everything is fine,” Aaros muttered, his jaw set. “Trust me, I know what it’s like to live on excuses with the hope that nobody catches on. Eventually someone does.”
His dark eyes fastened on her, razor sharp. Expectant.
Filled with concern. So much. It hurt her for him to see her like this. Yet the sight darkened him as well, as if her pain twined with his the moment he entered the room.
Before she knew it, Aaros had propped her up against him on the floor and wrapped his arms around her, careful not to squeeze her wounds. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“Helping you keep everything together.” He placed his chin over the top of her head, and proceeded to smooth his fingers through her hair. “You don’t need to be alone to do that.”
It was what she was used to. Recovering alone, processing alone. Taking on everything alone, because she’d rather do that than let anyone see what a mess everything was. Especially when nobody could help her.
“Let’s get you to bed, now,” Aaros said. “You’ve had … a night.”
She didn’t even have the energy to snort. “I’m too tired to move.”
Too scared to be alone, to close her eyes.
They were drifting now, the darkness whispering at the corners of her vision.
“Then rest.” He sighed, settling more comfortably on the floor, shifting her in his arms. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Promise?”
If he answered, the warmest sleep pulled her under before she could hear it.
26
Daron stumbled into his room sick to his stomach, berating himself over two very important points.
He shouldn’t have had that last drink.
And as soon as morning hit, he should request to switch rooms.
Daron wandered, lingered, stared at her door each time he passed. At this point, he’d committed the fixture to memory. Every intricate carving around the frame, the slight scuffs around the doorknob. After his last visit hadn’t gone well, he’d resolved never to touch it. No matter what he heard.
This time, he’d almost knocked. For no reason at all.
Daron raked both hands through his hair at a sudden thud. A glass smashed, or some other noise from his imagination. He ignored it. A chill settled in his bones as he strode deeper into his room, nearly stumbling in the dark were it not for the patches of moonlight haphazardly lighting his path.
Light. He needed light.
Fire. Candles.
It used to be so easy.
His common room fireplace, a pit of shadows and ash, glimmered with the dark orange flare of embers dying within. Drawn by the warmth, Daron dropped his jacket on the edge of the couch, missing his target. It landed with a soft thump on the carpet. He nearly dropped to the floor with it, dead tired. Not just from drink slowly drifting from his system, but magic.
Daron’s muscles trembled.
His body so unused to the surge of adrenaline after so long without.
Tremors continued running through his wrist, alive with residual energy from the light he’d cast hours ago. Over Kallia, for the whole show hall to see.
The moment felt more like a fever dream now.
His tremors turned into a violent shiver. Glorian was cold as anything, especially at night when the air went frigid and unforgiving. Daron stared heavily at the embers darkening in the hearth, too fatigued to grab the materials on the overhanging ledge to build a flame.
Darkness. It was a better place to think, anyway. And he needed to think. This had not been part of the plan.
This … changed everything.
He closed his eyes and rubbed his hands together for warmth. They wouldn’t stop shaking.
Maybe some of the rumors are true.
Daron inhaled sharply.
If there was a source of magic, a different kind, well … that’s something worth hiding.
Eva’s voice returned, but for once, he wanted it gone. The reminders and riddles she’d posed years ago had all been dead ends. Nothing had ever rung true, and he supposed that made it easier. To come up empty so he could keep searching. Always searching.
Maybe it depends on where you are.
Perhaps she had been right, after all.
Light flickered beyond his closed lids, a trickle of warmth and smoke accompanying it.
Daron’s eyes shot open. His lips parted at the fire raised where dying embers had been, a fresh set of logs burning before him.
No, no, no.
Magic trailed in fresh tendrils through the bones of his fingers. Fear spiked through him. He didn’t want to look at his palm, but it was impossible when the lines across his skin flared. Fire in his veins, magic in his blood