Page 61 of With Wing And Claw

Her breath hitched.

And the people she’d thought her enemies … Tared, waiting patiently outside her door. Agenor, offering his help. Naxi …

Naxi.

All of a sudden she was fighting the urge to hunch over, hide her face in her arms. Her voice was almost pleading, now – ‘There has to be something we can do.’

‘We?’ His broad jaw twitched. ‘I’m not going to be the one trying, thank you very much. If you like impossible tasks, maybe settle for something slightly more manageable? Try draining the ocean with a teaspoon, or—'

‘They named me High Lady of it,’ she muttered.

He stiffened with his teacup halfway to his lips.

‘So … so I don’t particularly have a choice.’ Her chest constricted. ‘I just need to—’

‘Wait,’ he brusquely cut in, wings tensing as he rose half an inch from the thin mattress. ‘Wait a moment, Thys, I’m going to need a little more context here. What in the fucking world? Who named you anything?’

His third question, and he did not even seem to realise it even as her lips burst into motion. ‘Emelin, again.’

‘She didn’t take the place for herself?’

‘No,’ Thysandra said, putting her untouched tea aside so she could bend over and hide her face in her hands. ‘She split the empire in three, ran off with Creon to the Cobalt Court, and left the mess to me.’

Silas cursed under his breath. ‘Who took the Golden Court?’

‘Agenor.’

‘Ah. Of course.’ He dragged in an audible breath. ‘Well, that … explains a couple of things. And that’s your plan for the place, then? Fixing it? Turning it into a pleasant, peaceful environment where no one ever stabs their friends in the back for a small promotion?’

Was that her plan?

It was then, in the wordless silence that followed, that she realised not a single other person had asked her that question since the Mother’s death – notreally, at least. What was her plan? Much had been assumed about her intentions, certainly. Forced upon her. She had feigned opinions too, had talked around them for diplomatic reasons, had pushed her thoughts aside for the sake of peace, law, and order …

But at the heart of her, everything felt weak and unsettled, nothing like the safe, hard shell of her old convictions. Like wet clay that just wouldn’t harden, shaped by everyone’s fingerprints but her own.

And wasn’t that true ofeverythingabout her?

Save the court.Protect the court. Those were her duties, sheknewthey were – so why did they suddenly seem so gods-damned nebulous, so jarringly unlike herself? That list of mortal deaths shouldn’t matter. The army’s thirst for war, Symeon’s knife diving at her, even the mystery of her parents’ deaths … none of that should change a damn thing about the responsibility that had been placed upon her shoulders, the responsibility she’d chosen to accept.

And yet …

‘Yes,’ she said tersely, because the alternative was to let herself follow that train of thought, and she couldn’t,couldn’tgive in to these treacherous doubts. Her life depended on this, for the gods’ sakes. Emelin’s threats were still hanging over her, and weakness would kill her, fixed court or not. ‘Yes, that is my plan. Bind the right people to me and make sure everyone else behaves.’

He was silent for so long that she almost asked her second question just to make himtalk– sitting on the edge of that unhospitable bed, watching her with narrowed eyes and lips set in hard, straight lines. The bargain marks on his neck and corded forearms glinted in the dusty light. Dozens upon dozens of them, many-coloured relics of a past she could barely remember.

It seemed like half a century passed by before he finally drew in a deep breath and said, ‘Alright.’

His tone suggested some sort of conclusion had been reached. She blinked and began, ‘What—’

‘Time to go, then.’ He downed the rest of his tea in a single gulp, thumped his cup onto the bedside table, and rose with the air of a male bracing himself for war. ‘Give me a few minutes to pack the most important stuff. We can send someone over for the rest later.’

‘We— What?’ She gaped at him. ‘Are youjoking?’

A question; she realised it only as he stiffened for a fraction of a moment. ‘Not at all.’

‘But you said— I thought you never wanted—'

‘Of course I don’t want to return.’ He crouched by the bed, pulled a worn bag from beneath it, and flicked a spark of blue at the canvas to heal a tattered hole in the bottom. ‘The damn place eats souls forbreakfast and spits them out again by lunchtime. But I promised Cy and Echion I’d keep an eye on you, and it does sound like you could use a hand over there.’