Page 89 of Steel Heart Iron Claws

My head feels as bubbly as champagne as my heart thumps faster, wondering what kind of fae trick I’ve gotten myself into.

Woudix guides me forward with one cold hand resting on the back of my neck, gently pressing my head toward the table. I hold out my hands to pat the air, making up for my lack of sight, and discover that where a plate should be, my fingers graze a taut male bicep instead.

I cheat by peeking through the blindfold gap.

Yep. As I suspected.Fantastic.

Artain is laid flat on the table, shirtless as usual, only this time, he’s also shed his leather vest and belt. His trousers are shoved an inch beneath his navel. Someone—Iyre, judging by the flash of a long white sleeve I make out—pours a dram of whiskey into Artain’s navel.

“Drink deeply from the cup, Highness,” Woudix’s coarse voice murmurs in my ear, and I shiver as he bends me forward.

What the hell am I doing?My lips hover a few inches above Artain’s ripped abs. The blindfold hardly hides the “surprise” in store—that the “Meden Cup” means slurping a dram of whiskey out of a god’s navel. It’s beyond ridiculous. Childish. Perhaps the silliest thing I’ve heard of in my entire life.

Artain snickers, doing a poor job of playing an inanimate object.

I groan inwardly.It’s just a game.

The crowd eggs me on as I brace my hands on the table,feigning ignorance that the God of the Hunt is currently serving as my drinking glass.

“As a daughter of Volkany and winner of tonight’s competition,” I announce, feeling equally absurd and amused, “I accept my prize!”

Among the crowd’s laughter, there’s a ripple of commotion at the back of the hall. Raised voices tickle my ears. Guards’ footsteps clomp on the floor, but the echo of their steps is muffled by all the flapping wings from my invited guests.

“To the gods!” I laugh as I make a mock cheer, then lean forward and slurp whiskey from the dip in Artain’s abdomen.

The alcohol is spicy and warm, and burns pleasantly over my tongue. I straighten, grinning triumphantly, and reach to untie my blindfold?—

But the room has gone strangely silent.

I pause.

Why isn’t the crowd falling over themselves with laughter? Why aren’t the musicians playing again? Why hasn’t Artain made some asinine joke about my lips on his bodily fluids?

My fingers freeze on the blindfold’s knot, suddenly uncertain that I want to see what has rendered everyone so speechless.

Mouse-talker, the forest mouse whispers urgently in my head.Take off your blindfold. Captain Tatarin has returned…

My stomach flips. As though moving through a sluggish dream, I tug the knot loose, and the black silk flutters away from my face.

Most of the birds have found roosts on the chandelier ordisappeared back into the night. The rest of the animals have followed the servants to the kitchen to finish off the scraps.

Guards now flank a wide aisle through the crowd, and Tati stands at their head in a mud-splattered indigo cloak, her hair mussed from her journey.

And my heartstops.

Because she isn’t alone.

Basten stands at her side, wrists shackled in iron chains, as travel-worn and filthy as the rest of the soldiers. A vicious bruise marks his temple. He’s hunched forward so that his loose, dirty hair falls in his face. He looks as though he’s just fought in the arena for his life. Like he might collapse on his feet—and yet his brown eyes shine with alertness.

Until this moment, I realize, he didn’t know that my father was Immortal Vale.

Or that Artain, Samaur, and Woudix were awake.

His eyes scan over Vale briefly, taking in his fey lines and pointed ears with a hunter’s calm attention to detail, and then shift to Immortal Artain, splayed out on the table with a line of whiskey running down his rock-hard obliques.

The air in my lungs evaporates as I swipe the back of my hand across my lips.

A ghost—that’s what I must be looking at. Someone back from the dead.

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