Cush didn’t break stride.“I’ll try to lose sleep over it later.”
“Sit,” Trik said, pushing off the wall.“Before I kill you and have to find another male to console your distraught Chosen.”
Cush snorted.“I doubt she’d be all that distraught right now.”
Cush dropped into the chair opposite the Book, elbows braced on his knees.He didn’t look at the artifact.He refused to give it that satisfaction.He was sick of old magic and its moods.More than that, he was sick of the quiet.
The bond with Elora, normally a living, breathing thread of heat and fire, felt muffled.Smothered.Wrapped in something foreign and cold.Not gone.Just off.She had never felt like this to him.
Trik’s gaze sharpened.“We can’t both brood.”
“Why not?”Cush snapped.
“Because then neither of us thinks clearly,” Trik replied.“And something important slips past us.”He paused.“Also, I’m the king.I get first claim on brooding.”
Cush let out a humorless laugh.“You sound like a petulant child.”
Trik didn’t smile.“And you sound like a general avoiding the real problem.So talk.”
Cush scrubbed a hand over his face, the leather of his bracer rasping against his jaw.Gods, he was tired.Bone-deep, soul-weary tired, the kind that crept up on you when you’d been holding the line for too long.“She’s ...quiet,” he said finally.
Trik straightened.“Quiet how?”
“The bond.”Cush tapped his chest.“It’s there, but dulled.Like she’s put distance between us.She’s angry, that’s normal.But this?”His voice roughened.“This isn’t.”
Trik’s expression tightened.“Cassie’s been quiet, too.”
Cush looked up sharply.“You noticed.”
Trik shot him a flat look.“I’m not obtuse.”
“She might disagree,” Cush said, arching a brow.
Trik tensed, and Cush regretted the jab instantly.Silence stretched, tight as an overdrawn bowstring.
Cush exhaled hard.“Elora was sparring with Leeland.”
Trik tilted his head.“Is that your sin, or are you trying to make it hers?”
Cush’s lip curled.“He’s reckless.”And nearly dead, Cush thought grimly.Leeland had known better.Had ignored orders, again.So Cush had dealt with him.Probably not his most shining moment as a leader of an elfin army.
“She’s a warrior,” Trik said evenly.“You trained her.You don’t get to be surprised when she uses what you gave her.”
“She nearly got her arm snapped,” Cush growled.Heat flared along his skin, magic rippling just beneath the surface.“He overextended.She didn’t see it.”
Trik shrugged as if that was nothing.“But she handled it.”
Cush’s eyes narrowed.“She could have been seriously hurt.I don’t want her to experience pain when there’s no reason for it.It’s preventable in this case.Knowing I can’t make her understand, or even listen to me ...”Cush shook his head as the words died in his throat.
“You can’t fix what that fear does to you,” Trik said quietly.
The words landed square in his chest.Cush sank back in the chair, elbows braced on his knees, staring at the floor.“She thinks I’m smothering her.”
“Are you?”Trik asked, with no judgment in his tone.
“Yes.”The word came out sharp.“Because I almost lost her.Because there are a hundred ways this realm can take her from me.”
Trik’s jaw tightened.“She didn’t survive all of that to be treated like glass.”
