ARWEN
MARI FLUNG HERSELF BACK INTO the springy bed with faux devastation. “This is an outrage.”
I covered my laugh with a question. “Where would we even spar?”
Griffin was already pulling at those unexpected, drop-down stairs and climbing up to the roof.
Kane scaled after him.
“I swear,” Mari said to me as we followed. “His brain is just three lone words rattling around in the abyss: eat, frown, train.”
I smiled, climbing the stairs last, and when I reached the roof, the view that charged at me stole the breath from my lungs.
All of Revue—the entire city—sparkled.
A mountain range of towers and domes and balconies scattered with lights. Entire pillars lit up with them—flickering and sparkling like jewels in sunlight, commandeering the skyline. Rooftop gardens not dissimilar from the one we stood on now, set aglow with colorful lanterns and twinkling tea lights. All of it one richly warm, romantic, night-blooming sea.
From what Mari had told me, I knew those slopes and hollows were filled with art exhibits, literary salons, dramatic cabarets, and fine buttery meals. That those winding streets and grand avenues were flanked by elegant stone buildings and mansard roofs and luscious, ornate detailing.
Slow, sultry melodies and upbeat bass lines misted out of the city below, blending with the chatter of sidewalk cafés and horse hooves on cobblestone and wheels rolling gently through snow.
And our little rooftop—encased in pretty wrought iron that Mari was already leaning over, her curls rustling with the breeze. A dried garden plot spread from one corner, where in the summer surely a stunning patch of flowers sprouted under the generous, uninterrupted sun. Two rusty chairs and a pebbled glass table with an ashtray and a desiccated cigar had been shoved to the edge by either Kane or Griffin to make room for their swordplay.
The men’s blades clashed lightly, their lighte barely flaring in the night. They were just going through the motions. Waking up their various and ample muscles.
Kane’s form was elegant. Refined, practiced. I imagined that came from studying under a masterful, by-the-book instructor like Dagan. And that otherworldly grace—I was sure that had been inherited from his mother.
But Griffin was a different kind of swordsman. Scrappy and brutal, as if his hulking body merely contained too much power to control. The unexpected moves seemed to dart out of him on a whim—a feint here, a sweep of the leg there. For a man that kept everything so internal, so closed up and private, I thought watching him fight might be the most intimacy he shared with anyone. Here, the commander was baring his soul to us, acting on each impulse and desire as it sprang forth, without a second thought.
“Shit,” Kane uttered, looking down at his sword midparry. They sprang apart and inspected his steel together.
“I’ll buff it out,” Griffin offered, taking the dulled weapon from his king. Kane glided over to Mari and me and slipped his warm hand around my waist. Chills licked exquisitely up my spine at the touch, though my eyes roamed over the luxe gated palace where we’d meet the Scarlet Queen for tea tomorrow. I was grateful for the respite our night in Revue offered. I didn’t have much desire to meet a woman who’d earned her nickname from the amount of blood in the streets when she took the throne. Nor much hope
for how that meeting might go, or how soon war might follow…
“What are you thinking?” he asked me softly.
I was thinking of enemies and violence and things beyond my control. “Is there any chance Aleksander knows you’re in Rose already?”
“I doubt it,” Kane said, running a hand through his unruly hair. “We’ve covered our tracks.”
Mari leaned forward from my other side. “Who’s Aleksander?” “The leader of a race of Fae called Hemolichs. They—”
“Oh, him. Blood Fae. Betrayer. Hiding in Rose from Kane.” Mari nodded to herself and cast her eyes back out at the sparkling city.
Kane stiffened beside me, and I placed my hand atop his until his grip on the wrought iron loosened. “How do you know all of that?” I asked Mari.
“Come on.” She shot me a withering look. “You weren’t gone that
long.”
Kane leaned past me to say to Mari, “You ever hack that invisibility charm?”
“No,” she said, frowning. “Given that I’m not hideous nor a pervert, I thought there were other, more pressing spells to master.”
“All right, easy.” Kane put his hands up in mock defense, and I missed his touch instantly.
I pulled his arm back around my waist. “I think invisibility could be valuable, Mar. You never know who you might want to sneak up on.”
Mari worried her lip. “I can’t seem to get it quite right.” “We are up here to train. You want to try?”
Mari abandoned the balcony rail with a sigh and stood still in the center of the roof. Griffin watched her carefully from his post buffing Kane’s sword. Wind spun around her feet and rustled the few remaining dried branches in the dead garden. She whispered the words of her spell.
And then the wind ceased, and the light snow that had been lifted fell to the ground. Mari sighed deeply before opening her eyes to scowl at both of us. “See?”
“Have you tried adjusting your stance?” Griffin asked, coming up behind Mari to study her legwork. “Doesn’t matter if it’s lighte or magic,
being centered is half the battle when drawing power into yourself.”
He leaned toward her, his battle mind clearly taking hold, and, as his face neared hers from behind, brushed his hands across her hips and thighs to right her stance.
“There,” he managed, as he stood, a little breathless. He was so close her hair fluttered with his words.
Mari’s eyes went stark.
The silence around us rippled, and my own cheeks grew warm.
After what had to have been a full minute of him standing there behind her, nearly panting, hands still on her hips, Mari said, “Do you always breathe so much, Commander?”
He stepped back immediately and appraised his hands as if they’d been on fire. Then he cleared his throat and said, “Chronically.”
I laughed, as did Kane beside me, and whatever tension had coiled between the two of them eddied out into the night.
“What about you?” Kane said, raising one graceful brow in my direction.
“What about me?”
“Kane tells me you tried to shift,” Griffin said. “Back in Lumera.”
Mari folded her arms in thought. “If you’re something with multiple heads, will you tell me if each head has its own brain, or if you have one brain, and the other heads function more like ancillary limbs? I’ve always wondered about that…”
“You’ve always wondered about that?”
She shrugged. “I wonder about a lot of things.”
“Don’t deflect,” Kane chided. “Now’s as good a time as any to test your abilities. You have quite the arena here to practice in.” He gestured to the broad, glittering night sky, the city lights below rivaling the stars that hung high above.
But that thought only made my gut clench. I’d fallen enough for many, many lifetimes. “It’s late…”
“You know I’d catch you,” Kane offered softly, his shoulders rolling back as if he could feel his wings behind him.
“Come on,” Mari said with impish glee, as if encouraging me to eat sweets for supper. “It’ll be fun.”
“Fine,” I sighed. I wandered into the middle of the roof, giving each of them a wide berth. Stones forbid I shift into something gargantuan. Once there, I closed my eyes and tried to channel Dagan. He’d instruct me to clear my mind.
Focus on whatever emotion I found in the wake of my churning thoughts.
Gratitude and hope, sorrow for all we’d suffered, fear, as was always there. I amended my stance—Griffin had been right about that—and concentrated on pulling from the atmosphere. The chilly winter air, the moonlight on my nose and shoulders.
Not a single sensation to be felt. Not in my back or anywhere else. “I don’t think it can be done unless…”
“Unless what?” Kane asked, silver eyes narrowing.
“I’m not sure. Unless I’m in some sort of danger, I think.”
Kane’s expression turned a little stricken, and I regretted sharing that.
Reminding him of what I’d been through.
“We should take a break anyway,” Mari said brightly, focusing her gaze on the city filled with light below us. “To be here, in the capital of a kingdom known for its music and taverns and cafés—”
“And brothels,” Kane offered, his earlier amusement once again dancing across his mouth.
“Great,” Mari said, exasperated. “Take me to a brothel. Honestly. Anything but more training. I spent the last two months doing exactly this for hours and hours on end.”
“I’ve never been in a brothel,” I mused before turning to Kane, moonlight glinting off the bow of his full lips. “Have you?”
I was sure he had. I could conjure seamlessly Kane’s mesmerizing jaw and dreamlike silver eyes pulling the attention of every working courtesan in the sordid, solicitous place. So darkly compelling they’d offer themselves to him for less than their going rate…
“Many, many times. But never for the women.”
“What for, then?”
“Far worse vices. Gambling, brawls, too much drink.”
Griffin laughed to himself from his perch against the roof’s edge. He’d picked up Kane’s sword and begun sharpening it once again. “One night, I had to hunt through three different Solaris whorehouses looking for him. Found the bastard underneath a featherbed, drunk as a fish in a wine barrel, talking some courtesan into quitting to become a seamstress.”
Mari folded her arms and scowled. “I’m sure you frequent brothels often.”
The sword nearly clattered from Griffin’s hands. “Me?”
Mari’s eyes flashed, curiosity more than piqued. But her arms stayed firmly locked across her chest.
A gruff laugh cracked out of Kane as he crossed the roof to stand beside his friend. “I don’t believe my commander’s ever actually had to pay for sex.” He gave Griffin a loud smack on the shoulder followed by a jovial squeeze. “Though I cannot fathom why, women are constantly giving it to him for free.”
Mari’s eyes widened into shock. “Constantly?”
Kane failed to suppress a smirk.
“Don’t listen to him,” Griffin said to her. “I don’t— I’m not—”
“No, it’s fine.” Mari swallowed. “Obviously.” She sat down right on the rooftop floor and conjured a spell book to leaf through. “To each their own.”
Griffin’s glare at Kane was downright menacing. I shot him the same one.
Kane plucked his newly sharpened sword from Griffin’s hands, and sauntered over to me. “And what’s that look?”
“Stop torturing them,” I said under my breath. “Why? It’s very pleasing.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re a nuisance.”
But Kane’s eyes were focused on Mari as she read over another spell. And Griffin, as he watched her like she was his very heart, twirling hair and folding down pages, right outside his body.
“It’s painful, isn’t it?”
“They’re scared to give themselves over to it,” I said. “I don’t blame them.”
Kane’s smile was faint in the glittering night. “Would you scream at me if I locked them in our room until they just fucked already?”
My lips twitched. “I’m not much of a screamer.”
“Really?” Kane’s gaze sharpened on mine. “I could change that.” “Oh?” I smirked, even as my blood heated. “How?”
His silver eyes simmered. “On my knees.”
Unable to help myself, I stepped a little closer, desperate to press all the pulsing parts of me against him. Kane grasped my fingers with feline precision as they crawled up his chest. Without lifting his eyes from mine, Kane said, far too low, “Arwen and I are going to bed now.”
