Page 126 of A Reign of Roses
Griffin made a gruff noise as Kane cringed, leaning back in his chair. “It was the only way Citrine would grant us refuge back in Azurine. I promised Isolde and Broderick I’d wed their daughter, Sera, to whomever takes the Lumerian throne.”
Meat practically lodged itself in my esophagus and I coughed wildly. “You promised him toFedrik’s sister? That meek girl who’s clearly still hung up on you?”
Kane shrugged. “Perhaps she has a type?”
“What—gorgeous, power-hungry womanizers with swoopy hair and a sideways grin?”
Kane pinned me with a rakish smile. “I was going to saykings.”
“What does swoopy hair consist of?” Ryder asked, downing his ale.
As Barney pointed to Kane’s dark chin-length locks and tried to mime how he would rake his hand through it from time to time, Kane returned to our game. “When I first met Griffin, he punched me for a butterscotch.” My eyes darted to him, and Kane added, “We were four.”
I snorted into my wineglass. I loved these stories. The links between us all—how this family of sorts was held together through memory and history and laughter.
And that, I realized, was what this was. Somehow, despite all the odds that stood before us, all the pain and suffering we’d endured, this was my family. And as with Leigh or Ryder, I’d do anything for the people sitting around this table.
Though the knowledge fed my soul, it also chilled my blood. It was a weakness, to know I’d give anything to keep every person seated here tonight alive tomorrow.
“When I first met Griffin,” Mari said, mood brightened by wine and company, “he was looking for a book in the library on stonework. He told me his quarters in Shadowhold were too close toall the people, and he intended to build himself a cottage, like a mumbling bearded recluse.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Griffin shook his head. “Wish I’d never climbed those Gods-forsaken stairs.”
He said it playfully, and we all laughed, and the conversation continued—Ryder ruminating on the first time he met Kane and knew the Onyx king was gone for his sister; Kane recalling his first encounter with Dagan, when he was the only mortal kingsguard in Solaris and still bested half the regiment.
But I couldn’t tear my eyes from the rapidly declining situation to my right. Mari’s cheeks had pinkened—even the tips of her ears had gone red.
Griffin turned his entire body toward her, uninterested in the rest of the dining room. “Witch, that is not what I—”
“No, it’s fine.” Mari kept her eyes on her napkin. She folded it twice in her lap.
“Mari,” Griffin mumbled to her. “I didn’t mean—”
But whatever else he’d hoped to clear up was lost with the slamming open of the dining room doors.
I knew I was friends with too many soldiers because in an instant Kane, Griffin, Barney, and Dagan were all on their feet, lighte and swords shining, plates and wineglasses jumping with their movements.
“Help! Please—” Leigh was repeating as she dragged Beth inside. “I don’t know what to…What’s happening to her?”
Beth was convulsing, shaggy brown hair rustling with her movements, eyes glazed over as her little body shook with tremors.
Briar rushed to her at the same time I did. Immediately my lighte knew she wasn’t seizing. At least, not for any medical reason.
“She’s having a vision,” Briar said, hushed.
Barney peered over the table. “What can be done?”
“Nothing.” Briar helped Leigh and me lay Beth on her side. “We must let it pass.”
As she spoke, the jolting slowed and Beth’s bloodshot eyes blinked open. My selfish, twisted heart hammered.
Please not the deal. Not the deal—
It had kept me up more nights than I could count. Beth’s harrowing promise:“You’ll have to make the deal. When the time comes, you’ll have to.”She’d sworn my face would be wet with tears, and Kane’s hands coated in blood. I looked to Kane’s clear palms now, braced on the table, and was soothed.
Leigh brought Beth a glass of water and she sat up to sip it slowly.
“What did you see?” Briar asked when the little seer had regained her composure.
