Page 67 of A Requiem of Fire and Ice

Alad stands outside, grimly overlooking the rain. His silver eyes dart to me and away as I lean my elbows against the railing, watching the rain with disdain.

“Another nightmare?” Alad says.

I sigh. “Are they called nightmares when they come every night?”

“Depends on how you feel after you wake from them, Prince Reen.”

“I don’t particularly feel anything,” I admit. “It’s been a long time since grief overtook me.”

“You must have felt something when Queen Ji-Sun died.”

“I did, but not for logical reasons,” I say. “I felt incompetent. As if I were that fucking child, unable to save the ones I care for again. I spent most of my life fighting to keep them safe, and an unawakened brat out of everything becomes my undoing.”

“You can’t help but admire her dedication.”

“Your reasoning perplexes me for wanting her alive. What is she to you?”

“Nothing,” Alad answers. “I met her once…briefly. However, she cannot tell you the same story about meeting me. She helped someone no one cared for. I found it strange to see it from an ice elemny. She wasn’t as cold as the others. We could shape her to benefit us if we were to keep the last breathing ice elemny alive.”

I grunt my response. “I don’t care, Alad. If I find her sobbing about her fucking story of how King Ragan slaughtered her family and friends, it will make little difference to how I see her. She’s the enemy—nothing more and nothing less.”

“You are more than the mutt King Ragan trained you to be, Prince Reen.”

“Stop forcing me to feel something I won’t, Alad. You’re twenty-four years too late. I won’t stop yearning for a hunt like Walkyer can’t stop loving random girls in the street, and Emmerton can’t stop wanting to fuck with Walkyer’s feelings.”

“As you say,” Alad says with a hint of a smile.

I twitch a smirk and say, “If I perchance can’t kill this girl, it would be the day I’d rather kill myself, for I would consider myself too weak to protect my family.”

“You lean toward the extremes.”

“You would, too, if you saw your mother die in your arms,” I speak with no emotion, but the acid drifts down my throat and burns through a heart that lacks sincerity.

Footsteps come up from the docks and onto the second floor of the ship. Astin’s drenched, with silver hair clinging to his pasty skin. Dark circles plague the area beneath his eyes, and his blue, numb lips press together before he says, “We’re here. I’ve got us here in record time, sir.”

I eye the cliffs coming into focus, and a cruel smile spreads across my face. “Let the hunt begin.”

Chapter 30

Pandora Hart, July 14th

While the children play in the yard with the support workers watching over them, Maya and I sit in the kitchen. I cup the chilled tea. Three bobbing ice cubes float in mine. She stirs her coffee with a spoon. Her bright silver eyes hold a cloud of worry, but ease with every flicker of movement towards the bag resting near my feet.

I’m leaving today. Someone in the Fountain of Silver can smuggle me into the Kingdom of Cloud.

“Mr Walsh can take you wherever you want to go after August. Lie low there for a while, and don’t show your face. The Knights of Eraminia won’t know any better if you don’t. And he can sneak you away unnoticed when it has calmed down.”

“And you’re sure he knows I’m coming?”

“Yes. He’s a loyal worker for Nancy. They had a, uh…romantic business relationship.”

I eye her and then look away. “She never left Oceanview Harbour.”

“You don’t always need to see someone to persuade them to do something for you, Myra,” Maya says with a breathy laugh. “Phone sex is still a thing.”

I blanch at the thought.

Xavier wanted phone sex when we started dating. While he panted through the receiver and made horrific moaning noises of someone in pain, I stared at the ceiling with a bland look. Exotic words whispered sweetness into the ears of an elemny who ejaculated after one hitched breath I made.