Chapter Thirty
Istep back, eyes wide in shock and horror, as flames curl along the edges of Daemon’s tunic. Looking down, I see that my fingertips are glowing with golden light, a small orb of fire in each palm.
Daemon’s eyes widen in surprise, but he simply raises a hand, and a wall of midnight encircles him, dampening the flames quicker than I can blink my eyes.
“Are you okay?” I ask, a fine tremble moving along my limbs.
“I’m fine,” he says, reaching out and pulling me back against him gently. “I told you, you can’t hurt me.”
I nod, but I can’t stop shaking. Daemon runs a finger along the edge of my jaw and lifts my gaze to his.
Then, softly this time, he presses his lips to mine.
After a moment, I relax against him. My heart is still hammering in my chest and my blood is pulsing like shooting stars.
The kiss deepens, slow and hypnotic. Had I really just done that?
Magic. My magic. I can taste it on my tongue like stars.
After a moment, I realize that Daemon’s tunic is still smoldering. A small giggle escapes my lips. I can’t help myself.
Daemon pulls back, a puzzled expression on his face.
I reach up and run my fingers down the tattered and burned edges of his shirt, and then I pull it off over his head.
He grins, understanding the humor now, and pulls me against him again.
I run my hands back up his back, and this time it feels exactly right. His skin, bare to me, belonging to me…
It’s at that moment the sky opens up, and cold rain begins to fall.
Neither of us move, not willing to let go yet. Daemon’s tongue against mine is wicked, softer now, but no less intoxicating. If anything, it’s like he’s teasing me, drawing each movement out, slowly tracing his fingers up my back until I think I might lose my mind…
But when lightning strikes close enough to feel the crackle of electricity in the air, he pulls back. “Let’s get you inside,” he says, his voice deep and velvety. “It’s not safe out here.”
Of course, he means not safe for me. The human. But I don’t argue.
We are drenched down to our very souls by the time we reach the tent. It’s raining so hard that I doubt the guards would have noticed us even if Daemon hadn’t pulled night around us to transport us back. Inside the tent I shiver, the sound of rain a steady roar that reverberates in my ears.
“You’re soaked,” Daemon says, looking down at my wet nightgown and cloak, which are plastered to my body.
He helps me untie my cloak, but when I start to shimmy out of my nightgown, he reaches up and covers my hands before I can get the straps over my shoulders.
“You need to get some rest. We made a breakthrough tonight with your magic, but there’s only another day and a half before you fight Toryn, and you have to be able to summon it consistently. ”
I let out a small sigh of protest. “You can’t possibly go back out in this weather.”
Daemon’s eyes rove over my bare shoulders, and the thin cloth clinging to my wet skin. His voice, when he speaks, is dark and gravelly. “No, what I can’t possibly do is stay here and not keep you up for the rest of the night.”
My heart begins to thrum in my chest all over again, imagining his lips on mine, his lips in other places…
“Embyr…” he warns with a growl.
A flush moves over my cheeks. “What?”
“I can feel your blood pulsing and it’s making it very difficult to do the right thing.”
I take a step closer to him, a thought resurfacing in my mind. “You told me back at Shadow’s Keep that you can sense me, when I’m in danger. Has that ever happened to you before? With someone else?”
“No,” he says softly. “It has not.”
We stare at each other for several long moments. I don’t know what any of this means. Another mystery in my life, but for once, this is a good one.
“When will you be back?” I finally say.
“In the morning. As soon as I can get away without anyone noticing.”
Daemon leans in, his lips hovering for a heartbeat before he dusts them gently over mine. Even that slight touch sends a rush of heat through my body. When he pulls back, I let out a slow sigh.
“Goodnight,” I whisper.
“Goodnight, Embyr.”
And then, Daemon melts into the night and disappears from view.
The next morning, however, it is not Daemon who comes for me at dawn. It’s a trio of guards from my grandparents’ tent.
“What do they need from me at this hour?” I ask groggily, wiping sleep from my eyes.
“We don’t ask questions,” one guard says gruffly. “We just deliver people from one place to another.”
My cloak still isn’t dry from the night before, so I pull a green sweater on over a pair of pants and tug on my boots.
As always, I tuck a dagger down into my belt, and add another in one of my boots.
Then I step out into the crisp morning air, the sea breeze reminding me of last night up in the peaks above the valley.
Life has such a funny way of twisting in the complete opposite direction from where you thought you were going.
I touch my lips as I walk, trying to hide the small smile there.
Of course, the moment I step inside the huge tent of House Harkyn, the smile falls.
My grandparents are sitting in their thrones, Cillian beside them, and they are not alone.
There are two other men there, not guards, but something else entirely.
They are very tall and very muscular, with sun-weathered skin covered in black runic tattoos, even curling up the sides of their necks and their cheekbones.
Black hair is braided down their backs, and they’re dressed head-to-foot in rough-hewn leather.
Each of them is laden with at least a dozen weapons.
They don’t exactly look like they run in the same crowd as my grandparents.
My first guess is mercenaries, but when my grandmother speaks, she quickly squelches that theory. “Embyr, these are our associates from abroad, Kildari and his brother Quelan. They’ve come to watch you compete in the tournament.”
I can feel my eyebrows shoot up. “Me?”
Cillian lets out a hearty laugh. “Come cousin, no need for such modesty.” He smiles but shoots me a look.
What in the name of the goddess is going on?
I offer a slight bow to the visitors. “I’m honored you’ve come such a long way to see me. Where did you travel from?”
My grandfather narrows his eyes. “Abroad, Embyr.”
Cillian laughs again, but no one answers the question. I don’t know what exactly I’ve walked into, but it’s not at all how I was expecting my morning to start.
“Shall we break fast together?” My grandmother says it like it’s a question but then looks over expectantly at the servant standing off to the side of the throne and he hurries off.
There’s a large wooden table set on one side of the tent, and my grandmother gestures for everyone to take seats.
She and my grandfather sit at each end, and Kildari sits next to me, while his brother sits across from me.
Cillian seems an eternity away at a diagonal.
I feel like I’ve just sat down in the midst of a pit of serpents.
Three servants return with steaming mugs of spiced tea and plates of fruit that they sit down in front of each of us.
The visitors look down at it like they’ve set piles of trash on their plates.
My grandmother gestures for the head servant and whispers something in his ear that is clearly unpleasant from the frightened look on his face.
Then she looks out across the table and smiles beatifically.
“We heard you received a challenge last night,” she asks, with all the casualness of asking me how my tea tastes, rather than stating that someone is trying to kill me.
Considering the ridiculousness of her question, I take a sip of my tea, making a show of savoring it, before answering her question with a mock smile. “Why yes, I did receive a challenge from someone who wishes me dead. It will take place tomorrow at sunset.”
Kildari lets out a deep-throated laugh. “I like this one. She looks death in the face, and she is not afraid.”
“There is only one thing to do with people who want you dead, girl,” Quelan adds. “Kill them first.”
His brother laughs again, and he adds his own chuckle to it, shooting me a look that sends a finger of dread down my spine.
I’ve met people from outside of Aureon in port cities before, usually seafaring merchants who travel to and fro the lands beyond.
Sometimes humans, sometimes fae. But I’ve never met anyone who looked like these two.
Wherever they’ve come from, I have a feeling it’s much farther than any place I’ve even seen on a map.
“So, do you have a strategy for the fight, Embyr?” my grandmothers asks, lifting a grape from her plate and placing it into her mouth.
“I’m working on one,” I respond. If they’re going to be hedgy about answering where their guests are from, two can play at that game.
She opens her mouth like she’s going to press, but the servants save me, returning with plates piled high with meat and potatoes and dark, crusty rolls of bread with butter. Kildari and Quelan shove aside their fruit and set into the meat like they haven’t eaten in a year.
“You’ve sparred with this man before, yes, at Shadow’s Keep?” Cillian asks. “So, you know all his moves.”
Yeah, all the ones where I end up face down in the dirt. “Yes, I’m quite familiar with his tactics. Of course, he’s familiar with mine as well.”
My grandmother levels her gaze to mine. “Did you spar much with magic at Shadow’s Keep?” She asks it innocently enough, but there’s an intensity in her tone that is not missed.