The concern coursing through her was genuine. He was an idiot, but she understood why he’d done it. Quentin didn’t do well with stagnation when forced to stay still for too long.
She could relate to that part of him more than most.
Quentin grinned again, some of the seriousness fading. “Yeah, Queenie. I’ll be all right. I’ve taken worse beatings before. Besides.” He bumped Delaynie with his shoulder. She scowled at him, but her cheeks flushed, her icy eyes glimmering with heated amusement. “This one patched me right up. Hardly feel it anymore.”
Mariah’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline, then grinned.
While Sebastian and Ciana might be a bit of a complication,thiswas a perfect development.
“Good,” Mariah said, still smiling. She gestured to the table. “Take a seat, please. We’re just waiting on Feran and Drystan to make their way from downstairs?—”
“We’re here!” A familiar, deep voice rang through the room. Feran entered with a grin, braids pulled back from his face. His torso was still wrapped in thick white bandages, and an angry scar streaked from his temple to his jaw, but he was walking.
Sort of.
He leaned heavily on a wooden crutch notched under his left arm, and his smile carried a small hint of a grimace. Drystan supported his right, concern etched across his brow.
Mariah shot to her feet, nearly leaping over the table. She threw herself against Feran before he could even voice a greeting, her arms wrapping tightly around his neck.
“You’re walking,” she whispered into his neck. It was strange, this emotion sweeping through her. She’d been so lost in the deep trenches of grief and revenge that she’d almost forgotten what something likereliefmight feel like. Like a pallet of bricks lifted from her shoulders, like she could finally draw a breath again.
His bond was still silent, but she drew in a lungful of his scent—cardamom and embers. Her chest squeezed painfully.
He was here. He was healing.
She’d failed in every other way, but at least she hadn’t failed him.
Feran chuckled, the sound rumbling through her. “I’ve spent enough time being a lazy sap. It was time to move around a bit.”
“Yes, but let’s not squeeze him to death, please?” Drystan said, voice tinged with a trace of worry.
Mariah released Feran. She felt that gods-damn heat creep into her cheeks even as her eyes burned with unshed tears. “Sorry. I’m just…” She swallowed. “I’m just really glad to see you recovering.”
Feran’s gaze was warm. “My queen commanded me to heal. How could I refuse an order like that?”
Mariah nodded, lips tugging into a half-smile. She turned to Drystan, who had relaxed a touch when she’d released Feran. “Thank you, too,” she said. “For taking care of him.”
Drystan shrugged. “You know I would do it whether you asked or not. And not just for my sake—you need us.Allof us.”
There was so much warmth in Mariah’s chest. She wasn’t used to all this, and she worried it might stop her heart.
She tried to swallow down the clog of her emotion. “Now that everyone’s here,” she said, “let’s talk about how we’re going to take our kingdom back.”
“A weapon. Forged by the gods.”Drystan leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. “One that no one has heard of in five thousand years and that the gods spelled themselves to forget.”
Mariah met his golden stare. “Yes. Or at least, we assume it’s a weapon.” A fidget crept in. “It could technically be anything, but a weapon is our best guess.”
“How helpful,” Drystan grumbled. Feran chuckled, smacking him lightly on the shoulder.
“I know it’s not much,” Mariah said. “But it’s all we have. It’s ouronlychance. If we want to destroy Kol—for good, this time—we have to find it.”
Silence answered her. At the end of the table, the twins shared a glance. Ciana worried at her bottom lip, Sebastian rubbed his chin, and Quentin picked at his nails with a knife.
“Mariah.” Delaynie sat forward. “It’s not just that it's ‘not much.’ It’s that it’snothing. How can any of us know where tostart if no one—not even the gods—knows what we’re looking for?”
“I know.” Mariah dragged in a deep breath. “Trust me. I know. But we have to try. It’s the only hope we have. And the gods have given me enough to make a plan.”
The table straightened. “I thought you said they didn’t remember anything?” Sebastian asked.
