Moving slowly, he let a wisp of his darkness brush along her lips before he ran his thumb along her lower one, pulling it from her teeth. He heard the quiet, gasped inhale, and he could feel her heart racing. For the briefest of moments, he could swear her mask slipped. He thought she was going to ask for more, but then she cleared her throat, stepping to the side and out of reach.
“Are you sure you don’t mind me bathing first?” she asked, backing towards the bathing chamber.
“I insist,” he answered with a tight smile before taking a drink of his wine.
“Thank you,” she said softly before turning. He heard the bathing room door shut, and he sank into the armchair with an audible groan.
Taking another healthy drink of wine, he tipped his head back and closed his eyes, reminding himself this was progress. She’d shared her arrows with him tonight. That had to account for something. Fuck, that might even mean more to her than letting him touch her.
“Blood of death.”
He jolted awake at the hissing voice, his power bursting forth in a bid to protect him. Stumbling to his feet, the wineglass in his fingers slipped to the ground, shattering. He’d clearly fallen asleep, aided by the wine. Foolish to drink when he knew his physical body was being pushed to the point of exhaustion. It couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes since Kailia had gone to the bathing room.
Unless she’d returned to find him sleeping and had let him be.
Something to figure out later because at the moment he was alone with one of the phantoms, and this time, he didn’t have an arrow to use or a stolen arrowhead.
“Who sent you?” Cethin asked.
“You shall see when you meet him, blood of the traitorous ones,” the creature purred in that eerie way of theirs. The same answer the last one had given him months ago in the castle.
“What do you want?” Cethin attempted, trying to remember all the questions he’d posed before.
The phantom’s bloodless lips pulled up in a poisonous smile, its unseeing eyes seeming to glow brighter when it answered simply, “You.”
“Why?” Cethin demanded, sidestepping as the being drifted closer.
“Your mother. Your uncle. Your grandparents. Any blood of those who betrayed him,” the creature replied.
“That didn’t answer the question,” Cethin gritted out, putting a sofa between them.
“But it did,” the phantom hissed.
Cethin couldn’t decide if the things were sentient or not. Their answers were uniform, all of them responding the same as though they shared a collective mind. But they could also hold a conversation, albeit a stilted and frustrating one.
Kind of like conversing with Kailia.
“How did you get here?” Cethin asked, edging closer to the bedchamber to see if Kailia was sleeping. He could send a message to Razik, but the movement might cause the thing to attack. It had long been proven that his own magic was defenseless against them. No, his options were the wife who begrudgingly tolerated him or the dragon who despised him. A part of him debated if taking his chances with the phantom was perhaps the best option after all.
“I go where I am summoned. Where the traitors dwell,” the creature answered, pulling a gold dagger from a swirl of white mist.
“Right, right,” Cethin grumbled, having heard that answer before. “But how did you get here? To this realm?”
The phantom’s head tipped too far to the side, its ear nearly touching its shoulder. If it had eyes, Cethin was certain it’d be studying him.
“The cursed king sent a call into the voids,” the phantom recited. “Foolish when anything can answer.” Then it straightened, head snapping to the side. “You’re too late this time.”
Distracted, Cethin turned to see who the phantom was speaking to, only to turn directly into the path of an arrow. The thing embedded in his chest, below his collarbone on the left side, and curses flew from his lips as another whizzed past him.
“Get down!” Kailia cried, and by the Fates, at what point had it become normal that he couldn’t godsdamn protect himself?
But he dropped to his knee a second before a gold dagger flew through the air right where he’d been standing. The blade hit the wood mantel above the fireplace, sinking in deep, while that keening wail filled the room.
The door to the space burst open, and Kailia let two more arrows fly.
“Fucking Fates!” Razik barked, lurching to the side to avoid a fate similar to Cethin’s current predicament.
Or to avoid the phantom that drifted into the room behind him.
