Page 68 of A Deception of Courts

“I understand this is going to be a shock,” Duncan said, mouth pursed as he regarded me, an unwanted strain to his posture. “But I’m going to need you to listen before you do anything you’ll regret.”

As my eyes fell upon my love, drinking him in, finally accepting that he was alive, I almost didn’t accept his plea. I didn’t care.

“Tell me this is real,” I begged, gripping onto the door frame to steady myself. My nails bit into the old plaster of the walls until it crumbled away. “Say something again, so I know this is not some illusion cast to punish me.”

I wished to run to Duncan and throw myself into his arms. A sob built in my chest. It crawled its way out of me, exposing the weeping child I buried inside. I found something I had believed was lost forever, and I promised I’d never let it go again.

“I’m alive,” Duncan sighed as if even he couldn’t believe it. A dark lock of hair fell across his eye as he turned his attention to something unseen in the shadows of the room. When he glanced back at me, his stare screamed with pleading. “But you must promise me something.”

“What?” I gasped, tears sticky on my face.

Duncan’s eyes shifted toward the corner of the room, laying briefly upon the shadows clinging like a blanket. “Promise me you will hear him out? I’m only here, alive, because of him – I owe him that much.”

The shuffling of heavy feet sang from the shadows. A part of me registered the twisting of ice that crackled around my fingers as I flexed them to my side. It would only take a thought, and the ice would be directed toward the lurking presence – a presence I’d known would be here before I entered the building.

“I can’t make promises I’m not sure I can keep.” I stared intently at the corner of the room where the figure lurked. “Come out,” I commanded, voice crackling with power. My attention was fixed on the way the darkness rippled as a body peeled away from its concealment. “Slowly.”

And like a dog on a leash,helistened.

The hulking, tall figure stepped into the light, placing himself between Duncan and me. Regardless of my forced bravery, I couldn’t stop myself from choking on my breath at the sight of him.

Erix stood in front of me. Steel silver eyes bore into me, invading my soul in search of something. “Hello, little bird.”

This version of Erix was unfamiliar to me. He was taller than I remembered, as though his body had been stretched and pulled, his arms longer, his shoulders broader to accompany the wings that hung from his back like a cloak of leather. There’d been a time when I had his outline memorised, the way his shoulders dropped like the edge of a cliff to the narrowed, hard shape of his torso and waist.

Just like the last time I’d seen him in this very place, this very room, Erix was without a shirt. Tattered trousers hung off his legs, torn and ripped in places, adding to his dishevelled look. I believed the grey, almost silver sheen of his skin was because of the lack of natural light within the building. But as I shifted my body, giving way for more of the daylight to stream into the room, I was proven wrong. His skin kept that colour, a result of the curse his father had imposed on him. His affliction, his truth.

Erix hung in the horrific balance of fey and gryvern, not quite one nor the other.

“Please,” he gasped, flashing the two sharpened points of his canines catching his bottom lip. “Say something…”

My heart hammered in my ears, my jaw dropping open and eyes widening to the point of discomfort as I took him in. He held his hands before him in such a mortal stance that it seemed wrong for the way he’d changed. Even more so since I had last seen him in the clearing, the night Duncan was captured by Hunters.

Far behind me, winds plagued by ice raced to greet me. They screeched through the house, crawling across walls and floors until they built at my back.

The last I had seen Erix, I promised him death if I was ever disgraced by his presence again.

“Don’t do it,” Duncan said firmly. He’d moved so quickly, seemingly unbothered by the gryvern’s proximity. In a strange turn of fate, Duncan placed himself before Erix, who hadn’t taken his eyes off me this entire time.

I fisted my hands, severing the connection to my power and leaving the snow and ice to fall naturally across the aged flooring of the corridor.

“Robin’s reaction is justified,” Erix whispered, looking to the floor, his shoulders hunched. “I’m exactly the monster he expected to find.”

I couldn’t stop myself from snapping. “That’s just the issue, I never expected to see you again. And yet, here you are.”

“And thank the gods he is here,” Duncan said, briefly looking behind him toward Erix. “Without him, I wouldn’t be alive. Remember that.”

“What are you doing?” My words were more like a sob as I looked from Duncan to Erix.

“I owe him a life debt,” Duncan answered, stepping toward me, arms outstretched. “So I’m keeping it, making sure he survives this conversation long enough for it to actually begin.”

He swept me up in his arms. I was so overwhelmed by his touch that I buried my face in his chest, inhaling the reality of him until his scent lathered the back of my throat. The powerful wrap of Duncan’s arms was more than enough for me to finally give in to the weakness I’d fought away since Althea had told me he lived.

I melted into him, closing my eyes, allowing myself a moment to believe that we were alone in this room.

“He saved me, Robin,” Duncan said, his hold constricting around me.

“I know,” I replied, voice muffled. “But… he… you know what he’s done.”

---