Page 99 of Scourged

“No. I don’t think I will.” Drystan closed the door behind him with a soft click. He tapped thelunestairpanel on the wall, the shimmering stone illuminating faintly before the lights set into recessed alcoves in the ceiling blazed to life.

The light fuckingburned. Andrian hissed, eyes flickering closed as he threw his free hand over his face.

“Turn those fucking lights back off.”

“No,” Drystan repeated. Andrian cracked open an eye as Drystan sniffed a tray of half-forgotten food left on the dining table before pulling out a chair, swinging it around to sit facing Andrian.

He guessed he had eaten, after all.

Drystan clasped his hands, watching Andrian.

“You look terrible.”

Andrian grumbled. “I honestly couldn’t give two shits what I look like.”

“Oh, trust me. That much is apparent.” Drystan’s golden eyes surveyed him uncomfortably close, as if peeling back the layers Andrian would rather keep buried beneath his skin and his whiskey. “What I’m not getting is what changed.”

Andrian glowered at him. “What do you mean, ‘what changed?’”

“When we first told you to move into these rooms, you were resigned, but you were accepting of it. You understood. You were hardly distraught. This, though …” Drystan tsked. “Something else causedthis.”

“Nothing happened.” Andrian glared. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Nothing happened, or you don’t want to talk about it?”

Andrian groaned. His head hurt. He closed his eyes and rested his hand back over his lids to block out the light.

He heard Drystan shift. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “You come with me, get out of this disgusting room, let the staff do some basic cleaning, and I won’t take your entire stash of whiskey and leave you empty.”

Andrian’s eyes snapped open, the light burning. “You wouldn’t fucking dare.”

Except it seemed Drystan reallywouldfucking dare. Because the noise Andrian had heard wasn’t Drystan shifting in his chair; it was Drystan standing from his seat, inching to the coffee table, and snatching up Andrian’s bottle of Sacalan whiskey. He clutched it to his chest like one of the hide balls they used to play with in the clearing as boys.

Andrian’s voice was low, a warning. “Give that back.”

Drystan dangled it in the air. “Come with me and bring your glass, and I’ll pour you another.”

It was a clash of wills: eyes of bleary, dulled tanzanite battling with blazing gold.

The pounding in Andrian’s head pushed him to relent. He dropped his hands into his lap, slumping forward with a groan.

“Fine,” he said. “But bring food, too. I’m hungry.”

They satin a quiet glade in the game park. Not the training clearing, but one just a little smaller, a little more open, a little less familiar.

And as promised, Drystan had brought the decanter of whiskey. Andrian swirled it again in his refilled glass, smiling slightly before tossing it down his throat.

Gods, he was drunk. But that was how he preferred to spend his days now, anyway.

Drystan had also somehow secured several loaves of freshly baked bread, cheeses, and a roast. Andrian was annoyed at how good it all looked. He grew even more annoyed as he devoured it, knowing it would likely reduce the happy lightness from the whiskey he’d only just started feeling.

On his third slice of bread, Drystan cleared his throat.

“So,” he said, perched atop a boulder a few paces from where Andrian rested against a stump of his own. “You going to tell me what the fuck is going on with you? Other than the usual, of course?”

Andrian glowered up at him, still chewing. He washed it down with another deep sip of whiskey, grimacing against the burn.

“I told you. I don’t want to talk about it.”

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