“Yes, please,” Mariah answered, her words subdued. She padded to the table, taking the few slices of bread and cheese from her cook.
“No waffles here, I’m afraid.” He smiled gently. “I asked for the iron, but the locals looked at me like I was crazy.”
Something painfully close to a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “That’s all right, Mikael.” She met his gaze, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “If I had to choose between waffles and your bread every morning, I’d choose the bread.”
“Really? Even I wouldn’t choose that.” Mikael chuckled, adjusting his band of leather.
“Yes,” Mariah said. “Because it means you’re still here to bake it.”
There was a soft pause, a moment where Mikael froze with his hands still on the leather. He slowly dropped them, reaching across the counter to grip Mariah’s forearm.
“I’ll always be there for you, lass,” he murmured. “I can promise ya that.”
The backs of Mariah’s eyes burned. She opened her mouth—to say what, she didn’t know—when a door creaked open and booted steps entered the kitchen. A hesitant hand rested on her shoulder, and she turned her stare up to greet familiar hazel eyes.
Sebastian, her first Armature, met her gaze with a smile that quickly fell to a frown.
Dead. She knew her eyes looked haunted and dead, the skin beneath them dark and sallow. Mariah could see it bothered him from the way his mouth tightened at the corners, the way his hazel eyes flickered.
She’d snapped at him two days ago when he’d first tried to scold her about her appearance and lack of sleep. Since then, he wisely kept his words to himself.
“How was your run?”
Mariah took a bite of the bread, letting the decadent warmth seep into all her broken and cold places. “Fine.”
She swallowed her bite, and with it, all the dangerous things threatening to burst out of her. “Is something wrong?” she asked Sebastian. He usually didn’t come find her after her morning outings; something about this one was different.
Sebastian hesitated, his mouth parting. He dropped his hand from her shoulder. “Nothing’s wrong. But something has happened.”
“What?” Dread swept through her. Gods, she couldn’t handle any more. No more loss, no more surprises, no more pain?—
Her panic cooled as Sebastian’s mouth finally relaxed into a smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling in that familiar, comforting way.
“It’s Feran. He’s awake.”
The guest chamberin the cool lower levels of Amasis’sserekahwas, for the first time since their arrival, filled with vibrant, buzzing energy.
Mariah’s court was gathered there. Her ladies—Ciana, Delaynie, and the Kreah twins Kiira and Rylla—were scattered amongst her Armature, chattering excitedly around the figure lying in the bed in the center of the room.
Every member of her court. Except for one. Mariah’s lungs caught and she stumbled a step, Sebastian there to steady her.
“Are you all right?”
Mariah nodded, pushing her shoulders back, shoving down her grief. Masking it behind the hollow emptiness she cocooned herself in like a shroud, a blanket of apathy that was the only thing keeping her from falling to pieces on the floor.
She moved forward with false surety, brushing lightly past Quentin and Matheo; gave a small smile to Delaynie and Kiira; took Ciana’s outstretched hand and squeezed. Finally, she shifted around Trefor and stood beside the bed.
The bed where Feran lay, wrapped in bandages and swaddled by down blankets and pillows.
Where Feran indeed looked up at her, very much awake.
For the first time, something other than hollow grief rolled through her. A sob caught in the back of her throat—a sound of quiet relief, of knowing she didn’t have to say goodbye to another member of her family quite yet.
Feran cracked a crooked grin, his brown eyes crinkling.
Well,eye. Only one was visible, the other hidden under the wrapped bandages and thick gauze.
“No need to give me that look, Mariah. It’s just a scratch. Looks a whole lot worse than it is.”
