Page 94 of He Who Ignites The Flame
I scoffed, flexing and lifting her higher in my arms. “Light as a feather,Your Majesty.”
She snickered as I started for the doorway, but I froze the moment I stepped into the hallway as we found ourselves face to face with their head caretaker, Isla.
Fuck.
Isla blinked, her blue eyes widening as they flitted between Lucia and me.
I opened and closed my mouth, trying to find words. “Isla, I can?—”
“Some fresh air will do ye some good,” she said with a smile before glancing over her shoulder to the hall behind her. “But ye’ll want tae go out the back entrance to avoid the other servants so they donnae make a fuss.”
“Thank you, Isla,” Lucia whispered, and I nodded before carefully hurrying in the opposite direction to slip out into the garden unnoticed.
“Zephyr and Damien told me you started feeling some contractions yesterday,” I said.
“They’ve been here and there, but nothing too severe,” she said as I nudged the rear door open. “I had one before you came back into the room.”
“If it gets to be too much excitement, let me know, and I’ll take you back to bed,” I said, all joking aside.
“Oh, please,” she groaned, letting her head fall against my chest in defeat. “Between Damien and Zephyr, I have enough males doting on me. I don’t need you in on it too.”
“Apologies for caring,” I chided as we walked through the garden, taking in the pinks and blues painting both sides of the stony path.
“And here I thought you were a hardened criminal,” she teased before drawing a deep breath of fresh air. “I guess I’ve finally rubbed off on you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
Her gaze swept across the garden, beyond to the valley in the distance. While it had come a long way in the clean-up, the city looked nothing like it had before the battle, and I hated the darklings and their queen for the destruction they had left in their wake.
“How are the humans holding up?” Lucia asked as I eased her onto the stone bench amidst a bed of foxgloves under a large maple tree. “Damien tells me of the recovery efforts, but I’m always afraid I might’ve messed something up while controlling their minds and altering their memories.”
“The mental manipulation is holding up,” I assured her. “You wouldn’t know any of them had witnessed such horrors.”
“We weren’t able to save them from the sorrow of loss, though,” she said, her smile fading.
I couldn’t deny her statement. “We’ve all lost something in this battle, but it doesn’t mean we can’t recover from it.”
She didn’t speak for a moment, her gaze lingering on the city in the distance. This was how she had been since the battle, losing herself to her thoughts, falling into silence and leaving us wondering what troubled her so deeply. We all had suffered the pain and nightmares left in the aftermath of the battle; the horrors of war were still freshly engraved in our minds. Some were handling it worse than others—Salwa was working overtime offering her services to those who needed of therapy.
Lucia had declined her assistance, though, claiming there were others who needed her help more.
“It seems like only yesterday I was pulling you out of that cell,” she said, and a snicker bubbled up her throat. “You made it so hard to maintain any sort of composure with how you riled the guard.”
I gave her a disapproving look. “And you were foolish enough to dismiss him and be left alone with a criminal who didn’t care if he hurt you. Honestly, I don’t understand why we leave you unattended. You’re just begging to get into trouble.”
“You didn’t hurt me, though,” she said, tilting her head to glance at me from the corner of her eye. “I handled you just fine.”
“You were just lucky,” I said, easing back against the back of the bench.
Her hand rosed to hover over her mouth as she laughed. “Keep telling yourself that, hothead.”
The birds sang in the nearby trees, hopping from branch to branch as they danced with one another. A gentle breeze caressed our skin, and it was a nice reprieve from the hot August air.
“How are you, Thalia, and Micah getting along?” she asked.
I arched a brow. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were trying to set me up with them.”
Her dark brows rose, and she blinked for a moment. I couldn’t miss the way her lips twitched as she resisted the smile. “Is that what you want?”
