I nod, and she passes me a slip of folded paper.
The words inside are Thalia’s.
We have Finn. Don’t give that bitch anything.
We also have something else you might be interested in.
—T
We have Finn. Something inside me unknots. I came here willing to barter my soul for my brother-in-arms. It’s the promise I made to myself when Finn, Baylor, Lysander, and Thalia backed me when I took the throne. I will always have their backs—because I know they have mine.
This is my family.
It’s the one thing I’ve managed to forge for myself that can’t be taken away.
That won’t be taken away, no matter what I have to do.
“Well?” Adaia leans back in her chair, her smile small and tight. It’s the smile of a queen certain she’s about the make her enemy crawl. There’s nothing of Vi in that smile. It seems a miracle that this snake bred a daughter like her. “What say you? Mistmere in exchange for your misplaced hunter?”
I meet her gaze and it’s truly a pleasure to smile a “fuck you” in her direction. “I say no.” Pushing to my feet, I give Lucidia a brief nod. “Thank you for agreeing to reconcile both our kingdoms. But I will no longer be needing your services.”
Adaia gapes at me. “Thiago?”
I push to my feet and smile toward her. “Maybe we will meet again one day soon. But you should look to your own people. Just where did your pet vanish to in such a rush?”
And I leave her with the possibility that I’ve made my own counterattack.
“What does Thalia mean by ‘something else I might be interested in?’” I duck beneath the canvas flap of the ornate tent that bears my colors.
Eris strides along in my wake, one hand resting on the hilt of her sword. We crossed the campgrounds in under a minute, but it’s never wise to speak too loudly outside. Thalia’s had my tent warded nine ways to the Underworld, and the second we’re inside, the curiosity gets the better of me.
Thalia shoves to her feet, her shoulders slumping in relief as I enter. “Tell me we reached you in time. Tell me you signed none of her demands.”
“You reached me in time. I’ve given her nothing.” I rest a hand on her shoulder. “Now where is Finn?”
“Currently enjoying Evernight hospitality once again.” Finn emerges from a side chamber, his hair wet and a towel hanging around his broad neck. He’s lost weight and he’s rubbing cream into his ruined wrists, but the relief I feel is instantaneous.
He’s not dead.
“You look like shit,” he tells me.
Really? “You’re one to speak.”
Curse him. I wrench him into a hug and slap his shoulder gently, squeezing tight. I was the one who sent him to Mistmere. I wanted to know what Adaia was doing sending her people sniffing around the ancient Hallow, and I sent him directly into a trap. If she’d killed him— “You weren’t supposed to get caught.”
Finn grins at me as I let him go. “It’s a long story,” he protests. “A dashing ruin. A moonlit tower. An ambush. Half a dozen wolfhounds. Maybe an entire company of Asturian soldiers and—”
“Perhaps we can give him the short version?” Eris mutters. “The Lammastide rites end in twenty-four hours.”
“Fine. I fled. The wolfhounds gave chase. Someone put an arrow through my fucking calf, and they were on me before I could even get up.” Finn shrugs.
“I thought you were the most dangerous warrior to grace the north,” Eris says with a snort. “A mere flesh wound shouldn’t aggravate you so.”
Shadows darken Finn’s eyes for all of a second. “I didn’t say it was a warrior who put that arrow in me.” There’s trouble in his eyes when he looks at me. “The queen’s pet was the one who took me down. He blew a fistful of powder in my face and the next thing I knew, I was shackled in the back of a wagon. One at my throat, both wrists, both ankles. I may as well have been in a pillory, and the fucker used iron. Not even I can break that apart.”
“The queen’s pet? Her stepson?” I’ve seen Edain from across the gathering, all silk and velvet and dark hair pomaded back from his face. An insolent leopard lounging at Adaia’s feet, though judging from the golden collar around his throat, he’s leashed.
There’s no way he’s good enough to take Finn down.
Finn is part-Sylvaren: the warrior-born.
“The queen’s assassin most likely.” Finn rubs the towel through his hair. He shakes his head at me. “Don’t mistake him for Adaia’s whore. That bastard doesn’t fight fairly. He doesn’t have to. He’s got enough tricks up his sleeve to keep me on my knees, and he barely had to twitch a finger.”
“If I rip his head off,” Baylor growls, “then he won’t get a chance.”
“Aye, but you’d have to get close enough,” Finn counters, shaking a finger at the enormous general.
Lysander sighs. “It’s always the pretty ones you’ve got to watch. Maybe I can take a tilt at him? He won’t even see me coming.”
“I don’t think so,” Finn mutters. “He’s good.”
Lysander grins. “You never know. He and I shared a moment when we both tried to stalk through the arch to the queensmoot at the same time. He looked like he wanted to murder me. Someone’s repressing all his worst impulses….”
“If Edain’s repressing anything,” Finn says, “it’s violence. Don’t put yourself at risk. I doubt either you or Baylor could take him. Besides….” He tosses the towel to Eris, and then reaches for his shirt, hauling it over his shoulders gingerly. “If anyone’s going to repay the queen’s pet for her kindness, it’s going to be me.”
The sight of his back stalls all conversation.
I suck a hiss of air through my teeth, and Eris’s hands clench in Finn’s towel.
He looks up, his gaze wary.
“Erlking’s hairy cock.” The breeze wheezes through Eris’s teeth as she forces Finn to still, easing the cotton of his shirt
