Page 32 of The King has Fallen

As he dove into the food with gusto, my stomach growled and I cursed.

“Hungry, Fetch?” he rumbled, but the words lacked the warmth of humor that he’d given them the first day.

Tonight, they wereonlya cruel taunt.

He did look at me though, which I didn’t think had happened in the past two days.

I met that smug gaze with a sneer. But said nothing.

He shrugged and went back to his meal.

I could no longer ignore the food. Now, when he ate, I watched like a forlorn child. I knew it was pathetic, but I had to see every bite. I hadtried ignoring him and it only made my mind conjure far more than was actually there.

In the hours between meals, when Melek questioned me or was having a meeting with interesting information to glean, I could drink water and forget my hunger… sometimes.

But this morning I’d woken feeling not just hungry, but shaky and weak.

The danger was not that I would starve to death, but that I would starve to such weakness that I could not defend myself if anything were to happen.

I prayed daily forsomethingto happen, to break this stand off. But so far… nothing.

Melek was only halfway through the plate of perfect, white fish and what appeared to be buttered green beans, when the tent flap jerked aside again and Jannus entered, speaking immediately.

“Melek, it’s news from—”

Two strides into the tent, he hesitated, looking at Melek seated at that table in the center of the tent, and then at me. I tried to smile, but for the first time Jannus didn’t flirt, he frowned.

Melek, apparently unconcerned, opened a greasy hand towards the other side of the table. “Pull up a stool. I have enough for t—”

“Has she eaten anything? Anything at all?”

Melek shot him a look. “Are you blind? She still has the spear.”

“Seriously, Mel? This kind of petty discipline isn’tyou.”

Melek’s eyes were back on the fish as he tore a piece of the filet off to consume. He shrugged. “She will be fed the moment she relinquishes thedeadly weaponthat she stole,” he said casually, though his chewing was decidedly forceful after the statement.

Jann’s mouth opened like he’d argue, but then he glanced at me again, before his brow furrowed.

I stared back at him, uncertain what he was thinking.

But it didn’t matter because he broke the gaze to stride to the side of the tent, grabbing a heavy stool in one hand, heedless of its weight, then dropping it at the other side of the table.

He straddled it and leaned over the table towards Melek, his eyes blazing with a strange light, but his smile was back.

“The first steps have been taken… and herguesseswere right. My scouts found the guard camp. There’s roughly two dozen spears, and then an additional ten runners positioned a mile deeper into the ravine. One of my trackers even followed a runner from the patrols to their camp inside the ravine, so we have at least a partial path through the sinkholes.

“We used your strategy for the approach, and there are already three hundred Nephilim within an hour’s march of the ravine—undetected.”

Melek went still, looking at his friend, his brows high. “Already?”

Jann’s teeth shone, his smile was so bright. “Tomorrow, I expect to hear that we hold that precious half-mile in which the land narrows to the ravine,withoutraising alarm. And if we do, it will be days, Melek.Daysuntil we’re taking the runners—we’re only waiting now to be certain we know their numbers and none will escape to warn their leaders. Then we’ll take them all and fly to the clifftops unhindered.”

“Jann, that’s—”

Jann’s bright face suddenly went dark. “And it’s thanks toher.”

Melek went still, staring at his friend.

---