Page 106 of Slaying the Shadow Prince
There was a moment’s pause.
‘Sorry for cursing,’ came a mutter from behind them.
Drue’s gaze met Adrienne’s first, her chest swelling, then she turned on her heel, and threw her arms around Gus.
‘You’re…’ Tears streamed down her face as she squeezed the boy tightly. ‘You’re alright.’
‘Well… I mean… I have fuckingwings, Drue,’ he told her, frowning.
Adrienne snatched him from Drue’s grasp into a bruising grip of her own. ‘What’d we tell you about cursing, you little shit?’
‘That it’s only needed for certain occasions…’ he repeated back to them, as though no time had passed.
A deep laugh sounded and Fendran appeared, clapping the boy on the shoulder, careful of his wings. ‘If ever there was an occasion… This is it, eh?’
Drue was still shaking her head in disbelief, but in the presence of her father, as his words rang out across the forces, several others chuckled.
Spears and arrows were lowered.
Drue and Adrienne hurried to remove the ropes from their young charge.
Drue scanned him critically for signs of the dark power she’d seen in that cave, for the thing that had haunted Talemir so thoroughly that he’d fled.
His beloved knitted jumper was gone, and across his thin, bare torso were faint webs of black, but his eyes, which had been an unnerving onyx before, were back to their usual blue.
By her assessment, Gus was bruised and battered but —
‘Drue, is there any food?’ he blurted.
But very much himself.
The tension around the camp dissipated at once, and those who’d been uneasy before laughed nervously with the rest.
Both women had to bite back their questions until the boy had been fed and watered, his cuts and scrapes tended to. At long last, he sat in Adrienne’s tent, wrapped in a blanket, a steaming cup of tea before him, looking at them expectantly.
‘How?’ Drue blurted at him. ‘How are you here? I thought you were dead, or —’
‘I wasn’t,’ he said happily.
‘Clearly. So what happened?’
Gus looked from Drue to Adrienne and back again. ‘I think I was asleep for ages,’ he told them.
‘Do you remember the attack on the watchtower?’ Adrienne asked.
The youngster shook his head. ‘Nope. Just went all dark.’
‘Do you remember the journey to the lair?’
‘Nope.’
Drue exhaled through her nose. ‘Whatdoyou remember?’
Gus shuddered. ‘Waking up in that place…’ he said slowly, grimacing. ‘It smelt so bad in there. And then I was chained up and one of those… horned things was reaching into my chest. I was screaming lots —’
Drue’s own chest tightened, her hand seeking his.
But the boy was strong. ‘I think I slept again after. Then… these happened.’ He gestured to his wings. They were much smaller than Talemir’s, more pink than red and black…
