Page 58 of Corin and the Courtier
With that he spun on his heel, nose in the air, and whisked away down the dock.
Pretty and rich? He had almost no money of his own, and pretty? Only the most powerful jealousy could account for anyone thinking that. For fuck’s sake. No matter what, he’d be ruining everyone’s lives.
Aster stared out at the darkening horizon until his eyes burned, until everything vanished into the same gloomy blur.
No way out presented itself.
At last, Aster slowly turned and went to the ship. He couldn’t avoid his future. He could only face it with his head held high. Perhaps Corin would hear about it and be proud of him.
And perhaps he’d never think about Aster again.
ChapterTwenty-Two
Corin closed his eyes,giving in to being half asleep. Well, all right, more in a brandy-assisted stupor, lying on his back in the courtyard entirely naked. A warm wind had been sweeping through the canyon all evening, rattling and rustling everything about. Before that it’d been sunny. And before that, dark…but none of it mattered much. Three days. Three days, he’d been alone. Aster had gone off to get fucking married to stupid fucking Sig.
Another image of Aster on his hands and knees with Sig behind him flashed through his mind. One of many.
Damn it, he didn’t care if Aster fucked everyone in the kingdom. He couldn’t.
His fingertips itched and stung as his claws did their best to push through. More brandy. Another bottle might do the trick. Or two, he’d brought a whole case from the village the other day. Yesterday? Who the fuck cared.
The tower had been lonely before, and dull.
Now it felt like it pressed in on him, its weight far greater than that of its stone and metal components. Even when he stayed outside, like now. It didn’t matter. He could hardly breathe. He’d had a great deal of brandy, but it couldn’t possibly be enough to numb this constant ache. Aster’s laughter rang through the hall, his cries of pleasure permeated the bedroom. The softness in those beautiful blue eyes as Aster’s gaze rested on Corin’s face…
Out of the darkness came a sound: the soft beat of a pair of wings.
Corin cracked his eyelids open in time to see a smaller piece of blackness resolve out of the night. A crow landed directly on his chest, cocked his head, opened his beak, and let out a huffing series of caws with a familiar cadence to it.
Corin blinked at him. “Are you fucking laughing at me, you little bastard?” The crow hopped back a couple of steps, digging one set of talons into Corin’s lower belly. “Feathers burn, you son of a—oh, hell,” he said, as the crow lifted his other foot to show the paper tied to his leg. “Hold still.”
The crow obligingly didn’t move while Corin tugged the string loose and got the letter free.
“Rawk!” he said, and lowered his foot to dig both sets of talons in.
Corin sighed and yielded to the inevitable. “There’s leftover bread and ham in there,” he said, pointing at the door to the fort.
The crow clacked his beak and flapped off, landing by the door and stalking inside as if he bloody well owned the place.
“Well, fuck you too,” Corin muttered—quietly, because while he might be a dragon who feared no one, that didn’t mean he wanted to clean bird shit off of everything he owned. Crows weren’t known for their good manners at the best of times, unless you were considered a friend and had an endless supply of snacks. And even the most self-righteous and ornery of wild crows couldn’t compare to a witch’s trained messenger.
They were even more intelligent than the average crow, and they had all the confidence of beings whose best friends could curse and destroy anyone who ruffled their feathers.
And their services were wildly expensive. Whoever had sent this letter wanted to reach Corin urgently.
Fucking hell. He sat up, blinked, and summoned his flames, twisting his neck and shooting them up into the sky, roaring as much as his human throat could roar. It burned the brandy out of him, magic surging through his veins and nerves and searing him clean.
It hurt like hell, but when he curled over his knees, panting, his head had cleared as much as he’d hoped. Letters sent this way never had good news. He needed his wits about him.
He broke the seal, tipping the paper to catch the meager light of the quarter moon—enough for his dragon eyes.
A glance at the signature told him nothing: Jules Aranceur.
Sir Corin:
You know me as the gentleman who accompanied Sir Sigmund on his visit to your abode, if one may call it such. At present, I continue to accompany him and Lord Aster of Cezanne on a journey to see the king. Within the hour we embark upon a ship whose accommodations I will not describe, because the mere thought of them wounds my sensibilities. I’ve paid a local witch (I will leave her name and direction below) a small consideration to see this letter delivered to you with all haste, and have promised her that you will substantially augment this sum when you arrive here at the port.
“Oh, like hell I will,” Corin muttered, but a strange and horrible tightening sensation had started to creep through his chest, something he’d never really experienced before. He thought it might be crippling anxiety. Possibly even terror.
