Page 89 of Night’s Fall (The Four Realms #1)

“I know that feeling,” he murmured before he took another sip and returned his attention to the windows.

I was getting concerned, because he didn’t seem mad, he didn’t seem remote, he wasn’t being argumentative.

I didn’t know what was happening.

I moved deeper into the room and encouraged, “ Aleksei , talk to me.”

“The most likely result of what’s about to happen is that the many beings in Sky’s Edge who wanted Arnaud out and Tanyn in will rejoice.

Arnaud will answer for the murder, and to the UCR for the invasion tonight, the deaths that occurred, and if we can find the evidence to support it, his assassination attempts on you and me. ”

“Well, that’s good,” I remarked.

He again turned to me. “ However , some of his followers are more like zealots. This spectacular fall from grace isn’t unexpected, considering he’s insane, and he’s never given any indication he’s brilliantly insane, just insane.

That does not extend to his mother, who, as far as we know at this point, has done nothing.

Though with the kind of female she is, none of us believe she doesn’t have some hand in this if only to encourage his insanity and attempt to keep her son on the throne.

Now , she’ll be removed from Berg Castle .

Tanyn may even be moved to strip her of the title she stole from his mother, and he’ll soon have the power to do so.

And she will not like either of those things. And she is far cleverer than her son.”

Hmm.

This didn’t sound good.

“So we’re not out of the woods,” I deduced.

“We’re not out of the woods, and you stream.”

I took another step toward him. “ Aleksei , I really want to understand where you are in your head, but I’m not locking on.”

“You cannot control her, as I can barely control him. This is where we are, darling. But for my part, I have no choice but to come to terms with the fact you are warrior caste, in a time of possible war, and that will not be easy. But the bottom line is, you are, and we are for all intents and purposes at war, so you were brought in on the briefing because you need to know what’s happening. ”

One good thing about this (really good), he was skipping past the critically-debilitating and the rift-tearing-us-asunder parts and pushing directly into the dealing-with-it part.

Even so, I said, “ I’m not a warrior. I don’t even want to be.”

“ Bissi ,” he said softly. “ You flew in formation and instinctually understood our cover fire strategy without my creature communicating that first thing to yours. Even before that, you glided low for over five hundred yards with the enemy leaping for you, and you flew evasively so successfully, not a single one of them got close to touching you. I’ve seen this before at Red Lair .

There are those who just get it. It’s natural.

Ingrained . I was one. And you, my darling, are too. ”

All right, even though a bit of me thought this was cool (a bit), I made a face, because, no shade on kickass warriors with ingrained instincts, I wasn’t all fired up to be one.

He chuckled and ordered, “ Come here.”

The chuckle was good.

The order to come there was better.

I went, and he wrapped an arm around me and held me close.

“Now that I’m not terrified for you, I can tell you I’m proud of you,” he stated.

Aw.

My gorgeous male.

“I’m proud of you too.”

That got me another chuckle.

And he took another sip of his whisky.

I waited for more.

But I guessed that was it. No knock down, drag out. No big scene.

Thank the gods.

“Aren’t you tired?” I asked because he had to be. I certainly was.

“I want to watch Dad’s announcement. It should have gone out by now. We can get a replay. And then, yes, we need to sleep. Tomorrow is going to be busy.”

I nodded.

He took his drink and me to the bedroom.

From the ceiling, he unfurled the screen that hung at the foot of the bed.

We hit the bathroom and got ready for sleep, went back out, and after we settled in, me cuddled to Aleksei’s side, he ordered the screen to display the king and Prime Minister’s announcement.

I heard Germaine all over it, even if she wasn’t on the PM’s staff, and the PM did most of the talking.

So it was good. Angry . Clear . Resolute . Short . But informative.

And surprisingly, they intimated that Arnaud may be behind the attempts on Aleksei and my lives, as well as the deaths of Antheme , Naylan Biggerstaff and Richard Tayor .

When it was done, he ordered the screen to refold and reached for his Palm .

With me watching and reading as he did, he thumbed through some social tapes.

Shock. Dismay . Outrage . Disbelief .

There were some that clearly came from the Edge calling for beings to calm down and wait for more information to emerge.

But there was also a ton of footage that had been uploaded by guests of the troll attack (including, embarrassingly, of my dragon, and Aleksei’s , doing warrior things—he was right, we looked like we’d trained together for years, and it was awesome, it was also crazy).

I had a feeling from the tapes and comments that our ratings were going to go up again.

But mostly, he was alive. I was alive. All the ones we loved were alive. Aleksei didn’t lose it because my beast entered the fray (well, not too much). Arnaud would be arrested. Tanyn would be crowned king soon.

And I was shattered.

So while Aleksei continued to scroll, I passed out.