Page 153 of What Lies Within Masks & Shadows

“You were dreaming. You didn’t mean?—”

Garrik was gone.

Misted into smoke and shadow and clouds of darkness before the bathroom door slammed behind her.

She ripped herself from the sheets, moving as quickly as her legs could carry before she met that door. Pressing her shaking hands to the wood and laying her ear against it. She could have sworn she had heard him retching moments before. But only silence danced from the other side to the point she wondered if he was in there at all.

Should she knock? He did, after all, close himself inside.

Perhaps he didn’t want to speak.

Alora palmed the door and laid her forehead against the cold wood. Closing her eyes to picture him in that bed. The way his body tensed. The way he screamed. She steadied a shaken breath, feeling her heart thrumming as her hand slid down the door, her mind calling to the other side.

Breathe.It’s all she could think of to send to him.Listen to my voice.

Something tingled against the walls of her mind.

Alora loosened an intense breath when she felt it—felt him, and sent those words again.Listen. Breathe.

She stayed like that. Her forehead resting against the door, easing herself to her knees as her hands scratched down the barrier between them. Kneeling. Waiting … as long as he was in there, she would stay.

How many nights had she wished someone would be waiting on the other side of a door for her? How many times had she needed someone to come to her aid when Kaine was erupting ona rampage? And when she had woken in the middle of the night with nothing but the darkness to comfort her, that was enough.

Would it be enough for him?

Alora heard something slide down the door, ending with a thump against the bathroom floor. Stirring to silence once again as she felt a heavy weight flex and press against the wood that had cooled like a winter’s lake.

She couldn’t see him, but knew he was there.

If you can hear me…I’m right here.

Garrik hadn’t spoken a word since it happened—she’d decided against the suicidal impulse that would either have her plummeting from the sky or a lengthy training session with Jade—and determined questioning him about the night before would be best suited for another time. Maybe never at all.

They landed mere steps outside the shield. The static pulse thrumming against her flesh as the hairs on her arms began to stand on end. She had traveled through it enough times that the effects were only just a nuisance, like the quick flick of a finger on skin.

If only Garrik’s piercing gaze was the same. Those silver eyes were darkened and distant. Sending a deep shudder down her spine when he finally spoke his first words that morning. And they were every bit as cold and dismissive as in his tent the evening he poured out her and Jade’s punishment.

“I have business elsewhere. You can see yourself back to our Shadow Order.”

Fine.He could act that way. Treat her only as another Dragon under his command. Act as if nothing had happened. As if his lips hadn’t been on her and she hadn’t heard his horrific screams. Hell, he could even forget they had flown away from the lake, forget that they’d watched their magic dance like … like it belonged together. Act as if they never left camp at all.

This was fine… Because the alternative of actually caring might have been more than she could withstand. He would never be anything more than the gray-haired High Prince, too pompous to allow anyone to actually see inside. Never anything more.

“Alone? Don’t think I’ll decide to leave forever?” Alora admitted to herself that the jibe wasn’t only to lighten the air around them; baiting him seemed to always be somewhat of a game. Even so, perhaps right now, in that moment, it wasn’t the best time because his eyes only darkened more, drifted down to hers, and a harsh line formed on his lips.

“Will you?” It appeared that he wished to say more, but by the sound of his voice, he wasn’t in the mood. When she said nothing but instead shook her head, catching a cold northern breeze that soothed her prickling nerves, Garrik simply turnedtoward his sentries and called back to her. “Dress for riding.” Then, the measured steps of a High Prince preparing for battle trailed away.

She heard his deep voice like a whisper—urgently giving orders to Deimon, the tan-skinned faerie with pitch-black feathered wings and amber eyes—before she crossed the shield. Alora had learned that Deimon was in command of the Wingborne and oftentimes spotted around Thalon.

Garrik’s quiet voice brushed across her ears like a feather. “—over the next few days of travel.”

Deimon’s wings tucked tight into his body, and he crossed his muscled arms as the wind disturbed his short night-dark hair and battle-black armor. “And Alynthia?”

“Possibly the same as Maraz. Keep a perimeter and report to General Realmpiercer. If Ravens were in Maraz, then we can predict that their movements will settle in the mountains.”

The sun shiftedacross the sky, indicating that they had come close to their stop for the evening. A few short miles laid between them and the much-needed rest from today’s journey.

Thalon settled beside Garrik as his second in command, looking onward in the distance to a lush meadow already dotting with white canvas. Alora had discovered throughout the past months that Thalon was Garrik’s immediate general, in charge of the army in Garrik’s absence. Jade, his third, and in command of her own battalion. And Aiden … well, the entire army would be doomed with him in command, but apparently, he held a special skill set of his own that she had yet to learn.

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