Chapter 40
ROOKE
Lyrae prowled in first, her hand resting on the hilt of her sword, looking like she wanted to carve my head from my shoulders, and the sight of her made my chest tighten.
Her hair was a dark tangle around her face, her long braid half undone, exhaustion evident in every line of her body—and she was still the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.
Ryland slipped in behind her, like a dark ghost, something that had probably served him well in his previous career. A ripple of that fury went through me again at how an already delicate situation was swiftly becoming untenable.
We’d been working on this plan to kill Gravelock for decades, and now all our careful preparations were about to be undone by a moment of sloppiness.
“Let me make this perfectly clear, prince. My sister is not a threat.” Lyrae’s jaw was tight when she stopped in front of me, pinning me beneath a frozen stare. “And I’m the one who should stay with her, not Varian.”
"Right now, your sister is an even greater threat than Gravelock, but so long as she’s sleeping, she is not my concern."
"And when she wakes up?" Lyrae demanded, shoving into my personal space. Those pale blue eyes blazed with that fierce protectiveness I’d come to expect from her. "What then, Rooke?"
I kept my hands in my pockets.
Because I was aching to drag her closer, crush my mouth to hers, and find out what she tasted like. If her lips were as soft as I’d been dreaming about, and if I could get her to make those delicious little sounds she made when she…Fuck.
Get your godsdamned head in the game, Rooke, and stop fantasizing about a female who wants nothing more than to stab her knife into your heart.
"Then we'll have a conversation about hard choices," I said quietly, holding Lyrae's gaze. "But right now, we have more immediate concerns. There are three of us against an entire army, and I am confined to this castle."
“Then what’s our best play?” Ryland asked, right down to business. “Var and I fought three of those soldiers at the temple, and four more at Evernight, and we can’t hold our own for long without magic. I assume you’re planning to unite the Triune, then exterminate that sick fuck?”
“Uniting the Triune takes time.”
“You’re already two-thirds done,” Lyrae snapped. “Bleed all over the Crown, plunk it on your damn head and finish this.”
“As much as I enjoy your enthusiasm, commander, there is a complicated ritual to perform, and preparations to be made, and…”
“You’ve had years to make these preparations,” she said drily. “And my guess is, you can perform that ritual in your sleep, you’ve imagined it so many times. So what is the hold up?”
“The hold up is timing and the fact I have recently lost too much blood. I will have to be careful about how I proceed, and be judicial about how I craft my blood circle. I cannot skip any steps, and this cannot be rushed.”
“So maybe, instead of giving us a lecture, you should be…” she flapped her free hand at me. “Magicking.”
I lifted my eyebrows. “Magicking?”
“Yes, you know, whatever it is you powerful, gifted people do with your power. Just go…do it. Quickly.”
I dipped my head, hiding my smile. “Even if Gravelock is storming the castle, even if he has his hands around my throat, this process cannot be rushed. Every step must be perfect, every single word must be right. And for this to be work, I need time.”
“How much time?”
“Seven hours.” I said, recalculating once more, on the off chance the number might somehow come out different. It did not.
“I really need twenty-four, but I can do this in a minimum of seven. Maybe six, if absolutely nothing goes wrong.” I felt the weight of Lyrae's stare like a physical thing, could sense the mountain of questions building behind those intelligent eyes.
“And you’re right. I have run through this a thousand times. I’ve practiced and memorized the ritual, I’ve reenacted the casting of the spell so many times, I could do this in my sleep.”
“I knew it,” she muttered.
“But I need every single second you can give me. One mistake and my blood will not bind to the magic, and if the Triune goes back into play, we’ll never get another chance.”
“Well then,” she straightened up, her shoulders set in the rigid line of a soldier heading to battle. “I suppose we’d best get to it, prince.”