Page 5 of A Promise of Peridot
The reminder of her mother’s death seized my gut. And the little one—Leigh. The loss had already changed her, something dark and thorny taking hold, finding purchase in her grief.
“Maybe he’ll come back with it?” Amelia asked, hope creeping into her voice. “The blade?”
“Doubtful, with our recent luck,” mumbled Griffin.
Ah, my ever-positive commander.
Griffin and I had been through more pain, more triumph, and more liquor together than anyone in Evendell. He was more than my commander, more than my ally or my friend. I used to call him my brother. Before Yale’s death.
“Come now, Griff. Don’t blame our recent luck,” I chided, reaching for the next bottle. “We’ve been terrible at finding the blade for five years now.”
I knew every single hiding spot on this continent like the scales on my own wings... Where in the damn realm was the thing?
The ship heaved us forward again, and Amelia loosed a nauseated groan. “Hear me out. The prophecy says Arwen will find the blade ‘inside her heart,’ right? Let’s just crack her open and see ifit’s there. The witch can heal her right after. Frankly, she could even heal herself.”
“This joke has gotten very old, Amelia,” I snarled at her. “You go near her, and I will kill you. You know that, right?”
“What if it’s some kind of full-blooded Fae trick and it’s been inside her all along?”
I only scowled.
“I’m serious!”
“As am I.”
Amelia hiccupped.“Infatuated idiot.”
Griffin winced with his last swig. “I’m not saying we should split Arwen open like a log, but it may be time to think outside the proverbial box.”
I blamed Griffin’s viciously pragmatic general father and a strict, withholding mother for his detachment from people and things. His casual well of endless patience. His lack of any sentiment—any emotion, really. In my more unfortunate moments of temper and impulse I could appreciate those qualities, but right now I wanted to bash in his even-keeled face with my boot.
“Are we running out of time?” Amelia asked.
“In one year we’ll be a ‘half century past’ the day of the rebellion,” he said. “That’s when ‘war is to begin again.’ ”
“Actually,” I cut in, “the prophecy says that’s when ‘father and child will meet again in war.’ ”
“But you ‘met again’ just a few days ago.”
True... But I didn’t want to think about my father. I wanted to be drunker.
“I thought he’d killed you,” Griffin confessed. “How did you evade him? Back at Siren’s Bay?”
It was a fair question. He’d grown up with my father, too. Hadseen him scorch a disobedient guard into white-hot flame or shred a rebellious noble with his own talons without so much as a frown.
Days ago my father and I were a clash of claws and fangs high above the blood-soaked Peridot sands. I knew I couldn’t kill him, that nobody could, outside of Arwen with the blade in hand. But it hadn’t stopped me from trying. From tearing into his soldiers and mercenaries over and over, relishing each lash and blow, regardless of who they landed on. It was the sound of her cries that had cut through my bloodlust like a hot knife through flesh.
“I heard her. When she...” They knew what I meant. When she destroyed everything in sight. The lighte pouring out of her with the force of a split dam, ships, creatures, weapons of her enemies burning in merciless flame across the shallow bay. A breathtaking, violent goddess of fury.
He had let me go to her. He could have annihilated me, but he hadn’t. Perhaps he feared her. Or thought she might be able to kill him. But for whatever reason, he let me live. He let us both live.
“She was remarkable.” It was the most complimentary thing Amelia had ever said about Arwen.
“Yes.” I sipped my whiskey. “She was.”
We remained silent for a while, the light from the single lantern overhead beginning to flicker toward extinguishing. I peered through the round windows behind me. Both sky and sea near pitch-black. Thick thunderclouds had blotted out the moon and stars for the third night in a row. The ferocity of the storm meant we were getting closer.
“I’m glad he didn’t kill you,” Amelia finally offered, sitting back in her chair and pulling her knees up to her chest.
