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avatatewrites · 20 days ago

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Hi! I hope this isn’t too big of a request—I’ve been reading so much slain fic but nothing compares to my first, WCBF—I’m wondering if you can do like RY and drop us a sneaky chapter? It sounds like you’ve plotted some of Sloane’s birthday and I’m wondering if we could get that while we (not so patiently) wait for Act 2. Of course, only if you feel up to it!

Ooo! I can’t drop a sneaky chapter, but here are some random extracts from the scrapped drafts of the next chapter that no longer fit into the story, presented in no particular order and with no context, lol:

———

My father used to joke that Dunne herself couldn’t have fashioned a sterner woman than Xiomara Lees, the Riorson’s housekeeper. Her talents, in his opinion, were utterly wasted on domestic service; once, after too much spiced mead at a state ball, he’d offered to make her commanding general of his infantry.

I spot Xiomara almost immediately after stepping through the stately steel doors of Riorson House and into the foyer. She stands at the foot of the rightmost flight of stairs, alternately barking orders at the staff and denigrating Bodhi. I don’t recognize her by appearance, because she’s somehow managed to age about sixty years in the space of six; all sharp, arthritic joints, age-bleached hair and skin creased like folded linen.

I recognize her by the way her voice cracks through the chaos like a whip.

“This way,” I say. Dutifully, the others follow me through the crush of bodies, stepping over the satchels, rucksacks and trunks that litter the floor. Avalynn, unburdened by luggage or a sense of decorum, shoves several other riders out of her way as she walks ahead, clearing something that loosely resembles a path; Baylor walks behind her, still carrying their bags, good-naturedly clapping her victims on the back by way of apology.

Several harried maids weave through the maelstrom, radiating tension and jumping about a foot in the air any time someone talks at them. What looks to be the rest of Xaden’s staff stand idly by, watching from beneath the stone arches that mark the many hallways leading from the foyer, waiting to be put to work.

Visia mutters a curse from a half-step behind me, putting words to the unexpressed scream in my head. “I mean, I think we can safely assume that the house staff weren’t informed we were coming, right?”

Seconds later, our suspicions are confirmed when we come to a stop at Bodhi’s side.

“What have you done?” Xiomara hisses at him, half-heartedly swatting at his shoulder, which she can barely reach. Stooped as she is by age, she somehow manages to make Avalynn look statuesque. “We’ve had no warning; we have no extra staff, no additional provisions!”

Bodhi’s expression is pleading. “I know it’s sudden, but it couldn’t be helped.”

I bite my tongue to stop myself from saying that it probably could have been helped.

“What am I supposed to do with one-hundred riders, Lord Durran?”

Bodhi gesticulates loosely. “House them?”

“Where?” Xiomara pointedly asks, grey eyes flashing like sharpened steel.

Bodhi’s eyes glitter in response. “Well, I assume we’ll put most of them in the barracks, but if you’re thinking about inviting one or two bunk with you, Xiomara, then I take no issue with it.”

She scowls at him. “Lord Durran!”

“Come on, Xiomara.” He deploys his dimples, and I watch Xiomara’s scowl melt from her face against her better judgment. “If anyone could manage this sudden influx of guests, it’s you.”

I put my hand on Bodhi’s shoulder and lean closer, turning my face to whisper into his ear. “Why don’t you just ask her to bend over and pull her skirts up so you can kiss her ass properly, Lord Durran?”

Visia, standing at my left, crosses her arms and tips her head back to survey the fresco on the vaulted canopy ceiling: black dragons; celestial scenes; ancient heroes; burning chalices; someone who looks a little like Xaden hefting the Blade of Aretia. I can’t blame her for staring; I spent hours lying on this very floor during the secession, with nothing better to do than study each intricate detail of the scenes painted there.

Bodhi rolls his lips together to stifle a laugh, eyebrows slightly raised. “Xiomara, you remember Lady Mairi, don’t you?”

“Lady Mairi?” Xiomara’s face, already a little pale, is utterly bloodless when I turn back to her, lips plastered in a politely deferential smile. Her hand spasms, reaching out to touch the end of my braid as if of its own volition. I’m startled for a moment by how emotional she seems, and perhaps she is, too. After an awkward moment, she clears her throat, her expression becoming something professionally distant. “You survived, then,” she declares.

I blink at her, my smile sliding away. “Survived what?”

“We’ve had no news of you in Tyrrendor since you left.” Xiomara snatches her sun-spotted hand back, collecting herself.

“Oh.” I nod. “Well, I’m thriving, as you can see.”

“Yes, indeed.” Xiomara’s gaze flicks quickly over my flying leathers (with an expression that implies she thinks I’m doing exactly the opposite of thriving, I note), then over the rest of my squad. “Is there something you need, then, my lady? I’m sure I can find someone to assist you.”

“I came to ask you that very question, actually.” I ditch the pack hanging from my good shoulder, then sling that arm around Bodhi’s neck, gesturing to my friends with my other hand. Like Visia, each of them is now surveying the splendor that surrounds them: tapestries, columns, ornate chests. With the exception of Aaric, they’re wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Of course, it would take more than Riorson House to shake the eternally unflappable Aaric Greycastle. “Put us to work in whatever way we can be most helpful.” For emphasis, I pinch Bodhi’s dimpled cheek between my fingers. “This one is phenomenal at making beds, you know. I think you’d be very proud of his crisp corners.”

I don’t add that Dain’s are better, but I could.

Xiomara sniffs haughtily. “I think not.”

“Oh, I’m sure Lord Durran wouldn’t mind making himself useful for once.”

“I will not have the heir to the Tyrrish throne and the Duchess of Benserac—”

“Former Duchess of Benserac, actually,” Bodhi interrupts.

“—making beds and cleaning privies.”

I make a face. “To be fair, I never said anything about privies.”

“How many people live here, exactly?” Avalynn asks, eyes wandering.

I shrug, then grin at Xiomara. “Well, as of thirty minutes ago, somewhere north of one-hundred and one.”

“Is there room for all of us?”

I turn and give her a grim smile, gently nudging her with my elbow. “Having second thoughts, Av?”

She scowls at me in answer, but I see something flickering behind her eyes that fills me with unease. It might not be doubt, but it’s something that’s adjacent to worry, and what’s starting to concern me even more is that I can see it mirrored on the face of almost every other rider standing in the hall. I practically hear their thoughts eddying through the air.

Where will we sleep tonight?

Are we safe here?

What have we done?

I find myself thinking of Imogen pronouncing successful resistance movements to be fifty percent hinged on good bureaucracy. It seemed like an absurd claim at the time, but looking around the room now, I can easily see how a nascent revolution could fall apart due to its own disorganization. The faces I see around me aren’t the faces of proud soldiers; they’re faces of regret.

“Is anyone else thinking of the First Krovlan Uprising?” Aaric murmurs quietly from somewhere to my right.

———

“The air is different here,” Avalynn says brightly from her side of the copper tub.

She’s not wrong; it really is. Each lungful is bright and wild, vibrating through my body like each of my bones is a tuning fork resonating at a different frequency. My limbs sluice through the air with ease as if it’s slightly thinner, somehow less viscous. At first, I’d assumed that the difference in the way the air around me tasted, the way it felt, was symptomatic of the fact that for the first time in six years (maybe eight years, maybe for the first time since Uncle Fen had first posited a Tyrrish secession), I’d been able to breathe freely, move freely.

Quickly, I had come to the bleak realization that—

“It’s because there’s no wards,” Visia explains, indifferent as ever as she dips her washcloth into the water.

Avalynn squints at Visia inquisitively. “Did Caraich tell you that?”

“No.” Visia lifts her arm and swabs the washcloth over her freckled skin with a sense of somber purpose. “In the Esbens, wards falter every other week.” She gestures due north, towards Navarre. “They wouldn’t tell us when the wards were down, so when my brothers and I were children, our father taught us how to tell the difference.” She hesitates, wringing out her washcloth and draping it over the lip of the tub, then grimly recites, “‘When the air is thin, head within. When the air is stout, you can stay out.’”

Avalynn gapes at her, incredulous. “They didn’t tell you if the wards were down?”

Visia shrugs, then tips her head back. Slowly, she crosses her arms over her chest, glacial green eyes narrowing by degrees until she’s glaring at the hand-painted fresco on the ceiling much like she stared at the one in the entrance hall: like it causes her personal offence.

I spare a glance at Avalynn, who seems equally as flummoxed by Visia’s quickly souring mood. “What?”

“This is completely excessive.” Visia sinks lower, burying her flushed cheeks in the thick, fragrant layer of suds.

“It’s not that excessive,” Avalynn insists. There’s a dollop of froth on her cheek; I would wipe it away, but I’m not entirely sure I can muster the willpower to move. In fact, I might never muster the willpower to move again.

“They sent someone in with a wooden paddle to stir the bath until the bubbles were to Sloane’s liking,” Visia gripes.

“They won’t always do that.” By way of explanation, I admit, “I was a very precocious child the first time I came to Riorson House, and I wouldn’t take my bath unless it was… fluffy, I guess.” Visia’s scowl only seems to intensify. “It, ah, became a bit of a joke between me and the housekeeper, Xiomara; that’s all. Sometimes, she had them fluff my bath for my birthday, or special occasions or when”—I feel my cheeks flush—“I’d, um, had an especially long day.”

Visia grumbles something into the foam that sounds a lot like spoiled brat.

Avalynn waggles her brows. “What was that, Vis?”

Visia grunts. “When I was a child, my mother used to make me stand by the well in the village square and scrub myself down with soap leaves while she poured a bucket over my head.” She scoops up a handful of suds and blows into it, watching the bubbles disperse with a thunderous expression on her face.

Avalynn lifts her foot to poke Visia’s cheek with the pad of her big toe; Visia smacks it away. Water sloshes over the edge of the edge of the tub. “Well, at least we didn’t make the poor girl churn three separate baths for us.”

“You would have if I hadn’t sent her away.”

Avalynn sighs remorsefully. “I would have.”

“The fact that all three of us can share this tub at all is foul.” Visia looks around the room again, visibly cataloging every piece of finery within it, from the combs of jade and gold lined up on the dresser to the carved wooden screen standing by the fireplace. “Is this what our tithes pay for?”

“Well, you’re from Sumerton,” I say carefully, “so no.”

Avalynn snorts. “That was a very diplomatic answer, Sloane.”

“Someone’s tithes paid for it, though,” Visia insists.

Avalynn slings her arms over the edge of the tub and sighs contentedly, tipping her head back. “Please don’t ruin this for us with one of your democratic lectures, Visia. We need this bath; we deserve this bath.”

Visia mutters another invective into the bubbles before slipping beneath them entirely. When she emerges, wet-haired and covered in effervescent suds, she rests her head against the lip of the bath again and turns to stare out of a window at the riot of dragons grazing lazily in the lush, green valley beyond. I watch her cautiously, finger combing snarls from my hair; after a moment, she closes her eyes and inhales deeply, allowing herself a brief, guilty second to luxuriate in the excessively large tub that Tyrrish tithes bought.

The golden light of the late afternoon sun pours into the bathing chamber through the three tall, narrow windows, burnishing everything within. Soft, vibrant breezes gently ruffle the silver-threaded curtains; somewhere in the distance, birds sing prettily as they soar over the hills of Aretia, and the wind carries their joyful chorus into the room, and—

The door explodes open, shattering the peaceable moment. I turn my head to watch Bodhi back into the room with an armful of toiletries, turn slowly and then come to a sudden, graceless stop. For three full seconds, he stares at the scene in front of him, red-cheeked and open-mouthed, until Avalynn enthusiastically declares, “If you’re after a bath, we can absolutely make room for one more.”

“Avalynn!” Visia, to my surprise, has turned bright pink. Under the water, she demurely crosses her arms over her chest, although she needn’t bother. The suds coating the top of the bath are thick as whipped cream and practically up to her neck; her flight leathers are more revealing. “You did not just suggest our section leader should climb into the bath with us.”

“Well, when opportunity knocks, I answer,” Avalynn murmurs, winking at her.

“Opportunity isn’t knocking,” Visia growls.

“Fine.” Avalynn turns so that she can prop her chin on the hand against the edge of the tub. Over her shoulder, she chirps, “When opportunity bursts through the door and finds me naked and willing in the tub, I answer. Happy now?”

Bodhi, who’s still got his back to us, clears his throat. “Opportunity isn’t doing that, either.”

Avalynn’s mouth slides into a mercenary grin. “Well, what if opportunity—”

“Why isn’t the door locked, Sloane?” Bodhi hisses, instinctively glancing over his shoulder to glare at me and then just as quickly averting his eyes, cheeks flaming even redder. “If you’re going to take baths with your friends, you need to make sure the door to my godsdamned room is locked before you do it!”

“I forgot,” I say placatingly. “I’m terribly sorry if we’ve offended your delicate sensibilities, Lord Durran. Next time, I solemnly swear that I’ll make sure the door is locked.”

“Don’t say it like that!”

I frown. “Like what?”

“Like I’m a prude,” Bodhi says, sounding slightly strangled and strangely offended, and definitely a touch prudish. “I’m not a prude just because I prefer not to walk in on unsuspecting women while they’re in compromising positions.”

“What about suspecting women?” Avalynn intones.

“Avalynn!”

“Now you’re being a prude, Visia.”

“We’re getting out anyway,” I say, sighing. “If you go back into your room, I’ll knock on the door when it’s safe for you to come out.”

Bodhi hesitates for the barest moment, then grudgingly stomps back into his room, kicking the door with the back of his heel as he marches through it. It slams shut behind him, rattling the frame.

“Such a prude,” Avalynn chuckles, clambering out of the bath and wrapping herself in a towel. Visia follows, cheeks still flushed; Avalynn examines her critically as they both pad back into the bedroom, and after a few seconds, I hear the comforting and familiar sound of them bickering with each other.

Once the bath is draining and I’m wrapped securely in a towel, I cross to Bodhi’s door and knock gently; I wait for a grunt before swinging it open.

Immediately, I stutter to a stop.

Two beds stand against the opposite wall, their sturdy oak frames nearly identical but for the fact that one has bears carved into the headboard while the other has cavorting wolves. My eyes catch on the carved wooden figure that dangles from the post of the closest bed, then quickly flick away. There are a few personal effects still scattered around the room: a folded cloak, abandoned on a chair; a half-carved piece of wood abandoned on the desk.

I can’t look at those, either.

I linger in the doorway, suddenly feeling like my presence has somehow disturbed a sacred space.

In the year we were all sequestered here, I made so many of the happiest memories of my life in moments so mundane that I shouldn’t be able to recall them at all: Bodhi practicing his knots at the desk; Liam seated cross-legged in a patch of sunlight, whistling to himself as he polished his sword; Xaden tipping a chair onto its two back legs as he flipped a dagger in his hands, frowning in boredom; Imogen and Garrick dangling from the window, sharing a stick of churam and a conversation the rest of us pretended not to hear; all of us, existing together.

Bodhi is diligently moving things from his satchel into a cabinet painted with lupine imagery and Tyrrish knots. He looks up, brows drawn and mouth open to say something, then quickly stops himself. “Seeing as you’re here, I was going to say that—”

I find myself irrationally fearful that if I step over the threshold, I’ll make new memories in this room that will eclipse the others.

———

Planted at the centre of a courtyard hidden deep within the family quarters is a blackened tree, its trunk hollowed out by fire. Liam, Xaden and I used to sit under it for hours, and once he carved me a piece for my chessboard from one of its fallen branches. It’s a minor miracle that not only is it still standing, but there’s a spray of green leaves sprouting defiantly from a single branch. I’m still studying the fresh growth when I call out, “I know you’re there, Xaden.”

Xaden chuckles to himself as he steps out of the shadows. “How long have you known I was standing there?”

I spare him a brief glance as I offer him what’s left of the stick of churam pinched between my fingers, which he takes. “I noticed the shadows were acting weird a few minutes ago, but I figured it couldn’t hurt you to practice patience.”

Xaden raises his scarred brow as he exhales a gale of smoke. “That feels very pointed, Sloane. I thought we were back in each other’s good books?”

I frown. “When was I out of yours?”

“Well, you did express an interest in killing Violet.”

I grin at him impishly. “If you’re referring to my misguided attempt at drawing her onto the Challenge Mat, I wasn’t going to kill her.”

“Were you going to try?” Xaden asks patiently.

I sigh, but decline to answer. “Huh.” I take the last of the stick from him and stub it out on the wall, then tuck it into one of the pockets of my flight jacket. “Well, the fact that I’m even willing to acknowledge her existence after today’s events, let alone enquire after her health, seems fairly magnanimous, I think.”

Xaden frowns. “What she did? Sloane, she brought us one-hundred new riders.”

I nod. “I’m grateful for that, Xaden. Really, I am. I just wish she’d left Liam out of it.”

I’m glad to see that he still has enough temerity to flinch. “I’m sorry, Sloane.”

“Is your girlfriend sorry?”

“My girlfriend isn’t currently conscious.”

I nod thoughtfully, then say, “In case you were wondering, dinner was abysmal. The atmosphere was funerary, and there was barely enough food to go around. Your new recruits were desperately in need of some kind of rousing speech, but alas, there was no one there who was qualified.”

“What about you?”

“I don’t think any of them are looking for inspiration from me.”

“Well, I think I’ve made more than enough rousing speeches for one day.”

I grimace at him as I start walking backwards toward my room. “Very generous of you to call the speech you made in the courtyard ‘rousing.’”

“I’m doing my best, Sloane,” Xaden snaps back at me, following.

———

“I mislike this.”

I ignore Thoirt’s fussing, just like I’ve been doing for the past fifteen minutes. Carefully, I kick aside a heavy curtain of flowering vines, then feel around blindly with my toe, looking for a foothold somewhere in the crumbling mortar. A harsh wind howls as if in warning.

“I mislike this, little warrior,” Thoirt repeats, possibly assuming that I somehow didn’t hear her speaking directly into my brain.

“You need to calm down.” I try, in vain, to keep my center of gravity close to the wall as I risk a glance over my shoulder, finally acknowledging her.

Two sets of luminous gold eyes blink back at me, watching me creep up the northmost wall of Riorson House. I’ve climbed so high that I’m nearly even with the ridgeline they’re standing on now. Naturally, Thoirt is closest, her nails curled so tightly around the edge of the ridge that parts of it are starting to crumble away, but Cath is nearer than he was the last time I looked, barely two wingspans to her left.

No sooner have I had that thought than Thoirt turns to him and snaps her teeth threateningly. Cath shuffles his hulking mass very slightly to the right in acquiescence, casting a sideways look at her. His expression, even for a dragon, reads as deathly grim.

“I am calm,” Thoirt insists.

I glance down at the gravel path a mere forty feet below my current position. “You could have fooled me.”

“I am only very slightly vexed, then,” Thoirt deigns to admit.

“Oh?” I mutter sarcastically.

“I fail to see why my rider should risk life and limb because this meddlesome beast”—Thoirt tosses her magnificent head at Cath, and he snorts indignantly in response—“has been too busy sticking his snout into everyone else’s affairs to properly manage his own. If his rider will not speak to him, then it is his problem.”

As I wedge my foot into a crevice and gingerly test my weight, I feel a stab of irritation. “Can I get a little more show of faith, please?” I grumble. “I’m not going to die climbing a building, Thoirt. I walked the parapet; I climbed the Gauntlet and, not for nothing, did it in remarkably decent time for someone of my height and weight, if my statistical analysis was correct. Which it was, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

She doesn’t even sound sarcastic.

“I ride a big, scary dragon, Thoirt; I think I can climb a four-storey building without putting my life in mortal peril.”

“Of course you can!” I feel her hot, sulphurous breath puff across the backs of my bare shoulders and ruffle the loose strands of my hair. Clearly, she’s taken offence at the implication that she might believe me incapable. “The question is not whether you can, but whether you should have to. I am merely making the point that you should not, and—”

Breath stutters out of me as stone falls away, skittering downward. For a second I’m slipping downwards, feet scrabbling to find purchase, nails clawing at the stones until, blissfully, they find an arrow slit to catch hold of.

Below, a piece of rock the size of my head lands on the gravel with an echoing crack, then splinters in a dozen pieces. I clutch myself to the wall, staring dumbly at the ground.

Thoirt’s silence feels slightly pointed.

Cautiously, I select a new foothold. “I misspoke before, when I said I ride a scary dragon. I ride the most beautiful, patient dragon in the world, and every morning when I wake, I say a prayer of thanks to Zihnal for the luck that made her mine.”

“You forget I am in your head always and therefore know that you do not, in fact, do any such thing.”

“Right.” I huff, wrapping my fingers tightly around a thick vine. I tug it once, twice; then, satisfied that it’s sturdy enough to hold my weight (and, more importantly, that something eight-legged and exoskeletal isn’t hiding in its midst, waiting to pounce on me), I heave myself up it with an unladylike grunt. “It’s so easy to forget.”

Something, maybe a sharp twig hidden in the mat of ivy, rents my dress and carves a long, shallow scratch into the skin of my thigh. By now, I’m such a patchwork of agonies that I barely notice the pain. My fingers are stiff, and I’ve scraped every last one of my knuckles and chafed most of the skin on my palms.

My muscles burn; my poor shoulder, in particular, may never recover from this latest in a long string of indignities I’ve forced it to suffer.

Nevertheless, I persevere.

Tipping my head back, I squint at the wall, looking for suitable handholds. The stone is unnaturally smooth. During the Battle of Aretia, the northern end of the house took heavy dragonfire, and the flames burned hot enough and long enough to melt large patches of stone. I reach for another arrow slit and—

“Yes, of course that was sarcasm!” Thoirt snaps.

I frown, pausing. “What?”

For the first time ever, Thoirt sounds almost flustered. “Oh. I… I didn’t mean to say that to you, but to…”

“Cath?” I suggest.

Cath makes a rumbling noise, but it’s not immediately apparent to me whether it’s a sound of protest or a sound of agreement.

Gods know what possesses me to do it, but after a few long seconds of awkward silence I find myself valiantly declaring, “You know, I probably wouldn’t die if I fell from this height.”

Thoirt sounds doubtful. “What makes you think that?”

Cath chuffs. Once again, I have no idea what his intended meaning might be, and Thoirt seems to have no interest in interpreting for my benefit.

“When I was practicing for the Gauntlet, Jesinia showed me a study that calculated the odds of surviving falls from various heights. I think she thought I’d find it comforting.” I did not. I lunge for another arrow slit in the wall, then pause to catch my breath, wiping one of my clammy, grubby palms of the skirt of my thin linen nightdress. In spite of the cool night air and the fact that my shift is paper thin, sweat pools between my shoulder blades. “According to that study, as long as I didn’t land on my head, there’s probably a fifty percent chance I’d survive a fall from here. Which doesn’t sound that good, but considering five percent of falls from a mere six-foot height are fatal, it’s not actually that bad.”

Thoirt seems to consider this, then asks, “And how many of your frail bones do you estimate would be broken if you were to fall from your current height?”

Her voice is wry, as if she already knows the answer.

In the space of a few more minutes, I’ve finally reach my intended destination: a box balcony on the third floor. Its corbels, I note, are all shaped like dragons, because everything in, on and around this godsforsaken fortress is shaped like a dragon or covered in draconic iconography. Seventeen generations of Riorsons have left their mark on this house, and apparently, not one of them was familiar with the concept of subtlety. I grit my teeth as I clasp my hands around one, testing it as best I can with an injured shoulder.

It doesn’t immediately crumble at my touch or the slightest application of pressure, which is better than nothing.

“Wish me luck,” I chirp.

“You do not need it.”

I dangle from the corbel as I inch my way along it, then clamber up the baluster. When my fingers wrap around the ornate latticework of the window, an enumeration of simple Tyrrish knots rendered in wrought iron, I nearly weep for joy. My bare feet are balanced precariously on a scant two inches of stone lip, but I’m so close to being on solid ground that I can practically taste it.

I try the window, but annoyingly, it doesn’t budge. The balcony beyond is shrouded in shadow, though the room beyond is well lit by sterile white light; I study it carefully.

Dain, it would seem, has been confined in a modest guest suite in the least-occupied wing of the house. It’s sumptuously appointed, as all the guest suites are, but small. My room in the family quarters is easily twice this size again. I don’t see any movement within, but I feel confident that Cath has led me to the right balcony. Dain’s rucksack is lying open on the bench at the foot of the bed, and there’s a small stack of his books on the writing desk in the corner.

“Dain?” I hiss.

I wait; no answer comes.

“That is a shame.” Thoirt leans closer, mouth opening as if she means to pluck me off the side of the building and carry me away. “Perhaps he is simply asleep?”

“Dain!” I repeat, a little louder this time. “Dain, I—”

I catch a whiff of Dain’s scent, orange oil and sword polish, right as the grate to my right croaks open. Fingers envelop my forearm, swallowing the ink of my relic, hauling me up and through the window; I barely have time to get my feet under me before I’m shoved against the balcony wall, chest and shoulders pinned to the stones, mind and body reeling. I hear Thoirt snarl in warning; Cath snarls in answer.

Dain is panting as he holds me against the wall, every inch of his body rigid against mine. Both of my arms are restrained by his broad hands, his fingers curled around my upper arms in a way that should probably be unpleasant, but isn’t. One of his thighs, I realize, is wedged between mine, anchoring my body. I don’t move; I don’t even twitch. In part, it’s because I can’t, but mostly it’s because muscles I didn’t even know I had are quaking, and if it weren’t for his body holding mine upright, I’m pretty certain I’d be a puddle on the floor right now. His body feels nice against mine, strong and warm and solid.

I turn my head and lift one brow in question.

“What are you doing here?” he demands.

“Visiting.” There’s just enough light pouring out onto the small balcony that I can make out his expression. It’s guarded and pained, like it was the last time I saw him in the courtyard.

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