Page 15 of He Who Ignites The Flame
Micah’s skin paled a bit.
Lucia’s voice dipped, and she leaned in closer to him. “Don’t mention it to her. No need to stress her out.”
My gaze snagged on Lucia. Who were they talking about?
“Are you going to send a team to look into it?” he asked.
Lucia nodded. “She won’t be on the team, though. I promised I would never ask her to return to the Godsrealm, and I stand by my word. Damien and I will oversee it.”
He offered her a smile. “Thank you, Lucia.”
She patted his shoulder before pinning me with a knowing look. “I’ll see you tomorrow. I’m sure you can find your way to your room without winding up in a bar fight?”
I sighed, and Micah looked between us before his gaze locked on me. “You didn’t...”
“Oh, yes, he did. On his first night out no less,” Lucia said with a knowing smile before brushing past me.
I glanced over my shoulder to see her wave a dismissive hand without looking my way. “Try not to burn my training yard down, hothead.”
I groaned. I couldn’t quite figure her out. What exactly did she want with me? The training yard was filled with countless warriors and recruits,and it was clear she had more than enough bodies serving The Order. Why go to the trouble to pull me out of the dungeons?
“You can trust her, ya know,” Micah said, as if my thoughts were plastered across my face.
“What is this supposed to be? You talk her up, and I suddenly fall to her feet, willing to serve at her beck and call?”
Micah huffed a laugh and shook his head as he walked toward the training ring. “Man, they really did a number on you in there.”
I rolled my eyes but followed him. “I hate to break it to you, golden boy, but getting thrown in a cell for over forty-five years doesn’t exactly inspire trust in others.”
Micah didn’t seem to have a response, and I shouldn’t have been as satisfied as I was that he’d finally shut up.
After a moment of silence, he spoke up as he rerolled the sleeves of his black tunic. “I’m not saying it lightly, so you know. Youcantrust Lucia.” His eyes shifted to her as she made her way through the training yard, stopping periodically to speak with recruits. “She looks out for us. I’m proud to serve under her.”
“I’ll be sure to tell her mate how much you loveserving under her.”
Micah huffed a laugh. “You’ll figure it out in time for yourself, but be careful talking like that about her around Damien. He’s rather protective of her, especially when it comes to males cracking jokes.”
Damien. The King of the Immortals. I’d heard stories of him, the sole living heir to House Skiá, the only surviving member of those who wielded shadow magic. I wondered what he was like.
“So, the king is a possessive male, then?”
Micah shook his head. “It’s not like that.”
“Why are you so confident she can be trusted?” I asked, crossing my arms. “What’s so special about her?”
He smiled as he grabbed a waterskin and took a quick swig before saying, “She knows each of us by name, takes the time to listen to us—truly listen. She fights at our side instead of barking orders at us from a safe distance while we fight for our lives, hunting the darklings.”
I didn’t speak, didn’t have a response, because the words he spoke... I could somehow see them in her, but I’d been too afraid of taking a closer look, of opening myself up to her. The last time I’d done that, I’d been thrown in a cell to rot for the rest of my unending life—or perhaps not, as clearly someone had other plans for me, if an execution had been scheduled so suddenly.
“What’s this pit she was talking about?” I asked.
Micah blinked, seemingly caught off guard by the question, and he seemed to search for words. “Um... Ten years ago, Lucia and Damien caught wind of an illegal fighting operation in Erebus’ domain. I don’t even know how long they’d been running it when Lucia learned they had been taking not only human children, but they had two of our kind fighting for them.The fae running it had been taking children across the veil for decades—possibly even centuries. We learned they had several immortals at one point, but sadly, only one made it out alive in the end.”
Something twisted in my chest, and I couldn’t help but feel a sense of nostalgia. Children being taken across the veil...
Don’t stay out too late, now. The fae like to take little ones across the veil.
Who had said that to me? Mother had told me scary stories of the fae…but the voice that clung to a lost part of my memory wasn’t Mother’s. It felt slippery in my memory, like poison, and I couldn’t understand why.
