Page 81 of Blood On His Lips

“No. Thank you, but no.” There was no harm in being polite when tossing an Ancient’s offer back in their face.

Her gaze receded, her thin smile cold, but it contained humor this time. “Good. Do you love him?”

I knew better than to betray my astonishment. But really, an Ancient speaking oflove? She knew better.

“Humor me,” Nayya added.

“Exalted. . .you must know that there are disagreements between your son and I.”

Her intent gaze, so different from Renaud’s yet so similar, pierced me. “And yet he has been your closest companion since you were a child. Teacher, brother, playmate, and now he courts you for your hand.”

“I don't think it's my hand he wants,” I muttered. But I gave up trying to evade her. I had no hope of doing so anyway. “My feelings for him are complex, and yes, love is one of those feelings. But you know how little love counts among us.”

Her thin smile turned wry. “Yes, that's what the Fae tell themselves. Especially the High Fae, no? That they do not love, love is a weakness. Do you think I don't love my son? Do you think your mother did not love you? Do you not love your family, your people?”

“I'm a halfling. Not even Low Fae.”

Nayya snorted. “You must be a sore test to his patience, but he always did like complex games with high stakes.” She waved her hand when I would have protested. “I have my answer. I’ve brought you here to warn you.”

“Exalted?”

“You already know Juhainah is waking. You've guessed.”

I lowered my head. “I’ve tried not to speak her name or think of her.” I cringed a moment later.

Knowing brown eyes stared at me. “I also assume you’ve been warned against speaking my name.”

I said nothing.

“Where one Ancient walks, the others may soon also arise, and I and Assariel were placed as Sentinels against such a time.” Her lips thinned. “Ninephe needs its General, Aerinne. If Raniel wishes to protect this infant city of his, he must come home and take up his mantle. He must lead our armies into battle and stop my grandmother from rising.”

There was so much to unpack in that sentence. General? Raniel? And why would she go through me rather than command her son? Why would she assume he’d refuse? There was so much I didn't know about him even though I had years of memories I could now rifle through.

“If I'm not mistaken,” she said softly, “you have already felt Juhainah’s touch. I taste her taint on you.”

I stiffened.

“So, you know what she is capable of. If she were awake, you would already be hers. You're in danger, Aerinne. If you cannot appeal to my son's sense of duty, then appeal to that. He will want to protect you.”

“Renaud and I are having a. . .discussion right now. I don't really know if—" I stopped talking, interpreting the look on her face as that of a female who did not give a fuck about my excuses. “I will tell him, Exalted. I'll do my best. How long do we have?”

“For her to fully wake? Less than a year, more than a month. It took us too long to find him. Bring him to Ninephe, Aerinne. This I charge you with. Not just as my son’s consort and thus a Princess of Ninephe, but as a daughter of my bloodline. If Juhainah has woken now, it means only one thing.”

“Exalted?”

“That she has sensed the presence of her true Heir. An Heir with the strength to house her soul.”

She disappeared.

I looked around me with a newly aware gaze, a new suspicion growing. I didn't care if between them Nayya and Raniel contained the power of an Old One and an Ancient, no one had the power, even a walking deity, to simply whisk me back and forth through time and space. Especially since I suffered no ill effects.

But Darkan was a master of dreamscapes.

I turned my gaze in the direction where I felt the Prince residing, the compass between us pulsing.

I was about to turn his game on him, to master it.

But even as I prepared to confront him, I held in the back of my mind the chain of the last several day’s events. My growing list of enemies.

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