How had he come to this? This place so far from all he’d known?
What did it want from him?
A buzzing grew in his chest. He felt a reverberation in the stone—heavy footsteps echoed in the corridor. The druid perked his head up as a growling voice sounded beyond the door.
“Where is she?”
The maids trembled, rushing to stow the soiled rags. One wrapped the druid in dry wool. His fingers clenched within, watching the door through the curtain of his matted hair.
His heart shuddered.
The door burst open with animalistic force, cracking against the stone. A figure ducked beneath the lintel. He was a man only in name. Broad shoulders, and a tapered waist… he commanded the air about him. His eyes were like molten gold, fierce enough to sear flesh, and his raven hair poured over his shoulders, down his sun-branded chest, gathering in silken tendrils amongst the fur of his mantle.
All the land the druid had walked, and never had he felt as if he stood on more perilous ground.
He was small beneath that radiant gaze, but armored himself in the soundless sea of his own thought, watching the stranger watch him with palpable fury. They exchanged no words, and yet the druid was utterly sure every fiber in the man’s body wished him harm.
The stranger let slip one near-silent snarl, before turning on his heel and leaving as recklessly as he’d come.
Quiet returned.
The maids released their caged breaths. No one spoke, but the druid need not have their words, for the truth was sure as the seasons’ turn.
That man held fate in his hands.
Chapter six
Inheritance
“Aman?”
Greyv looked torn between amusement and disbelief.
“Keep your voice down!” Skyre hissed, sending furtive glances at his attendants.
The dining room was quiet, save the crackle of fire and the monotonous rattle of window latches. Wind blew in cold off the sea, battering the glass. Skyre felt besieged on every side. He’d been given his permanent quarters—an apartment in the northwest tower. The rooms were more spacious than his others, opulent even, but it did nothing to alleviate his frustration.
He slumped in his chair.
Twice in a fortnight his crown had been challenged by forces outside his control. A control, he had been told, was absolute.
Skyre’s memories narrowed to bath salts and steam. He couldn’t get him out of his head. That… druid.
Everyone was expecting a queen. And with reason.Ceryswas not the sort of name men carried. If he could even call him that.
The image of that thin, unfed body draped in wool clung to his mind. That long tangle of pale hair… and those eyes… quiet as the moon.
Skyre’s fingers tightened around his tankard.
He had not been brought a queen—no nimble woman of impeccable beauty, but a sad excuse of a man.
“What do we make ofthat?” Greyv laughed. His dark strands were swept shamelessly aside and bound loosely at his collar. Uncouth, their betters might have said. But then, the Vaich’s companion was a powerful son from a powerful family, and there were few in Cullach with enough coin to tell him otherwise. Skyre certainly wasn’t going to scold him forthe excessive liberties he took with his dress, nor the lazy manner he’d grown into. They’d both been attentive pupils in their younger years, but Skyre couldn’t remember the last time his friend took anything seriously. It occurred to him Greyv might not have been the best person to talk to. Simply his only person.
“What do you think of it?” Skyre asked, anyway.
Greyv shrugged. “This moon business… seems like bullshit.”
Skyre stared at him.
