Page 70 of With Wing And Claw

Watching her lose yet again.

‘Congratulating yourself?’ she muttered, averting her eyes before he could see the sudden gleam in them. Useless defiance. It wouldn’tshield her from his all-knowing demon senses. ‘If you’re here to tell me you’d have done everything better in my place, I’d rather you leave me alone.’

He sighed. ‘I’m not.’

There was a tiredness in those two words. Old and dark and bone-deep, the sort of exhaustionhetruly had no right to feel.

‘Then what do you want?’ she bit out, sharpness the only way to cover up the tremble in her voice.

Again he was silent for a moment. Between them, the fire danced quietly in the night breeze, the kettle forgotten amongst the embers. In the distance, the shriek of steel against steel suggested the alves had found their battlefield.

‘I just wanted to say I know what it feels like,’ Creon finally said, slowly, quietly, his gaze still trained on the flames. ‘To wake up one day and realise the game is not the game you thought it was, your allies are not the people you thought they were, and the rest of the world has every right to see you as a villain. I’ve been there. So feel free to ignore that, but if you’re looking for thoughts …’

His voice died away again, melting into the quiet of the night.

She sat frozen on her bench.

Danger, her mind was screaming, an overwhelming, paralysing reflex.Get out of here. This is a trap.It had to be, because the alternative explanation was that Creon Hytherion himself was beingvulnerable, and the gods would sooner return to life. Except …

Except hewashere, in this crumbling, rotting ruin.

Miles and miles away from the court and the game he’d once played to perfection. Miles away from the crown he could so easily have placed upon his own head, the ultimate victory in the scheme of backstabbing and strategic treason she’d vaguely assumed had been beyond every one of his decisions in the past few decades.

The Cobalt Court was a senselessly humble abode for the most powerful fae mage the world had ever known, and the Creon she knew would have agreed with her on that.

‘Who are you?’ she weakly said.

He gave a joyless laugh. ‘An idiot.’

Which had to be even more devious trickery, because of course the Mother’s son would never describe himself as anything less than the epitome of cunning and glory. But the look on his face was one she’d never seen before – a hollowness in his dark eyes far emptier than the black sky above.

If it was a lie, it was a strange one. She’d only ever seen him lie to make himself seem stronger, braver, fiercer.

‘Did I have the right, then?’ she tried, watching him closely, waiting for the mask to crack. ‘To see you as a villain?’

He hesitated.

‘Or does the penance end there?’ Her voice grew thorns again. ‘All well and good to accept the ire of the rest of the world, but not that of the one person sitting—’

‘Thys.’ He closed his eyes. ‘I could ask you the same thing.’

A shrill laugh escaped her. ‘What in the world have I ever done to become a villain inyoureyes? Failed to prostrate myself at your feet whenever you entered a room? Offered insufficient praise for every fucking blink of your eyes?’

‘You don’t remember?’ he said, and now he was the one to look away. ‘That time you found me in the barracks where I was hiding? Trying not to get dragged back onto the training field for the fifteenth time that day?’

She faltered.

The memory arrived in shreds, rapidly stitching themselves together – wooden walls, narrow beds, the pungent stench of sweat and bile. He’d been young. Very young. A bleeding gash in his shoulder, a puddle of vomit on the floor – the Mother’s ruthless training, that same training that had him fussed over and fawned over at every turn of his stupid little feet.

Stop whining, she’d snapped, hauling him from under the bed.

You have no idea how many people would kill to be in your place, she’d snapped, pushing him out of the door.

She stared at him now – fully grown, predator-sized, the inked scars of his training crude lines against the bronze of his skin – and felt the horror rise in her.

‘You do remember,’ he flatly concluded.

‘I haven’t thought about that day in decades,’ she whispered. ‘We … we were both so very young, weren’t we?’