And like my fantasies had come true, here she was, very much not dead.
Flesh and blood.
Her warm thigh pressing into mine.
Her warm, even breaths matching mine.Mine, mine, mine, I thought greedily as I gathered her closer and made us both a promise.
I would show Lyrae I was twice the male Ryland Storme was, minus the flashy personality and clever come-backs. Lyrae deserved to be taken care of, watched over, spoiled like a queen. She deserved back rubs and hot baths, lazy days reading in the shade, far away from the brutality that had consumed her life these past hundred years.
She deserved all the good things, and none of the bad, and I meant to show her there was more to this life than guarding the Fae Queen and gods—fighting a war. By the time we returned to Tempeste, Lyrae Antares would be mine, because we’d been meant for each other from the day I’d first laid eyes on her.
Except I had somewhere else to be right now.
Which was the story of my fucking life.
I eased out from beneath her, settled her gently onto the pillows, pulled up the covers and stoked the fire until the blaze heated the room. Then I picked up my sodden boots and the empty tray and headed toward the raised voices, Ryland and Kade already arguing about tomorrow.
“I’ve been fucking waiting for months.Months, Ryland, and you saunter in here with the Fae Queen’s commander? Of course I thought you’d sold me out. What the fuck was I supposed to think?”
“We were hardly sauntering,” Ry pointed out dryly. “Limping, more like.”
“You punched me in the face, you fuck.” I tossed the tray down in front of him, sending the dishes shattering around his feet. “I should pound you into dogmeat, but it looks like someone already beat me to it.”
“Well look at you,” his eyes glittered. “Someone’s grown some balls.”
“Varian’s always had bigger balls than you, Kaden. He just doesn’t feel the need to show them to everyone in the vicinity,” Ry crooned with that trademark laziness that bordered on rudeness.
“Ouch.” Rooke feigned mock outrage as he dropped into a chair and clasped his hands behind his head. “Fine. I’m sorry I overreacted and took my frustrations out on you. If you’d like to take a shot at me so you feel better, have at it.”
“Yeah, we’ve all had a shit day. I’ll pass.” I dropped into the chair beside Ryland and he pressed a full glass of liquor into my hand.
“Good, then we’ll move straight onto business. The Triune has to be at Gravespire. Gravelock let it slip he’s had his own personal guard posted there all winter. That’s a hundred soldiers guarding one location for months. There’s only one reason he’d waste that much manpower in one place.”
Rooke leaned back in a careless slouch, slippered feet crossed at the ankles, the very picture of a worthless, insolent aristocratic wastrel, even though he was anything but.
“Venmir Gravelock confessed his deepest secrets toyou?” Ryland’s brow shot up. “I wasn’t aware you two were even on speaking terms these days.”
“Oh, he comes by every once in a while.” Rooke spun a heavy gold ring on his thumb, the muscle in his jaw flickering. “To make sure I’m still alive, to perform a little casual torture, let me know I’m still at his mercy. Still suffering like a good captive should. You know, the usual.”
After the first few words, I barely heard their bickering.
The Triune.
My palms itched at the mention of those artifacts, and I rolled my drink around in my mouth, pretending to listen. Pretending every cell of my being wasn’t straining to be somewhere else right now.
The Thorn, the Mirror, and the Crown.
They were here—they were close.
South.I closed my eyes, forcing my breaths to even out. The Triune was to the south, and not even that far away.
The marrow of my bones vibrated from the proximity of such a rare treasure, that strange wanting at my center a divining rod that urged me to move, to follow the call of those forbidden artifacts. I was a dragon sniffing out a hoard of gold, the likes he had never seen before.
But this was Rooke, who always had a hidden agenda.
An agenda that served him and…not so much the rest of us.
“Gravelock wouldn’t tell you where the Triune was hidden, not after he’s spent a millennium hunting them down,” I pointed out.
