Page 127 of Spark of the Everflame

If so, he no longer showed it. He yawned and rubbed sleepily at his eyes. His hair was mussed where he’d laid on it, his normally shrewd features bleary with the signs of exhaustion.

“Were you sitting there all night?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He gave me a solemn look, but he didn’t respond.

A piercing cry rang out. It sounded inhuman and restless and unnervingly nearby, rattling the windows with its force and jolting me upright.

“What wasthat?”

Luther sighed and rose to his feet. “Thatwas Sorae, King Ulther’s gryvern.” He strolled to the window and leaned a shoulder against the wall, eyes turned upward. “She’s been agitated all morning. I was worried her antics would wake you up.”

I thought of the magnificent creature I’d witnessed on my last two visits. She’d seemed distressed then, too.

“Is she evernotagitated?”

“She’s normally quite docile. Disturbingly so.” His expression warmed. “I’ve tried countless times to use her for battle training the Royal Guard, but no matter how much I bribe her, she insists on sleeping through the whole thing.”

“You talk about her like a family pet and not an absolutely terrifying wild beast.”

“Oh, she’ll attack if she needs to, and Kindred help anyone unwise enough to provoke her. The problem is she’s too clever. She can sense intentions, so mock battles don’t interest her. When she knows her opponents don’t mean any real harm, she’d rather take her treats and go have a nap.”

I smirked. “Sorae and I have that in common.”

He laughed—laughed!—and I had to steady myself to keep my jaw off the floor.

I couldn’t stop staring at him. His relaxed, almost lazy posture. His full, upturned lips and the tenderness that crinkled his eyes at the mention of the gryvern. His loose wool trousers and his untucked, slightly rumpled shirt, hanging open partway down his chest to reveal more of the scar that slashed his body in two. It was casual, unpretentious, and entirely incompatible with the hardened royal heir I’d come to know.

It felt like I was seeing Luther—not His Royal Highness Prince Luther Corbois of Lumnos, but justLuther—for the very first time, and I had no idea how to feel about it.

His eyes slid to mine. I quickly looked down, my cheeks burning.

“Why is Sorae upset?” I asked.

The amusement vanished from his face, and he was once again that icy, unknowable Prince. He straightened to his full height and walked back to the bed.

“When the King dies, Sorae will pass to a new master. I suspect she feels it coming.”

“You think she’s sad?”

“Not exactly.” He paused and eyed me, seemingly debating whether to continue. “She’s served him loyally, but Sorae and my uncle were never close. Not in the way some gryverns and Crowns become.”

“Then what’s her concern?”

“Gryverns are exceedingly smart, with minds and opinions of their own, yet they are magic-bound to obey only the Crown. I imagine she’s wary at being forced into service to a stranger whose goals she might not share.”

My jaw tightened. “It seems Sorae and I have that in common, as well.”

His brows furrowed, not understanding.

“The agreement you negotiated,” I reminded him. “Life service to the Crown. My mother’s bargain—the one I agreed to fulfill in her place.”

A shadow darkened his features, and he looked away.

We sat in silence so long that the awkwardness began to grate on me. I huffed and shoved the blankets off. Luther stepped forward and raised a hand to stop me, but I ignored him and swung my feet over the edge of the bed—then stiffened.

---