Chapter 24 #2
The two of them were on either side of me, flanking me like guards. I looked to Sera for more, who was better at walking and talking simultaneously than Kiegan, as we hustled across the floor.
“Obsidian invaded Bismyth,” Sera said. “Looking for stolen property.”
A jolt went through me, accompanied by the always unnecessarily vivid work of my imagination. Fear, sprawled on the ground with blood pooling around his body. Bismyth, suffering around him.
“Everyone seems to be all right,” Sera said, and it was only then that my mind went further. To the empty chest. To the knife that could save my brother.
To the way Fear hadn’t let me use it in time.
“But we don’t know what’s happening, so let’s move faster,” Kiegan said over his shoulder, then reached for me as if he might pick me up for the sake of speed.
I went up all eight flights of stairs faster than I ever had before.
When we reached the landing, Bismyth’s door yawned open.
A few Obsidian shifters, hands bound in their laps, sat with their backs against the wall.
Their expressions suggested they’d weighed their options and found them limited.
Asrael was watching them, sword in hand, and I felt a thrill of relief seeing him standing.
There was a smear of blood in the doorway.
“Not Bismyth,” Asrael assured us shortly.
I raced through the doorway, looking for Fear. Behind me I could hear their conversation even over the rush of blood through my ears.
Kiegan asked, “How many?”
Asrael answered, “There were eight that came through the door. More through the windows. If Fear had needed anyone to help him fight, they would’ve been able to search more rooms.” A wry, proud note in his voice. “But it was only eight Obsidian shifters. And he had Rees, anyway.”
Plaster crunched under my boots; there were gouges in the walls that were roughly shifter-shaped. More blood in the hall.
I came around the corner of Fear’s room.
His room was chaos.
But Fear was crouched in the midst of it, unharmed. He looked up, his face brightening when he saw me, and he shot to his feet. Then I was in his arms.
“Are you all right?” I put my hand to his cheek, examining his face. He looked unharmed. Untouched.
Eight?
His lips ticked up at the sides. “I’d happily let them beat me to see you look at me like this.”
I pulled a face. “I can’t stand you.”
“Hasn’t been true yet, wife.” Then his lips were on mine. His arm wrapped my waist, lifting me up so I could reach his lips. I wrapped my legs around his waist and kissed him back, my hands digging into his shoulders to steady myself.
He bent his head, still chasing kisses, as he set me on his feet.
His hands lingered on my hips. For a moment, the room seemed as if it revolved around us, bright and glittering, before I came back to my senses.
I’d forgotten Maura’s accusations when I thought Fear could be hurt, but now the glint of gold on one of the bedposts reminded me of how he had once hidden coins in my room.
Still breathless, I told him, “I’ll help you set this mess to rights.”
“No need,” he said.
“It’s our room,” I reminded him, and his lips parted in a wider smile. “But only if you let me.”
He caught my hand in his and pulled it to his lips. “I’d be honored.”
I knelt beside the bed to pick up the other necklaces that had been broken, snatched off by an impatient hand for no reason but destruction.
The slick chains slid through my closed fist and pooled on the floor as I glanced around, wondering where Fear would’ve kept the coin or if the evidence had been stolen, if it even existed.
Fear was picking up each of his books and smoothing ripped pages. “I’m not sure if they really thought there was something hidden in here or if Obsidian was taking a moment to get revenge.”
“They must have known the knife could hardly be hidden in the pages.” I leapt to my feet, fear wild in my chest. How had I forgotten it in my worries for Fear?
“The knife!”
“It’s all right. Ander has it.”
I frowned at his broad shoulders as he set a stack of books carefully on their shelf again. “Why does Ander have it?”
He cast an arm to indicate the room. It was a difficult argument to contest. “Don’t worry. Ander will hold it for safekeeping and deliver it when you need it.”
I wanted to demand why he hadn’t asked me, but I set it aside, given Obsidian would’ve had the knife in their hands if he’d delayed.
I returned to both tidying and searching Fear’s room. I turned things over before setting them back on their shelves or in cabinets and ran my hand over anything with fabric, looking for a telltale hard edge.
I righted the overturned inkwell, running my hand over the smooth, cool wood of the desk. He had moved on to collecting and thumbing through his now-disorganized papers, frowning over them.
The edge of the rug had buckled near the windows; I knelt to pull it up, checking beneath it, before I stretched it flat again.
Nothing.
“What are you looking for?” Fear sounded curious.
I looked up to find him perched on the edge of his desk, watching me.
“I’m just trying to help. But if you don’t want me here, I could go back to letting Sera kick my ass while Kiegan mocks me. Helpfully, of course. They’re both so painfully helpful.”
His lips ticked at the corners. I always had the terrible feeling he saw right through me. “I appreciate your help. And theirs.”
“Well. Now that I know my death isn’t imminent, I’d like to be useful out in the field.” There was no hiding my frustration when I added, “Once we aren’t trapped here because of me.”
“It’s not your fault. It’s Lightbringer.” That last sentence was pointed, but not at me.
“I’m sure Bismyth appreciates the distinction.”
Fear covered the distance between us in a few steps, tilting my chin up to his gaze in his usual commanding way. His palm caressed my cheek tenderly. “I promise you they do.”
“Everyone is eager to leave the Trials. The queen…”
“Seems to be coming unwound? Don’t worry, Cara. Your gifts are a thousand times more important than flying or swinging a sword. Every shifter in Bismyth either sees that, or they will soon.”
His gaze held mine, all shades of warm gold. Warmth blossomed in my chest, mingling with the sudden uncertainty I felt after talking to Maura. “You can be very convincing.”
“Because it’s the truth.” He pressed a kiss to my temple, his arms sliding around me. I pressed my cheek to his chest, savoring the comfort and solidity of his body against mine.
It was only from this angle that I caught a glimpse of gold glinting, almost hidden underneath the wardrobe.
It took effort to gently untangle from him. “Let’s finish so we can get some rest. It’s been a long day and tomorrow will be another.”
He nodded, but I was aware of the way he was observing me.
I made myself wait, working slowly toward the wardrobe.
I collected the clothes that had been thrown across the floor, then moved to hang them up again or put them on the shelves.
He didn’t react to me in his wardrobe, even though that was where he had hidden the compendium and his stuffed raven and other secrets that probably even the gods didn’t know.
I knelt and picked up the coin. Rees, who had been sleeping nearby, moved over to rest his big head in my lap. He was very insistent. I began to pet him both because I was always willing to be Rees’s high priestess and because I wanted to look over the coin surreptitiously.
The coin looked old, but I wasn’t sure if it truly was. There were flames engraved on one side, which made my stomach tighten painfully. I wasn’t sure it had been hidden in my room. I had never found it or never noticed it among all the gold Fear had peppered through my room.
Had the gifts of gold truly been hoarded for his mate? Or had it been a trick wrapped within another trick?
When I held the coin, a ghost rush of heat prickled across my arms. Rees raised his head from my lap, looking at me in alarm.
The heat crept up past my elbow and my lungs closed, a short, involuntary tightening, the body registering threat before the mind had finished its argument. My heartbeat was suddenly loud in my own ears. I grounded my fingers in Rees’s fur, clinging to him for comfort.
At least I could trust Rees.
I had to get rid of the coin. I palmed it and rose to my feet, pretending to remake the bed that had been torn apart.
I was afraid of what nightmares would find me tonight, but I still tucked the coin under the sheet, where it would be below my head.
And I hoped against hope, as Rees whined and settled back down before the fire, and as Fear began an amusing rant about the faults of Obsidian shifters, that there would be no nightmares tonight.
That I was just an unreasonable, untrusting, miserable mortal who should manage some faith for the man I’d come to love.
I fell asleep that night tangled in his arms and hoping for rest.