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“You don’t even remember—do you?” He wouldn’t talk to her about it. She looked at his softening expression and wondered if maybe he did and he hadn’t told her. This claim of them being gods from another realm was strange. Did his memory have something to do with not wanting to find the Black Mage? He mentioned Thane and him being related. Were they close once? “Do you?” she prodded.

Piper and Leif approached tentatively. Thane spared them a quick glance. “You three will join me for drinks.”

“Drinks?” Leif questioned and grinned. “I thought I’d get a swift kick in the ass, not a pint of ale.”

“The ass kicking is coming, trust me,” Thane said with a sort of satisfaction that made Layala nervous for them. “But for now, we could all use a little downtime. And since I’ve chased you three half the night, I’m starving.”

The group started walking back toward the city. “How did you find us anyway?” Layala asked.

“You know I’m good at just about everything I do, including tracking.”

Piper and Layala looked at each other and rolled their eyes. “Your arrogance is a bit off-putting, you know,” Layala drawled.

“You seem to like it.”

Leif laughed. “If I looked like him, and fought like him, ruled like him, and had a gorgeous maiden who might actually be a goddess at my side, I’d be a cocky bastard too.” He smirked and winked at Layala. “But if you get tired of him, my bedroom door’s always open, Fightbringer.”

Thane growled. “Your ass kicking just got a little more intense, Leif.”

Leif laughed even harder.

“You think Thane’s arrogant, you’d be much, much worse,” Piper said, shoving Leif’s shoulder. “Just becoming a Raven alone made you almost unbearable to be around. You wouldn’t shut up about it for a month.”

He slipped his arm around her shoulder and gave her a squeeze. “Pipe, if I had you at my side, I’dnevershut up about it.”

“Careful, Leif,” Layala teased. “Dragon’s fire is hot and their talon’s sharp.” The dragon prince who fancied Piper had been gone for the last two months but they still wrote letters regularly.

“And so is Fennan’s blade,” Thane added. Fennan, Thane’s best friend and another admirer of Piper.

Piper shoved him off and smirked at all three of them. “Last one to the pub has to drink a shot of troll piss liquor.”

All four of them took off in a sprint.

* * *

“Drink it,”Piper called, pushing the short glass of yellow liquid closer to Leif. The pub was nearly empty at this hour. A pair of soldiers probably getting off from their night patrol sat in the corner booth and the barman cleaned glasses behind the bar top. Layala was surprised it was even open at four in the morning. Although when the High King knocked, doors opened.

Leif scrunched his face, wrinkling up his soft brown skin and pressed his lips together. “But it’s so bad.”

“You lost,” Thane said. “Drink it.”

He pointed a finger at Thane over the round wooden table. “You tripped me. You cheated.”

“No one set any rules. And I didn’t trip you. My boot simply got in your way,” Thane said, leaning back in his chair with a smirk. It creaked under his muscular frame.

Leif blew out a breath, picked up the shot between two fingers and tossed it back. He grimaced and swallowed it down. “I hate you all,” he said with watery blue eyes.

All three of them laughed at poor Leif. Layala picked up her mug of ale and took a sip. It wasn’t the worst but not the best.

Thane leaned forward on the table. In this plain dark blue tunic and hair loosely tied back, and a light smudge of dirt on his cheek, he was as beautiful as when he wore fine High King’s attire and styled his hair in braids. “So, while you have directly disobeyed me, did you find anything worthwhile?”

Leif, Piper, and Layala went quiet. Layala stared at the foam in her metal mug. They hadn’t learned anything new. No news of the Black Mage. They might have saved people by killing pale ones when they could find them.

“Actually, yes,” Piper said. “We found an elf with a very gruesome death. It wasn’t by a pale one. We don’t know what it was. And she wasn’t the first.”

“Itmighthave been the pack of pale ones we killed,” Leif said.

“She wasn’t eaten, just torn apart. And they even admitted it wasn’t them.”