Page 18 of King of Death

“If you adjusted the grip of your thumb on the hilt, your blade would be steadier.” I nodded at the sword on her hip. “Your sword felt heavy. You have a strong back, but you either need a lighter blade or you need to better compensate for the weight.”

She looked down at the sword, then chuckled. “Noted again.” Eyes turning shrewd, she glanced over at me. “I’m not sure your mother would appreciate you sharing sword-fighting tips with the enemy.”

My mouth pinched, so I raised my cup to hide it by having another sip of water.

“Do you plan on going back?” she asked. I tensed at the question. “Back to unseelie?”

“Yes.”

“King Ash said… We are all under the impression that you are to stay with him here. That you live here.”

“I do.”

For now.

Chapter Six

Lonan

“Slow down, lad.” Gillie chuckled, but his dark brows twitched with a frown as he watched me drain my wine glass. “Ash won’t be best pleased with me if I let you get uproariously drunk while he’s gone. He’d want to be here to see it, no doubt.”

“I’ve eaten plenty,” I mumbled between stuffing more chocolate cake into my mouth.

It was rich and dark, but it was sweet enough. My stomach was too full from our dinner of salmon, new potatoes and green beans, so I wasn’t yet feeling the effects of the wine I’d drunk. I wasn’t sure how many glasses I’d had. The server just came and refilled it each time it was empty, and I hadn’t been paying attention.

“Manage to get in some sword practice today, lad?” Gillie asked easily, sipping from his tankard of ale and eyeing me over the rim.

I almost snorted. Manage to get in some sword practice. As if I may not have had a chance to pack it into my busy schedule.

“Yes.” I scraped the last few crumbs of cake off my plate as the server reappeared to fill my glass. “Practised with a guard.”

“Well, hopefully they gave you a better fight than I usually do.” Gillie chuckled.

“She was alright.” I gulped down more wine and blurted, “Better than you,” before I could stop the words from leaving me. Maybe the wine was affecting me more than I’d thought.

I tensed, expecting Gillie’s silver eyes to snap with anger from across the table, but he just gave an easy laugh. “Don’t doubt it, lad. Nua’s the more vicious one of us when he gets riled up enough. That hot seelie blood in his veins.”

Just like Ash. Ash had a hot temper. He’d always been quick to anger, but it faded just as fast. Before I’d even properly met him, I’d witnessed instances of it in his childhood. When he’d stamp outside to sulk after his father had told him no to something. When a friend wouldn’t play fair in the garden. The time he fell off his bicycle and snapped something in it, he limped home dragging it behind him with hot, angry tears streaming down his cheeks.

Sometimes he’d noticed me—the black cat winding between the fence posts, the blackbird peering down from a branch, the dragonfly or bumblebee hovering too close to his face—but most of the time he hadn’t. Most of the time, he’d been too busy with his new friend Nua, and then all the other Folk who’d started visiting him, to notice the lonely creature that watched him obsessively.

Because I had been obsessed with him. I’d yearned for him, even when I’d been too young to understand what I was yearning for. At first, it had largely been envy that had driven me to go and watch him. He’d been the opposite of me—always laughing and smiling, drawing others to him with his bright smiles and infectious laugh. He’d had friends. Parents who loved him.

He’d been happy.

As we got older, the envy had turned into something else. Something sharper and more intense. I’d noticed the curve of his mouth when he smiled. How bright his eyes shone in the sunlight. How soft his curly hair looked.

I’d noticed the way his body had changed, grown, just as mine was doing. His limbs becoming long and lanky, awkward until he grew into them. His voice deepening, his face losing its softness and becoming so beautiful that I had spent hours just staring at him in my hidden forms.

At first, I had wanted to be him. I had wanted to trade places, to experience happiness, to know what it was like to have parents who loved me. To have friends. To be liked and wanted by those around me.

Then I had simply wanted him.

Longing tightened my chest so much it ached. I missed him. It made me feel foolish—he’d been gone only hours—but it felt like I’d had hardly any time with him at all before we’d been ripped apart by his vow to forget me. Only a few months of being able to sleep beside him, to feel his body against mine, his mouth on me. To breathe him in and finally, finally be within his orbit. To finally be able to soak up his attention, his affection and love. To feel it focused on me.

It hadn’t been long enough. It would never be long enough.

“Well, that was a lovely meal.”

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