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CHAPTER ELEVEN

T he armchair lets out a huff as I drop down on the soft brown cushions and lean back while raking my fingers through my hair. On the other side of the low table, Draven claims the remaining armchair while our four other companions are still making their way into the living room.

“I can’t believe that actually worked,” Alistair says as he throws himself down on the couch and swings his legs up across the cushions.

Galen unceremoniously pushes Alistair’s legs back down on the floor and sits down next to him.

From the other armchair, Draven turns to Alistair while a smug smile plays over his lips. “Like I said, not my first assassination.”

Alistair rolls his eyes, but instead of taking the bait, he shifts his gaze to Isera. “Would you sit down for once? You’re always lurking by the door like a little… lurker.”

Isera, who is leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, gives him a flat look. “Your extensive vocabulary dazzles me.”

He huffs. “It’s not…” Trailing off, he instead turns to frown at Lyra, who is strolling away from the living room. “And where are you going?”

She spins around gracefully to face us while continuing to walk backwards towards the kitchen. “To get some glasses, of course.”

On the couch, Galen sits up straighter and frowns at her. “Glasses? For what?”

A mischievous grin spreads across her mouth as she holds up a bottle. Both Alistair and I raise our eyebrows in surprise. Draven doesn’t look particularly surprised, and Galen just groans.

“Seriously?” Galen questions and flaps a hand in her direction. “Where did you even get that?”

Her orange eyes gleam. “I stole it from the mansion, of course.”

Galen sighs and rubs a hand across his face.

“What?” Lyra shrugs, a grin still on her mouth. “The guy’s dead. It’s not like he’s going to miss it.”

While Galen groans again and lets out a breath of amusement, Lyra winks and then disappears into the kitchen. The sound of clinking glasses drifts through the open doorway a few seconds later.

I turn to Alistair and arch an eyebrow. “I thought you blew up all the alcohol.”

“I didn’t blow it up,” Alistair says with a huff. Though there is slight embarrassment hiding underneath his scowl as he crosses his arms. “I just… accidentally set it on fire.”

“It was a pretty loud bang.” I raise my hands. “Just saying.”

He draws his eyebrows down farther. “Yeah, well, you try setting the fire next time, Soulstealer.”

“Alright,” Lyra announces before I can reply. “Victory drinks!”

She saunters back into the living room with two tall stacks of drinking glasses gripped in the palm of one hand and the bottle in her other.

Galen sucks in a sharp breath between his teeth and lurches up from the couch.

Darting forward, he grabs the two stacks that were tilting precariously and rescues them before they can topple to the floor and fill the room with broken glass.

“Azaroth’s flame, Lyra,” Galen begins, sounding exasperated, as he sets the glasses down on the low table. “You do know that you don’t have to make every activity into an extreme sport, right?”

“ Tsk .” She flashes him another grin. “My grandma always says that living on the edge is much more fun that living responsibly.”

“Yeah, well, your grandma is crazy.”

“How do you know? You haven’t even met her.”

“She’s related to you. That’s all the proof I need.”

I smile as they continue bickering while Lyra pours dark red wine into the water glasses that Galen has now position in front of everyone. Then my eyes slide to Draven, and a pang hits me right in the heart.

There is an awful mix of both hurt and desperate longing on his face as he watches the two of them.

The sight of it makes my chest tighten. This kind of friendship and familial love is what he could’ve had.

What he should’ve had. But because the Icehearts trapped him with dragon steel and forced him to do their bidding, he lost two centuries of friendship.

Two hundred years of being treated as a traitor by the people he was trying to protect.

And now, none of them seem to know how to act around each other.

Draven starts slightly, and his gaze darts to me, as if he could feel me watching him.

In a heartbeat, he wipes the forlorn expression off his features and instead gives me a smile.

I force myself to smile back, as if nothing is wrong, because I know that he didn’t want anyone to see what he was really feeling. But inside, my heart aches for him.

“Now then,” Lyra says, setting the now empty wine bottle down on the table with a thud and raising her full glass. “To victory.”

Couches creak and clothes rustle as the rest of us quickly reach for the glasses on the table. Only Isera remains standing immobile by the wall. Her blue and silver eyes are as cool and sharp as always as she watches us lift the glasses.

“To victory!” Lyra repeats, even more forcefully.

“To victory,” we all echo with a smile while holding our glasses in the air. There is something infectious about Lyra’s joy.

I take a sip of wine, and almost cough it back up. Slapping a hand in front of my mouth, I forcibly swallow the mouthful of alcohol. A shudder rolls down my spine. The wine is incredibly dry and almost… bitter.

While checking to make sure that Lyra hasn’t noticed, I carefully set the glass back down on the table.

“Does anyone else feel like this was way too easy?” Galen suddenly asks while everyone else sets down their glasses too.

Lyra shoots him an incredulous look. “Dude, I literally just said to victory . You couldn’t wait two more minutes or something before you start with the grumpy gloom and doom comments?”

He shoots her a half-offended look back. “What? Someone had to say it.”

“I agree with Galen,” Draven says before Lyra can reply. “It was a lot easier than I expected it to be.”

Both of them turn to him in surprise. I slide my gaze to him as well, but there is nothing left of the painful emotions on his face.

Now, there is only an expression of calm authority on his features.

Just like always. And now that I know about the dragon steel, I suddenly understand why he has trained himself to expertly block out emotions.

“But you know as well as I do,” he continues.

“Unseelie fae always honor the bargains they make. They saved Selena, and now we have killed this Wolfstalker guy. Orion is expecting us to deliver this news at dawn. Once we have, our deal is done. We have what we came for, and Orion got what he wanted.”

Alistair sits up straighter. “And then we can leave.”

Draven slides his gaze to him. “Yes.”

“We shouldn’t leave,” Isera growls from the wall.

The sharpness in her tone makes me jump. Blinking, I turn to face her. And so does everyone else.

That terrible fury burns in her eyes like blue flames as she stares us all down. “We’re inside the wards. This is our chance to force Nightbane and the entire Unseelie Court to help us take down the Icehearts.”

“Force him?” Alistair counters. “How the hell are we supposed to force the Unseelie King to do anything? We have no power here. No leverage.” He flings out an arm and stabs a hand in Draven’s direction.

“Mabona’s tits, the fucking Shadow of Death had to grovel on his knees for us to even be allowed in through the wards. ”

Draven winces ever so slightly, but everyone else was looking at Alistair, so they don’t notice that. I do, though. And I once again swear to any goddess or god who will listen that I will make sure that Draven never has to do anything like that ever again.

“We have to do something ,” Isera snarls back.

“We can’t take down the entire Iceheart Dynasty on our own.

You know it. I know it. We need allies. Powerful allies.

Dangerous allies.” Uncrossing her arms, she stabs a hand towards the window and the castle sleeping in the darkened night outside.

“He’s an arrogant ruthless bully, but he has nightmare powers.

And most importantly, he has a healer and a guy with portal magic. We need them.”

“No, what we need is to get the hell out of here.” Alistair throws his arms out and looks between the rest of us. “Right?”

I hesitate. The problem is that both of them are right. Isera is right that we need powerful and dangerous allies before we can even hope to go up against the Icehearts. But Alistair is also right. We have no way of forcing the Unseelie King to help us.

Isera clenches her jaw in anger. Pushing off from the wall, she stalks across the room without another word and disappears into the corridor that houses the bedrooms. Galen lets out a long sigh and rakes a hand through his blond hair while Alistair once more crosses his arms and scowls.

Sitting on the floor on the other side of the low table, Lyra stares after Isera for another few seconds before she turns her head back. She looks incredibly disappointed as she glances from face to face and then down to the still full wine glasses on the table.

“Well, there goes that celebration.”