I took a closer look at the fortress, the impenetrable wall, the round towers rising higher than should be possible. The dark stone and brooding nature of the castle fit every preconceived notion of where I would find my enemy.
No water, not so much as a puddle.
“We’ll reach the closest town by nightfall,” Ryland said, brushing dust off his shoulders. “There’s a tavern I frequent—the owner is discreet. We get some sleep, then in the morning, I’ll ask around about this Prince of Darkness. Shouldn’t be too hard to figure out where he is.”
I screwed the lid back on Varian’s canteen and handed it back. Debating. Always debating how much to reveal. How many questions to ask, how to exploit my advantages. I didn’t even feel guilty, because these two were doing the same.
They’d know if Gravelock was the prince, unless they were leading me on some elaborate goose chase.
And while I didn’t know a lot, I knew something. I had to find an island in the center of a frozen lake. Surely there couldn’t be more than one of those.
But let Ryland ask around, I reasoned.
Let him play his game, while I played mine.
No sense in giving too much away, I reasoned further, especially if the answers reinforced what I already knew.
“Lead on then, since this is your forte, being an expert tracker and all.”
11
LYRAE
The tavern was little more than a hovel on the shittiest end of what this sand-infested realm called a town. But through a haze of alcohol, the owner did seem to recognize Ryland, and as far as discretion, given the number of empty bottles stacked in front of him, I doubted the male would remember anything in the morning.
I was too tired to eat, too tired to drink. All I wanted was a nice warm bed and…
“Seriously? This is it?”
“Sorry the accommodations aren’t up to your high standards, commander.” Ryland dropped his pack on the floor, one second before he fell onto the bed in a cloud of black dust. “Neither of us are used to the luxury of the royal palace.”
“For your information, I don’t live in the palace. Bad enough I have to work there every godsdamned day.” I winced. My mouth kept getting the better of me and I really needed to do something about that.
“Do I sense a note of boredom in your tone, Lyrae? Tired of toeing the line, following the rules?” Ryland’s teasing tone took me back to when we were very different people, and he andI…
Nope. I wasn’t doing this.
“Typical.” I snorted, dragging my gaze over Storme, perfectly willing to hog the entire bed. “I see nothing has changed. You still don’t know when to shut up, unlike Varian.”
I tipped my head to my former friend, over by the window, monitoring the darkened street below.
Storme patted the barest sliver of available mattress to his right with a wink. “I’m perfectly willing to share, though space might be a bit tight. We can make this work, though. We always did.” Was it my imagination, or did I detect a hint of hope in those words?
“No thanks, I’d rather sleep in the pig sty. With the pigs.” I glanced between the filthy floor and the rickety stuffed chair, which was probably crawling with bedbugs.
“I’ll take the floor.” I winced, my bloodied shirt sticking to my cut-up shoulders as I gingerly set down my pack, blew out the tallow candle, then lowered my aching body to the hard, uneven wood. Of course, this meant I laid parallel to fucking Ryland Storme, but with my head to the door, I was, at the very least, opposite of him.
So that was something.
“Fine. I suppose I get stuck with the chair.” Varian sighed. “Next time we’re getting separate rooms. I won’t get a wink of sleep once you start snoring.”
“I’m not that bad.”
“Oh, you fucking are,” Varian and I said together, followed by a long, awkward silence where I cursed myself for saying anything at all.
“At least the sty would be quieter. You snore louder than a sow in heat,” Varian finally muttered, and I grinned in the dark, my chapped lips cracking until I tasted blood.
“No, a wild boar.” I was so exhausted I couldn’t stopgrinning, couldn’t stop the memories from tumbling over themselves. Couldn’t stop remembering how Ryland tasted. Couldn’t stop feeling things I hadn’t felt in a century. No, I fell straight into the past, into the life I could have had, if everything hadn’t gone so wrong.
