with us in combat and never shied away from a threat.”
“He was generous with his advice whether it was wanted or not,” Whitt contributes, earning him a sharp look from the fae lord.
The tense set of August’s jaw suggests he’s having trouble coming up with anything at all positive to say for his colleague. “He was firm in his convictions,” he says finally, his mouth slanting closer to a frown.
It’s a good thing I’m not expected to speak. I’m not sure a compliment like He had a way with insults or He really knew how to terrify a girl would go over well in this context.
Sylas lifts a sparkling goblet. “As kin to my mate, I recognize him as family and send him off as family. May the summer sun embrace him with all its warmth.”
My gaze flies to his face. Kin to his mate?
August said Kellan wasn’t related to Sylas like he and Whitt are—that he had another reason for joining the cadre—but if Sylas has a mate, where is she? Why hasn’t anyone mentioned her?
Why does something drop out of the pit of my stomach at the thought? It isn’t as if he ever—or I ever wanted— Maybe he’s set off some of the same feelings August has in me, but I wouldn’t have expected them to lead anywhere. I don’t think I’d even hope for it to.
Would I?
Sylas drizzles a shimmering liquid from the goblet over the shroud. The fabric lights up for a few seconds before swallowing the glow.
Whitt and August bend down and move several of the fronds so they cover Kellan’s body from his feet to his shoulders. Then they step away. Whitt backs up to the front door, where he leans against the doorframe, pulling a flask from his pocket. August drifts backward until he comes to a stop beside me.
Sylas begins to walk in a slow circuit around the body, rhythmic words falling from his lips in a language I don’t recognize. It sounds like magic, like an incantation. A shiver prickles down my back.
“Is this what it’s always like?” I murmur to August. “Or do cadre members get special funerals?”
“I believe the ceremony is essentially the same as this, other than we’d usually conduct any funeral outside,” August replies in a matching low tone. “Sylas would know better than I do. Most of it is the lord’s responsibility. This is actually the first funeral I’ve participated in as cadre, and I only watched one before that when I hadn’t yet received my place.”
I can’t help glancing up at him, startled. I’ve gathered that the fae men are much older than they look, and with all the aggression I’ve already witnessed among faerie kind, it’s hard to imagine he’s experienced so little death in his life so far.
August must be able to guess my thoughts. He grimaces. “Did you assume we kill each other left and right? I haven’t been a very good model of fae decorum.”
“No, I just— Two deaths doesn’t seem like very many in general.” In my mere twelve years in the human world, I’d already been to one funeral—for my great-grandmother who passed on when I was seven.
“I told you we can essentially live forever. So taking a life—the life of a fellow fae—through violence is a much more serious matter than it is for humans. You’re likely stealing not just decades but centuries. Most fights end just before a killing blow. The victor requests a yield, and the loser offers it up, usually with specific consequences attached.”
“Sylas asked Kellan to yield,” I say, remembering last night’s skirmish with unsettling clarity.
August nods. “It’s the only honorable way. If Kellan had given his yield last night, Sylas probably would have banished him from this domain. Most would take banishment over death. He could have ended up gathering stragglers into a lordless pack of his own or found another lord willing to take him in for his services.”
But Kellan hated me so much that he was willing to die just to take one last stab at wounding me. My throat closes up. No wonder Sylas looked so agonized afterward. For all I know, Kellan is the first person—the first fae—he’s ever had to kill.
And he did it for me. A human, a girl he’s barely known two weeks—an interloper who’d been in the process of betraying him.
How can I make sure he never regrets an act as colossal as that?
August touches my shoulder, just briefly. That fleeting contact is enough