Page 139 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

Clasping his face, Alora stroked a thumb over his cheekbone, pulsing warmth there. The other fell to his heart on the star-shaped scar and sent her warmth there too. That maybe …maybeher starfire could reach him there, if not in his mind. To touch him where he was still himself. Where the serpent couldn’t control him.

Daring to scan his body for injury, Alora found none. None other than his shirt sliced open from the princeling’s sword. It was only his hands. Those powerful hands that had laid into every surface resembling that awful male to blame for all this pain.

When she found his eyes again, the darkness consuming them had yielded to specks of silver. Alora’s shoulders loosened. Her heart threatened to stop in an uncomfortable ache.

A blink. That … that was a blink! And that was his lips parting, drawing a ragged breath.

Another blink. More silver. Another slow, shuddering breath.

There you are.Tears lined her traitorous eyes.“Hello, mighty prince,” Alora said quietly and stroked his cheek.

He studied her. Studied those words, those tears dripping off her chin. Silver narrowed, then unfocused as if he were fighting—clawing—out of his mind. Despite it, Garrik held her stare,head unsteady against the wall before the chill of his hand lightly grasped hers at his heart.

Then Garrik said the only thing capable of turning her taut nerves to liquid. The only thing that could give her life.

Some vital piece in her pulled her forward to rest her brow on his.

Garrik slurred, “Hello, clever girl.”

Jade was waiting inside Garrik’s receiving room when Alora and Garrik dawned inside. Draped across a chaise, looking wholly bored. It was little of a surprise. Unless Jade was in a training ring or barking orders to her all-female battalion, she seemed unsettled. Jade’s hobbies were more of a violent nature, and Alora wasn’t ashamed to admit she enjoyed that about her.

Garrik squeezed Alora’s hand before he excused himself to his bedchamber. His rooms appeared more like a mansion at the top of Magnelis’s castle. Unlike Kaine’s manor donned in redwood floors, marble, and accents in emerald, Garrik’s rooms weremuchdarker.

It suited him.

Like a shrine to Darkness, the receiving room hosted an obsidian fireplace with dark stones climbing the two-story high wall. A mezzanine surrounded the room on three sides, much like where she’d lived in Telldaira. The two flanking an entire wall of floor-to-ceiling windows were accompanied by numerous doors and winding staircases made of iron. Between those doors and staircase were walls covered in onyx-stained wood and blackstone. And like her bedchamber, where those windows sat, they overhung the mountain and opened to a balcony far larger than her own.

Accents of potted plants balanced the dark features. Bringing in inflections of greenery and making the receiving room homely and quaint. Six pieces of furniture varying from single chairs to couches and lounges were settled in a circle, directly under a skylight that would offer perfect views at midnight or allow you to bask in the heat of midday.

At the center sat a stone table with flames, which flickered and cracked. Alora wondered if Garrik had the table burning because it brought a sense of home. A sense of sitting around their firesite at camp.

Movement at the top of the mezzanine drew her attention. Garrik rolled his shoulders and pulled the shredded tunic from his arms, standing in his open-faced bedchamber. Decorated much the same as the rest of his rooms, it overlooked the receiving room and every door surrounding it.

The sound of his belt sliding through the loops had her turning to Jade before she heard a door close and water running.

Not a minute later, something bright as lightning flashed inside, near the windows.

Alora didn’t feel a rush of panic, and Jade didn’t so much as twitch. Accustomed to Thalon’s incredible magic, she watched their Guardian and sea captain step through a portal—their Shadow Order firesite perfectly set up and preserved on the other side.

Eldacar waved, book in hand.

Something swelled in her chest at seeing him.

It’d been too long since she was able to train her powers with him, but only two days had passed since she saw him last. Despite it, Alora ignored Thalon and Aiden and rushed to the edge where dark wood met dirt.

“Are you joining us?” she asked, hopeful. Sapphires gleamed, covered in delight at the mere sight of him. She missed him. Missed sitting with him, learning that royal language. Of training in the arena since before she was injured.

Thalon didn’t seem bothered to keep the portal open longer and plopped beside Jade, who muttered something about there being moreemptychairs.

Aiden only had one thing in mind apparently and sashayed to a table overflowing with liquors, wines, breakfast pastries, something made of garlic—name it, it was there. The servants must’ve been busy that morning with the display. It could’ve fed three families. Twice.

“Oh, no,” Eldacar sheepishly said through the barrier before his freckled cheeks blushed. “I’m afraid there’s much to be done.” He patted the navy book in hand and continued, “I’m much better suited here. Nalani and Zanayr have agreed to train. We’re meeting in a few moments, but I wished to say hello when I saw you.”

Wood creaked above her.

Eldacar’s gaze followed the sound. She did too.

Adorned in a new tunic and pants, Garrik leaned on the railing with his bruised hand, nursing the wrapped broken one by his chest. A grin twitched the corners of his freshly washed face, and those dark circles under his eyes were entirely gone. Not one darkened vein in sight. Strength radiated off him, eyes clear and alive.

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