The fact that he was smoking it now . . . Well, I only hoped the pungent herb would soften the blow of what I was about to say.
“How is she?” I asked, accepting the smoldering stick and taking a long drag. The effect was immediate, loosening my limbs and slowing my relentlessly churning thoughts.
Adriel shrugged. “About as well as any of us, I expect.”
I rolled my eyes. Ofcoursehe hadn’t asked my sister how she was doing. Adriel was never one to talk about feelings. I wasn’t sure why I’d even brought it up.
“How areyoudoing?” I pressed, passing the tevash back to him.
He took the joint and flicked the cherry off the end, bringing it to his lips. He coughed, spewing more of the fragrant smoke, and finally managed, “I’m alive.”
A long silence stretched between us, extended by the calming, slightly hazy effect of the herb. Adriel wasn’t chatty at the best of times, and when things went bad, he sometimes didn’t speak to me for days.
But this silence felt heavier than normal, weighed down by all I needed to ask of him.
“The bastards chained me up and tossed me into a rowan-wood box,” Adriel muttered, stubbing out the end of the joint and flicking it into the snow. “Left me there so long I didn’t know if it had been a day or a week. The whole time, I kept thinking . . .” He trailed off, and a haunted look came over him. He sighed. “I let you down, and I’m sorry.”
“None of us noticed that you’d been snatched and thrown into a coffin, andyou’rethe one apologizing?”
“I’m your royal guard.”
“Not anymore,” I said quietly, my heart clenching at the words.
Adriel jerked around to look at me, his tarnished copper locks falling into his face. His gold-and-green eyes looked slightly glazed from the herb, but I could see the hurt reflected in them nonetheless.
“She’s going to need you more than I will,” I said, jerking my chin at the inn. I knew my sister must be sleeping somewhere on this side of the building, since Adriel had positioned himself between her and me.
“You aren’t suggesting —”
“You weren’t there in Cragsmuir,” I said. “They won’t follow me, but they will follow her.”
Adriel shook his head. “A few hundred Drathen refusing your leadership doesn’t mean —”
“Even if I could rally an army, I don’t want Alfrigg’s crown. Not if it costs me Lyra.”
My best friend frowned. “I still don’t see why you can’t be with her and take the throne.”
“The god of knowledge is never wrong. That is what the Fates have decided.”
Adriel cocked his head to the side with a dubious expression. “What the Three have woven can always be changed. You’re proof of that.”
But I’d already made up my mind. “The Dark Kingdom needs a ruler, and there must always be a Ferryman.”
“You aren’t seriously thinking about returning to Dorthus to wear your father’s crown?”
“I don’t know who will be king of Dorthus,” I said slowly. “But I do know that my sister is going to be queen.”
Adriel shook his head in disbelief, though I wasn’t sure if he doubted my sister’s ability to rule or if he was simply shocked I’d given up the dream I’d carried for centuries.
“Things are going to get very dangerous for her,” I said quietly. “Alfrigg will know by now that we are working against him. When he learns that Sorsha is rallying an army, he will send every mercenary and assassin to dispose of her before she even has a chance to challenge him for the crown. If he managed to kill my mother’s only legitimate heir, the war would be over without him ever needing to fire a single arrow.”
“Your sister doesn’t need a royal guard,” Adriel grumbled. “She needs a whole fucking army to keep her from dying from her own rash —”
“Sorsha may be impulsive, but she has the heart of a warrior. And the vision of a queen. She can do this, brother, but she must be protected.Youare the only one I trust.”
“What about you?” Adriel shot back. “Who’s going to make sureyoudon’t get yourself killed?”
A grin tugged at the corners of my mouth, and warmth bloomed in my chest. “You forget, I travel with a huntress now. People who threaten my life within earshot of my mate tend to die extremely painful deaths.”
