He could have sworn the ghost of a smile twitched her lips. If she were awake, she’d give him so much crap.
Nasira was cocking her head at him as he straightened, but she didn’t tease him like he expected.
No, her strange silver-blue eyes regarded him for a long, curious moment. Then she waved a tiny hand and said, “Go sleep, pretty mortal king. Someone will get you when she wakes.”
After he got over his usual shock of being ordered around by the tiny Seraphian empress, he obeyed, but he knew he couldn’t sleep so he’d come back to the destroyed Hall of Light.
Xandrian was there already, just staring at the destruction with that impassive gaze of his. Wordlessly they’d begun trying to salvage what they could, if for no other reason than to do something to forget how easily Archeron had breached their defenses.
Bell knew Haven was fine now. Whatever Stolas had done, he’d somehow halted the magick battering her mind, but he hadn’t erased it. As Bell slowly gathered up the shattered crystal pieces, he couldn’t shake the feeling that, just like the broken chandelier above, whatever Archeron had done to Haven couldn’t be undone. Unseen.
Searing pain throbbed in Bell’s hand, and he was shocked to see a shard of crystal clenched beneath his fingers, blood dripping onto the stone floor. He waved off Xandrian’s offer to heal. The sharp sting of his cut distracted him.
“King.” Xandrian startled Bell by taking his hand and wrapping an ice-blue sash around the cut. When he was finished, his hand lingered. “You should rest. We leave for the mortal lands as soon as Haven is ready, and I expect you to help with the threading.”
Any other time, Bell would have felt excitement over the upcoming test of skill. Threading was one of the most complex skills a runecaster could hone; even Haven, with all her vast access to power, couldn’t manage it. And now that Stolas was no longer the Lord of the Netherworld, neither could he.
Any other time, he might have also let his thoughts drift to Xandrian’s fingers still lightly curled over his hand.
But only one thought clanged inside his skull: Archeron was never going to stop until he possessed Haven or killed her.
Bell pulled away from Xandrian’s gentle touch. “I want to train.”
“Now?” Xandrian’s scoff turned to pity as he shook his head. “Don’t. Don’t punish yourself for what happened earlier. We all bear responsibility for that.”
“This isn’t a punishment. I’m going to be ready the next time that bastard comes for her—but I understand if you need your beauty rest, Sun Lord.”
Bell’s challenge wiped the sympathy from Xandrian’s face; his lips tugged into a soft, punishing smile as he waved a hand toward the double doors. “After you.”
Xandrian would make him pay for that remark, but Bell welcomed the pain.
He was discovering that was the best distraction of all.
11
“I’m going to rip Archeron’s head from his body,” Stolas snarled, pacing along the length of the rough stone balcony he and Nasira stood upon. Humid warmth from the royal baths wafted over his cool skin. The sound of Haven’s lady’s maid humming floated over the wind, where she brushed out Haven’s vibrant rose-gold hair.
Haven had awoken weak and mired in sweat. In her typical obstinate fashion, she had tried to get up, pretending she was fine. But the hollowness in her eyes said otherwise.
And when she slid from bed and nearly collapsed—
He hadn’t rushed to her aid, as much as it killed him not to. She would have hated that. Thinking about it now made his blood boil.
How he had to watch her struggle to stand. To walk. How she used the little energy she had to hide the haunted look in her eyes. With the assistance of Demelza and Nasira, he had talked Haven into a bath and breakfast.
Two hours—it had taken two hours of her staggering and pausing to make it to his personal bathhouse. Every second watching her struggle while pretending to be fine twisted the dagger of pain and rage deeper into his heart.
Nasira stretched out her wings, face tilted to catch the first light of dawn. Like his mother, she was short compared to most Seraphians, her face strikingly beautiful, with an undercurrent of savagery that only added to the allure.
She yawned, flashing the canines she never retracted. “I can’t believe I’m the one pointing this out, but killing the Sun Sovereign goes against Haven’s plan.”