the lock on my door did the trick.”
“I’m sorry, Ari.” I could barely swallow past the knot in my throat. “The Oracle told me you were dead and I fucking believed her. I should have…I should have looked for you. I shouldn’t have just accepted her bullshit story.”
“Where would you have looked? Down in the Shadowlands in the tower of Evernight?” Ariel shook her head. “No, I don’t blame anyone for my fate except myself for getting drawn in by a promise of riches and the dead bastard who set me up.”
She set the soup aside and pinned that crystalline gaze on me with such intensity I winced.
“Now, tell me what it’s like to havethreehandsome Fae males fawning all over you.”
55
RYLAND
From the ramparts of Frostveil Castle, the ice stretched out in endless, unbroken agony beneath an unforgiving sky. No trace of the five hundred Fae soldiers now trapped beneath that ice, permanently locked in their watery graves.
I didn’t hear Varian’s catlike steps until he appeared beside me. “How is she?”
“Good. You know Ariel; nothing fazes her. She’s already got an outfit picked out for when we go burn down Evernight.”
“I meant Lyrae, but good to know Ariel hasn’t changed a bit.”
He sighed. “She’s okay. She’s watching her sister like a hawk, afraid to let her out of her sight. And she’s worried about something, but I didn’t want to press her for answers. Not yet, anyway.”
He dropped his voice. “So. That was…”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “It really fucking was.”
“So we have to talk about what comes next, Ryland. We can’t take the Triune away from Rooke. Those artifacts are safer here than in Tempeste. Which means no reward. No gold. No retirement.” Something he didn’t look terribly upset about.
“What are you two talking about?” Unlike Varian, Lyrae approached like an invading army, every footstep ringing sharply against the stone. “Let me guess—dragons?”
I turned, extending my arm, something warm and comforting nestling in my heart when she unhesitatingly came to me. Let me tuck her against my chest like she belonged there. “Varian was floating a scenario to me. One where Rooke keeps the Triune and we fly back to Tempeste empty-handed. What do you think your queen will say about that?”
“She’s your queen, too, you know.” But Lyrae sighed. Pinched her nose. Stared off into the same distance I’d been hoping would give me answers for hours now.
Answers that just weren’t coming, at least, not the ones I needed.
“We can’t take the relics away from Rooke,” she finally agreed. “They are his family legacy, and he’s already lost too much. His entire bloodline’s gone, for fuck’s sake.”
“Good to know we’re all on the same page.” I tugged Lyrae tighter against me, Varian brushing a strand of wind-stretched hair from her face. “Now how can we make this happen?”
“Easy,” Lyrae said, still staring, still thinking. “All we have to do is make Kaden Rooke more valuable to Valarian than the Triune.” Those perfect lips curved up into a gleaming smile that would have scared a lesser male.
“And I know exactly the two people who canaccomplish that feat.”
Zephryn lookedbetween the three—four of us, now that Ariel was here—his dark eyes wary. Curious, but wary.
“First of all, we settled, Commander Antares, on the parameters of this mission, did we not? Secondly, I think we can all agree that leaving something this powerful in the hands of a stranger endangers everything we’ve been building.” The curiosity bled away, replaced by brute strength and unflinching loyalty, something I could respect.
“Everything we have bled and killed and sacrificed for could be jeopardized,” Tristan added. “Are you willing to risk an entire realm on a gut feeling?”
“You haven’t been here, you don’t know Rooke, and the parameters of the mission have changed,” Lyrae told them lazily, with a confidence that on anyone else would be called arrogance. And okay, maybe this was arrogance, but she was also sexy as fuck and all I kept thinking about was getting her back into bed as soon as possible.
One of those arched brows lifted in warning. “And don’t lecture me like I’m one of your fresh off the field grunts, Zeph, because we both know how far that attitude will get you.”
