Chapter Sixty-Five
ADRIAN
Adrian felt warm sunlight surrounding him. He sighed. Despite how much he despised the man responsible for it, it did feel good. Slowly, the cold within his limbs—and the aching left by the poison, too—began to fade away, until all that remained was golden light.
‘I think our pirate is warming up to you, Lorenzo,’ a cool voice said, laced with amusement.
Adrian’s eyes flickered open to see that he was lying not upon wet and sharp rocks, but upon a divan, a roaring fire beside him.
‘Wh—’ He blinked, then blinked again at the furnished little room. A handsome face peered at him.
‘I am handsome, aren’t I?’
‘Eli?!’ he spluttered.
Adrian scrambled back as his body continued to vibrate. He felt off kilter, like he was about to faint at any moment.
He heard an admonishing murmur before another face appeared. This was a face that he knew. Elara.
Her eyes were filled with worry as she scanned him.
‘How are you feeling?’ she asked, squeezing his shoulder.
Adrian took stock of himself. A dull ache resided in his muscles from having fought against Scorpius’s venom, and the skin around his eyes and neck felt tight and sensitive, but apart from that he only felt the remnants of Enzo’s magick dancing within him, comforting and warm.
‘My, my, he really likes your sunlight,’ Eli remarked.
‘Get out of my damned head,’ Adrian hissed.
He heard a snigger and sat up further, seeing Enzo leaning against the wall by the fire, arms crossed.
Eli had clearly helped them but, skies, did he want to wipe that irritating smirk off his face.
‘Try,’ the Star drawled.
‘Don’t you have better things to do than rummage around in my mind?’
Eli shrugged as he draped himself on a chair. ‘Someone had to check you were still of sound mind after what you went through.’
‘It’s annoying when he does that, isn’t it?’ Elara said. ‘Eli, why don’t you help Merissa find the liquor? I think our captain needs a drink.’
Eli rolled his eyes, getting up and strolling towards the door.
Elara knelt before Adrian, clutching his arm. ‘You should have told me earlier,’ she whispered. ‘Who you were.’
‘I didn’t know,’ Adrian said earnestly.
Elara blinked. ‘I’m so sorry, Adrian. About Victor, Santi, Annabel…’ She squeezed his hand. ‘We will make the Stars pay, I promise.’
Adrian nodded. He wanted to feel the fury she did, the fire. But all that was left inside him was a plummeting grief, threatening to drag him below the surface.
‘Where is Scorpius?’ he asked.
‘The mermaids and Enzo took care of him. The last I saw, he was being dragged to the depths, covered in flames.’
Adrian nodded, looking around the clean, well-kept room. ‘Where are we?’
‘In a lighthouse.’ Elara shrugged. ‘Though I don’t know who it belongs to. It’s empty, but everything is stocked—food, drinks. Eli descended from the heavens the moment we were all ashore and urged us in…along with someone else.’
She smiled as Isra came into view and squeezed Elara close.
‘You?!’ he gasped incredulously. ‘You had me accosted at the market.’
‘It’s wonderful to meet you again.’ Isra grinned.
‘Isra was with Eli when I called upon his favour,’ Elara explained. ‘Though I didn’t know it at the time. And those two were the ones beckoning us towards the lighthouse. It seems there’s a lot that we all must catch up on.’
The mischievous light in Isra’s eyes dimmed as she nodded gravely.
‘So what now?’ he asked. ‘We’re stranded in the middle of the sea. I’m an immortal being. My entire mutinous crew is dead. What do I even do with my life?’
‘Well,’ Elara said softly, ‘Merissa, she…’ Something like pride beamed upon her face.
‘She saved Santi’s body. Took it in the rowing boat with her.
That woman…’ She shook her head with a sad smile.
‘We thought we would drink to those we lost tonight, and then you could take him back to Neptuna to fulfil his wishes, to be buried beside Annabel.’
Adrian focused on his breath, not wanting to cry in this room full of people he barely knew.
‘And you?’ he whispered, his voice cracking.
‘Well, Isra thinks she knows where the Dark is. In Asteria. It’s why she called upon Eli. So we’re going to learn as much as we can about it and then set our course for my kingdom.’
‘The Dark?’ he said. ‘I want its head. It killed my sister.’
Elara nodded. ‘I thought you would join us again, once you’ve buried Santi. And then we can finish this together.’