Chapter 10
Elysia sat on a footstool in the living room, anxiously tapping her foot while Aidan scratched away in one of his seemingly endless ledgers.
He always had them. Leather-bound ledgers of different colors.
Brown, burgundy, navy blue. She had no idea what the god of the dead could possibly be tracking so meticulously, but he didn’t seem to feel the need to share despite constantly working on them.
Aidan lifted his eyes from his work to stare pointedly at her foot. She halted the motion and sat on her hands to keep them from taking over the movement. “I thought we were going to be working.”
Aidan tossed the heavy leather book on the cushion beside him. “I don’t see how we can if you don’t want to talk about yesterday. You’re free to do as you like in the meantime.”
Her mouth dropped open. “So much for not pushing me into talking,” she muttered.
He twisted a fountain pen between his fingers, addressing her complaint drolly. “I’m not going to waste my time making plans with you if you’re just going to go do whatever you want the second my back is turned.”
Elysia scowled. “You’re being unreasonable. It was easier to do what I needed to do than to try to convince you there was any merit in going back to Kava, which there was even if you won’t admit it.”
Aidan dropped the pen. “Forgive me for valuing your life even if you don’t. But please tell me what required your presence in a city where you tried to assassinate the king and were almost executed.”
Irritated, she planted her feet and leaned toward the couch. “Don’t act as if you care about me beyond your own machinations. It’s transparent and beneath you.”
“If that’s what you need to believe, then fine by me. Carry on thinking so lowly of yourself. Either way, no one could blame me for wanting to protect my most valuable asset.”
Oblivious, Maya and Grim strolled in, her chattering away and Grim’s face serious as he listened to her. They both stopped, eyes going between Aidan and Elysia, likely feeling the strained tension. Maya shot Grim a look, shoving an elbow into his side.
“You said you weren’t going to tell him!”
Aidan’s head tilted dangerously as his eyes narrowed on Elysia. He was clutching the pen again. If he squeezed any tighter, he would likely end up with ink all over his palm. “Tell me what, precisely?”
Maya’s face cleared. “Nothing.”
Grim rubbed at the stubble on his chin and nodded at Elysia. “You said you wanted to hear about it all from her.”
Aidan’s simmering gaze swept the room. “Maybe I’ve changed my mind.”
Maya looked contemplative for all of two seconds before airing Elysia’s secrets.
“Personally, I think the Reyez branding was a good move. Strategic given the situation. And it’s not like Aidan’s a stranger to such empires with his…
history.” She smiled like she’d poked a bear but was excited for it to attack.
Grim, on the other hand, groaned quietly in the back of his throat and edged for the hallway. “They need to figure this out on their own.”
Maya peeled off her jacket, unbothered by the mess she’d made. “What’s the point of friends who don’t meddle? Besides, we don’t have time for glaciers to melt.”
Elysia frowned at that. She was pretty sure she’d just been called an ice-bitch, but she was too busy watching the god of the dead move through a multitude of restrained emotions to tell Maya to fuck off.
Dark soot-like shadows crawled out over the floor, creeping closer to where she sat. The shadows gently swathed her ankles. “Show me.”
She refused to give in to such bullying. “You said you wouldn’t push.” She threw a hand at the soot-shadows caressing her. “That is pushing.”
Aidan eyed her like he knew she wasn’t really that bothered, but nonetheless, the shadows disappeared along with the searing intensity he’d been damn near choking the room with.
Taking a deep breath, she watched as Aidan ran his fingers through the thick wave of dark hair close to his face. Tiny, smooth slivers of skin that looked like knife scars decorated his hand. Noticing her gaze on his hand, Aidan’s lips curled halfway, but his words were dry.
“You were gone for less than a day and you joined a gang?”
Elysia’s mouth flattened. There really wasn’t much to say to that. Instead, she begrudgingly tugged her dark green sweater down to reveal the still red and angry branding Gage had left behind.
There was an inhale of disbelief followed by a flurry of movement. Head down and eyes intent on the mark, his fingers ghosted over it. Concern and anger warred on his face. “This was completely unnecessary.”
Elysia stiffened. “It was completely necessary. I’ll have protection and somewhere to stay no matter where the death voyage takes me. If anything, you should be thanking me for being willing to take such measures,” she hissed.
“Thanking you?” Aidan looked up at the ceiling as if pained. “Throw me into the pits the day that I say thank you for wearing the brand of another man and his gang upon your neck.”
Elysia flushed. “Don’t be so judgy. He practically raised me.”
Aidan became deadpan. “Because that makes it so much better. You’re aware that you have to be alive to complete the death voyage? And that there will be a cost for their help?”
“Then I’ll pay it,” she gritted out, her nose practically bumping his.
Aidan laughed, rubbing a hand over his face. “If I were a lesser man, I would banish it from your skin, and cover you head to toe in the symbols of our realm, so no one would mistake where you belong.”
Elysia’s eyes grew large.
Preying on the subtle shift in her reaction, his hands wrapped around her calves, and the sensual velvet of his voice returned. “But you don’t want to talk about yesterday, and I would hate to be manipulative or disrespectful.”
His hands left her body, and then Aidan was once again on the other side of the room, faster than she could track, lounging on the couch, one ankle crossed over his opposite thigh, looking unrepentant about the little push and pull show he had just put on.
Deliver me from this man. Elysia collected herself, forcing her Crown voice to make an appearance. “That was inappropriate.”
Aidan’s grin took up his whole face, white teeth flashing and his fingers thrumming against the couch arm. “My sincerest apologies.”
Elysia straightened her back and looked down her nose. “Your bad behavior scared away your friends.”
“Good, they’re more annoying than gnats.” Aidan stood. “If you’re not ready to work together, then I have a realm to run.” And with that he walked briskly out of the room, ledger tucked into his side.
Elysia stared after him, unsure if she’d really done anything wrong other than follow her own plan instead of his.
Turning her attention to the crackling fireplace, an invisible cloak of heaviness settled over her.
She didn’t like empty spaces in her day.
Her life had been a series of crises, one extending into the next, leaving her wound tight and uncomfortable with something so simple as sitting on a footstool in front of a fire.
The brief quiet brought up all the thoughts she’d been avoiding, causing the pressure in her chest to build and build until she couldn’t breathe.
In losing Topp, she had lost both love and her oldest friend as well as the life she had expected.
She’d gone on to stab a monarch only to find out she was now possibly eternally bound to the god of the dead.
Her fingernails dug into the heavily embroidered footstool as her vision tunneled into the flames.
Aidan wanted to talk.
But there were words she didn’t want to think about, much less say aloud.
Her sister was dying, already living on borrowed time.
And instead of being there with her, she was supposed to go treasure hunting.
Dark thoughts overwhelmed the corners of her mind.
Even if she knew exactly how to find the talisman, her gut sank with the terrible certainty that Beatriz would likely be dead before anything could be fixed.
Her infuriating, unstoppable big sister, taken out by the ravaging decay that was a consequence of the poor choices of the man down the hall.
Elysia’s heart became heavy as a rock. She knew what it was to be lonely, but a world without Beatriz was one she didn’t care to know at all.