Page 30 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

His snort told a very different story. “Always a first for everything.”

“Christ, Landry, you gonna wipe my ass for me?”

“I would. But Maleficent is plenty capable of wiping her own ass.”

I snorted, shaking my head. Carr’s surprising allegiance was better than I deserved, and I couldn’t help but cling to it. Every siege, every recon mission, every time I deployed to free prisoners while August had our enemies’ eyes trained on him—Carr was at my side for all of it. Every meal I plated for myself, every drink poured and set before me, passed his lips first—before I could protest.

I’d stopped fighting him. I wasn’t naïve enough to think the loyalty was to me. It was for him. Like Carr thought one day his cousin might give a fuck about my fate again.

Silence lingered in the wake of Cyrus’s abrupt retreat into his bedroom, and I swallowed hard. “How is he?”

“As you’d expect,” he grunted.

“He wants me dead?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“That’s what I’d want.” I shrugged my shoulders. “Hell, that’s what I did.”

“There’s more nuance in your scenario than that. Grief is rarely so black and white, Commander.”

“Don’t I fucking know it.” Ansel’s quicksilver eyes flashed in my vision, and I sucked down a steadying breath as I banished it to the corner of my mind. “I promise I’m alright, Cujo.” Bullshit. Judging by the arch of his brow, that was precisely why he remained so insistent. “Go get some rest.”

“What about your brother?”

“If the man is hijacking corpses and turning them into detonation points to lure in the Renown, I don’t think he needs us at the moment.”

“Fair,” he said with a dark chuckle. “Points for creativity. Hope he realizes we’re all willing to guard this mission with our lives.”

“I think that’s the problem.” I knew that was the problem. August felt too much, too deeply. Loved too many people to risk our necks when he had his own to throw on the chopping block. He might’ve begrudged Alvara for being the martyr, but he couldn’t say he’d do it differently.

Carr yawned, the tan skin around his eyes crinkling as we paused outside my doorway. “I’m tuckered out,” he admitted with a note of irritation.

“Well. You can rest easy knowing you’ve safely delivered me to my warded quarters. Nobody’s slitting my throat in my sleep.”

“Fine,” he grumbled through another yawn. “But you holler if you need something’.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

“Night, Carrson.” But the man stood like a statue until I rolled my eyes, turned the handle, and stepped inside my warded bedroom.

SIX

ANCHOR POINT

BLYTHE

Ninety-three days…

3,591; 3,592; 3,593.

My palms burned beneath the bite of my nails. Throat tight, I kept my head down, tucked against my knees as I swallowed a sob. My tears had run dry long ago anyway.

3,610; 3,611…

The crash of the surf. The sun on my face. Magnolia’s head thrown back in laughter, her arms outstretched like wings on the back of Aren’s bike.