Emberhawk - Jamie Foley Page 0,86

you.”

His smile was as warm as his gaze. “My pleasure, balemba.”

Kira’s heart lurched, and for the first time, she didn’t resist the direction it dragged her in. “No, really . . . thank you.” She removed the bangle he’d given her and held it out. “You did everything you promised, and you protected me in more ways than one. Even when it hurt you.”

Something dark passed behind Ryon’s eyes as he stared at the bangle. “Keep it.”

Kira stood there in disbelief for an awkward moment. “But it was your father’s, right? And it looks like it’s made from a valuable resin.”

“It’s translucent gold.” Ryon took the bangle and gently slipped it up her arm, sending a euphoric buzz along Kira’s skin. “It’s not a bracelet—you wear it like this.” He stopped above her bicep but below the cut of her new sleeveless tunic. But the bangle was too large to rest there on its own.

“I think . . . um . . .” Kira fought to keep her voice steady despite the sudden surge through her pulse. “Your arms are bigger than mine.”

Ryon grunted in apparent satisfaction. “Well, wear it however you want, then.” He removed his hands, stuffed them behind his back, and cleared his throat. “I’m going to miss you.”

Kira’s heart thumped faster than a jackrabbit’s. “You don’t . . .” Her voice descended to a whisper. “Maybe you don’t have to.”

Ryon’s eyes widened. “Do you—”

“Kira!”

The moment shattered like glass. Kira whipped around to find a young man in Imperial armor waving at her from one of the booths on the right.

“Hey, Frizz!” Tekkyn called with a radiant smile.

33

RYON

“There’s no way in Alani you killed a d’hakka by yourself!”

Ryon controlled his breathing and attempted to corral his frustration with it. If it weren’t bad enough that the same troop of Malaano Empire soldiers that had practically tortured, interrogated, and imprisoned him were in Jadenvive, now they’d ruined the one shot with Kira he never thought he’d get.

But Kira was happier than an otter that her big brother was alive. Thankfully Ryon hadn’t accidentally killed Tekkyn in that barn fire. It hadn’t been so long ago that Kira had hated his guts, but it seemed like months.

Now Ryon felt like their little adventure had ground to a screeching halt.

Kira pulled out her d’hakka stinger and slid it across the table’s blue-and-green mosaic to clack into Tekkyn’s plate. His eyes grew into twin moons, and Ryon noted how uncannily similar they were to Kira’s. They curved in the same shape with a blue color, and yet somehow her gaze was bright and giddy as a mountain stream while his was cold and hard as a glacier.

But Tekkyn had scarcely looked at Ryon since they’d sat down. Maybe he was mad that Ryon had burned down his family’s barn after he’d had sworn to protect their land.

Oops. Ryon couldn’t exactly explain and apologize—it’d surely blow Tekkyn’s cover.

“That one did it,” one of the Malaano soldiers slurred, pointing a finger at Ryon over the three empty mugs in front of him. His breath smelled of saké and old fish. “No way that little girl killed it!”

“She did it,” Ryon grunted, “by herself.” He craned his neck to look out of the long booth, hoping the barmaid was coming with his food. No such luck.

“Your turn,” Kira said to Tekkyn. “What are you doing here? I thought you were patrolling the border.”

Tekkyn’s ears twitched. “We were.” He snatched a bottle of saké and pushed it toward Ryon. “Have a drink on me. For protecting my little sister who apparently doesn’t need protection.”

Ryon studied the man who’d released him at great risk to himself—he was as unreadable as one of Brooke’s invisible-ink orders. But Kira’s ears twitched like that when she lied.

Ryon glanced away in favor of his glass of lukewarm water. “No, thanks.”

The lieutenant burned in Ryon’s peripheral vision. The same void-cursed one who’d stuck his thumb in Ryon’s shoulder and strung him up in that barn: Sa’alu.

They weren’t technically at war, so Brooke didn’t restrict Malaano soldiers from entering Jadenvive, as long as they got her permission. If only the Empire gave Tribal Alliance soldiers the same courtesy.

Still, Ryon was a hair’s breadth away from bursting into Brooke’s meeting with the princess and demanding Sa’alu be punished. But he knew what she would say. The Alliance was at a steep strategic disadvantage against the Empire—they didn’t have as many troops, not nearly as much wealth, and their navy looked like a collection