wasn’t in the mood to explain to Xandrian. “Nothing.”
“You should go with them. “ Xandrian’s eyes became sea-blue slits as he stared out into the misty ocean. “Goddess knows if I let every tragedy affect me, I would never enjoy myself.”
“Is that what you’re doing now? Enjoying yourself?”
“Oh, I am the very epitome of happiness, Goddess-Born.”
Not in the mood for Xandrian’s flippant cruelty, she went to leave . . . and hesitated.
“If you don’t let anything get to you, what’s your excuse?”
He flicked up a bored eyebrow. “Pardon?”
“For being a bastard? At least Stolas has a reason, what’s yours?”
He chuckled, toying with one of the golden buttons of his vest. “Being a bastard has kept me alive in a court where I should have died hundreds of years ago. That’s my excuse.”
“Is that why you always have a glass of wine in your hand when you hardly even drink? Why you say the cruelest things to people you might actually like? I watched you in the Sun Court. You were always surrounded by the most beautiful people, but you never smiled. Not once.”
“Is there a point to this?”
“You’re not in the Sun Court, Xandrian. You don’t have to play that role anymore.”
“No?” An emotion flashed inside his guarded eyes, too quick to catalog. “What if, after pretending to be something for so long, I don’t remember who I was before? What then?”
“I don’t know. Start with not being a dick and go from there?”
He snorted. “Sorry, when I want advice from someone younger than the chair under my ass, I’ll ask.”
She sighed as she stood. The air had cooled considerably with the approaching dusk, but for once, the shrouds of mist were thin, allowing a view of the fiery orange sun as it dipped into the jet black sea. With the purple-tinged white layering the hills, the golds and pinks dancing across the frothy waves, Shadoria had never looked more beautiful.
It seemed odd that today of all days would choose to be glorious.
She planted her palms on the smooth marble table. “I may be young, but I know that Bell is the best of all of us. He’s kind, and noble, and courageous, and he deserves so much more than this . . . whoever you are.”
“That’s definitely true, but give it twenty or thirty years and if he’s still alive after everything, he will not be so kind or noble. This dangerous life of kings and tyrants will shape him into something harder, something darker, in the same way it will you. Come talk to me then, Goddess-Born, after you’ve lost nearly everyone you love.”
Something about his words were like a knife tip ripping open the scar of Archeron’s visions, and she flinched before she could stop herself.
“Oh. Did you think you could get through this unscathed?” What looked like true pity flickered across his face. “You poor, naïve girl.”
Anger swept through her like a brushfire. She dragged her furious stare over his stained breeches before meeting his eyes. “You haven’t quite lost him fully yet, but you will, Sun Lord. Forever.”
Holding her stare, he took a long swig of his wine. “Who says I want to keep him?”
Haven shrugged, tossing the last of her plate to the ground for Ravius. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
As she strolled toward the set of doors leading inside, she waited for Xandrian’s snappy comeback.
And waited and waited until the doors clicked shut behind her.
33
Stolas might not have wanted to train tonight, but he did have plans. She discovered what those plans were when she passed by the entrance to the Hall of Light on the way to bed. Night had fallen in the time it took to walk from the balcony on the far west side of the grounds to here—which was basically a testament to the size of Starpiercer Castle.
She hadn’t meant to stop by the massive stone doors with door handles shaped like wolf heads, but something—a feeling, or perhaps the light trickling from beyond—made her stop.
Newly lit torches cast pale blue ovals of runelight over the cratered black walls of the massive chamber. Silver rectangles of moonlight crept across the floor.
And on his knees inside one of those swaths of ethereal light was Stolas. His wings hung tight and limp against his back, their tips brushing the dark floor.
She thought she might have heard him audibly sigh as she quietly crossed to his side. When she saw what he was doing, how delicately he collected the small shards