Chapter 3

Peridot Eyes

Fenric

I t figured the necromancer would not be in Beacon Hill when Fenric came calling. He snooped about the townhouse, passing through the wards with ease, sticking his little kitty nose in doorways and avoiding the staff. There was a room for what Fenric assumed was the dragon he’d heard about—it smelled of scales, fire, and gold. He refrained from going inside the room, not wanting to piss off a dragon by entering its territory. The house was also home to a pair of werewolves and a vampire of considerable power, and the necromancer, of course. Yet none of them were home, and Fenric detested waiting on other people.

The foyer smelled of blood—human mixed with blood magic—and he wrinkled his nose in distaste as he jumped out a partially open window in the parlor overlooking the front street.

His senses told him there were enforcers watching nearby—he smelled the magic on them, layered on top of the local scents that were more entrenched, marking them as more recent arrivals. He didn’t see them, but his nose was never wrong.

He didn’t enjoy the thought of traipsing south to the Salvatore Mansion in his cat form, and made sure to slink off into a nearby alley before transforming into his sidhe body. He patted his pockets and found his wallet, then stepped out of the alley on the other side of the block where luckily a cab was nearby. He hailed the cab and gave the cabbie directions south, sitting back in the seat and pondering his day so far.

Fenric

The cab dropped him off on the side of the road outside the huge residential neighborhood his intel said housed the Salvatore Mansion. It was a wealthy neighborhood, based on the size of the estates and the houses, the houses so far apart they were hard to see from the old access road, obscured by trees and distance. Echoes of tragedy from the Salvatore Massacre kept away new developments and the main entrance of the neighborhood was moved to the far side away from the Salvatore Mansion, no one wanting to build near the neighbors that had experienced so much violence and tragedy.

Fenric decided that going as a small housecat would be the better choice to get him through the neighborhood without being seen—especially since his nose told him there was a car full of High Council enforcers parked near the closest entrance. The car was behind a dilapidated decorative wall at the entrance, and he stayed on the street, just out of view, the pockmarked wall between him and the enforcers.

The cab disappeared, and Fenric glanced around with both his eyes and his magic, and found no one in his line of sight—he transformed again, and went smaller than he usually preferred—no one really paid any mind to a stray cat wandering a neighborhood. Thankfully it was not autumn, as he refused to tolerate the superstitious nature of some ignorant humans about black cats. Fenric meandered behind the back side of the decorative wall, behind the town car that idled obliviously at the entrance, and into the tall sea grass that abutted the tiny speck of manicured lawn by the wall. A black cat should not be so easily hidden within a field of light green, but he knew from experience that he was invisible to the human eye once he was in deep enough. No one saw him, and he opened his senses and headed toward the glowing beacon of powerful magic that was the Salvatore Mansion.

It took him a couple of hours to get to the estate. He was small as a housecat, and that meant smaller steps, but he managed it, reaching the estate in the late afternoon. He paused outside the wards and took in the massive structure that was the house, along with the shields and wards that protected it.

Following the curve of the property toward the ocean, Fenric sniffed along the wards, his nose telling him plenty as he searched for the best place to cross.

A High Court Sidhe’s magic permeated the grounds, the earth rejoicing in the presence of one so powerful and attuned to nature.

Rory Brennan was alive and well for the magic to be so calm, nurturing, and soothing.

If the land was at peace, then so was Rory, and there was no chaotic scent of grief and impending madness that came when one half of a sidhe twin pair died.

That meant Cian Brennan was alive and well, despite official news to the contrary.

Fenric cheered quietly, purring at the thought of seeing the twins again after so long. With Rory awake rather than dead, and Cian sane once again, he would have the chance to reconnect with old friends, and perhaps not feel so alone in the world. He had been overseas when news of Cian’s recent killing spree reached him, and for the longest time he doubted the veracity of the reports. For him, Cian Brennan had been dead for centuries, after Rory fell in battle.

To be proven wrong and reunited with the twins, with Cian, made him mourn the last two centuries of separation. He missed Rory, of course, but it was Cian he truly missed the most.

Shaking his head to dispel his maudlin thoughts, Fenric sat in a comfortable hollow of grass and warm sand where the wards ended at the beach. He curled up and decided a nap was in order—he would cross the wards at night, better to blend in with the shadows. He hoped Rory and Cian found him first—he did not want to explain to an irate necromancer who he was and why he was there.

He woke to silence.

Not even crickets chirped. Nature knew when something was afoot—when a predator was hunting.

Or a human assassin was trying to get paid.

An obfuscation charm was hiding the man from magical senses, but poorly—the sidhe saw with an eye that encompassed the entirety of the natural world, and the patchy blank spot in Fenric’s awareness was as obvious as a spotlight. Something was creeping along the wards, and the black-clad silhouette coalesced from the shadows into a human-shaped form not far from where Fenric was curled up in the tall grass.

He kept as still as death, eyes and magical senses tracking each flicker of movement and magic, and he sensed when the wards pinged the intruder and alerted the Mansion inhabitants.

The assassin was facing Fenric’s location, and he would not be able to surprise the bastard if he moved—the white spot on his chest would catch the moonlight, along with his eyes, so Fenric waited to see if the man was going to pass his hiding spot. If he did, Fenric was going to ambush him from behind—there was no such thing as honor among assassins. Death was the final judge.

Waiting proved unnecessary—a blur of green and blue speared through the wards and knocked the assassin back several feet, though the man was quick and pulled a sword, swinging for his attacker’s neck.

Fenric watched in awe and delight as Cian Brennan dodged the blow, twirling his body and daggers in a move fit for a ballet stage—and then the assassin was dead, twin daggers buried to the hilt in his heart.

Cian pushed the body off his daggers with a foot to the man’s torso and the body dropped, and Fenric, too delighted for common sense, let his transformation carry him to his feet.

The ease with which Cian flipped the dagger in his grip and threw it at him was impressive. He was so distracted by seeing Cian again that he almost didn’t catch the dagger before it made contact with his skull. He snagged it from the air and smiled at the marvelous sidhe warrior he never thought to see again.

Cian

“Damnation, Cian, I wanted to kill that one myself,” a familiar voice growled from the shadows, and the figure moved out of the leeward shadow of a dune and carefully picked a path through the grassy sand to reach Cian where he still stood over the body.

A sweet, dangerous smile of pale pink lips and double-fanged teeth greeted him, and Cian found it hard to breathe when the cat-sidhe handed the dagger back, hilt first.

“Apologies, Fenric, I did not know you wanted the kill,” Cian managed to croak out, startled and stunned in equal measure.

That catch had been quite impressive.

Almost as impressive as the impact of seeing Fenric again after so very long.

Fenric only came up to the middle of his chest and was slim and wiry, with pale white skin, peridot cat eyes, and hair as black as midnight, and he was the prettiest thing Cian had seen in two hundred and fifty years, since the last time he saw him, in fact.

“Well, there are more assassins coming for the Necromancer of Boston, so I imagine I’ll get more kills soon. Want to wager who gets the most?”

Cian found it hard to speak, too flabbergasted by Fenric to muster up a reply, and Fenric gave him a sharp grin and a wicked wink that made him twitch a smidge.

The body at his feet was dripping blood everywhere, soaking the grasses, and the growing puddle had nearly reached his boots, but Cian was hardly bothered, not when a smile he never expected to see again was taking all his attention. Fenric’s smile was carefree and teasing, as if he knew the turmoil he created merely by being in Cian’s presence. There was a history there, and Cian felt the rush of those long-ago moments pass through his mind in the seconds since meeting the intense gaze of the cat-sidhe.

“Cian!”

His brother’s call made him look away from lovely peridot eyes, and Cian held up a hand in warning and greeting as Rory and Simeon reached the top of the dune and came down the nearest side, sliding down in a shower of grass and sand.

“The assassin is dead,” Cian said, Rory reaching him in a second and Simeon headed to the corpse, nudging the body with his foot. “I am fine.”

Rory still grabbed him by the shoulders and looked him over from head to toe, checking for injury, and Cian let him. His twin loved him and worried for him—they were entwined forever, and an injury to one affected the other. Cian held the bloody daggers away from his body so as not to smear Rory.

“An assassin,” Simeon said, musing aloud. “Sent for who?”

Rory let go of Cian and turned to look at the body himself.

Cian checked on his shadow—it spoke to Fenric’s power that neither Rory nor Simeon noticed the cat-sidhe, despite him being plastered to Cian’s back.

“The Necromancer of Boston, of course,” Fenric declared, looking around Cian’s shoulder, mouth curled in a sassy smile, teeth too sharp to be human, eyes slit like a cat’s.

Simeon, for all he was a powerful vampire with heightened senses, jumped a foot and turned on Fenric with a startled hiss, much like a cat himself—and Fenric giggled, leaning on Cian’s back, his warmth seeping into Cian.

Rory startled, and spun from the body, ready to fight, but he relaxed with a surprised breath and stared at Fenric like he was a ghost.

In some ways, he was—a ghost of a life unlived. Rory last saw Fenric just before the battle that felled Rory two hundred and fifty years prior—for Rory, it felt like it was months, while Cian and Fenric took the longer route. Yet the passage of time had messed with them all.

“Fenric?” Rory exclaimed, startled and confused. “I… you’re here.”

Simeon relaxed quickly, and they all turned to watch Angel and Daniel approaching through the dunes, taking the path that meandered through the sea grass instead of the quicker, more direct route the other two took. The danger was past and they sensed it, likely through their mate bonds and the wards.

Angel reached Simeon and stood over the dead man Cian killed moments earlier. He bent to look at the face, and shook his head after a moment. “I don’t know him. Who is he and what was he doing?”

“An assassin,” Cian replied, pointing to the sword the man dropped in the grass, and then the obfuscation charms sewn into his black clothing. “I found him attempting to enter the wards. I confronted him and he tried to take off my head. I killed him.”

Angel gave Cian a searching glance, and then his eyes went wide as he noticed the cat-sidhe in Cian’s shadow. The moon was full overhead, giving the shadows a silvery hue to them that lit up everything within sight, almost as bright as day. Fenric, all blacks and whites and silvers, blended into the shadows, and only his snow-white complexion and startling eyes were visible as he peeked around Cian’s shoulder.

“Cian, who’s your friend?” Angel asked cautiously, though he made no aggressive moves. The blatant cuddling Fenric was doing probably had something to do with it.

“Angelus Salvatore, this is Fenric Feralas, an old friend from our early days in this new world. Fenric, this is Angel Salvatore, Necromancer of Boston and the master of these lands. He’s rather tetchy about people showing up unannounced and trying to enter the wards, so be a dear and call ahead.”

“Gimme your number,” Fenric said, taking him literally, nudging Cian’s elbow. All he did to acknowledge Angel was a tiny finger wave before he smiled up at Cian again.

“Hold up, please,” Angel interrupted, but Cian pulled out his phone and unlocked it, giving it to Fenric without a blink as Angel stared at them in confusion and some frustration. “Who are you exactly and why are you here?”

“Oh, I’m an assassin, too, and was hired ,” that last bit was stressed with anger and sarcasm, “to kill you. I wasn’t the only one, though, obviously.” Fenric gestured with Cian’s phone to the dead man leaking on the grass. “I tried to refuse the job but the blood mage guy who tried to hire me gave me no choice. He was going to cut off my head, so I said yes. It’s a night for near-decapitations it seems.”

Simeon growled and stared at Fenric with predatory focus, but Fenric merely grinned and wiggled his fingers in a wave at the vampire.

“I’m here to warn you,” Fenric said, rolling his eyes. “I’m obviously not here to kill anyone. Cian took care of that for me.”

Fenric was texting on Cian’s phone—he held up the phone so Cian could see he was texting himself so they had each other’s numbers, then gave the phone back to Cian, who took it with a nod in thanks. Cian put the phone away, and Fenric refused to be dislodged from his clinging, hands clutching at Cian’s clothing.

“You took the job,” Angel said, suspicious. “You’re fae. They don’t break their word. Maybe this warning is a ruse to get close so you can kill me.”

“Uh-uh,” Fenric said, tsking and wagging a single finger at Angel. “I am cait-sidhe, and while my word is my honor, I never gave it willingly. Loopholes are a thing.”

“His promise given under duress is not a promise freely given—it makes it invalid, and the dishonor falls on the one doing the coercing,” Rory explained to Angel, watching Fenric with some surprise and a flicker of joy—they had been friends, after all.

Fenric was leaning on Cian, one arm curled around his back and the other clinging to his arm, where Fenric pressed his face, rubbing his cheek and chin along Cian’s upper arm and shoulder. It was remarkably feline in a sense, which was only logical, as the cait-sidhe were shapeshifters, and their preferred form was that of a cat. The scent marking was unexpected, though.

Cian was surprised at himself for allowing the touching for so long without shaking the cat-sidhe loose. He wasn’t one for tactile friendships, but then the cait-sidhe were Elder fae, and cousins to the High Court Sidhe. And he and Fenric had been friends, before Rory fell in battle and Cian lost his way and his mind.

And living with Daniel, who delighted in physical touch with his loved ones, had softened Cian over the last several weeks. Daniel was great at hugs, and he hugged Cian with more frequency since he mated Rory, almost as much as he hugged Angel or his best friend, Isaac.

Cian, Rory, and Fenric were all very long-lived. Friendships never died when the parties involved lived forever. What was two centuries when they were immortal?

“Okay, what are we doing about the body? Cian can’t be involved in a police report.” Angel said, hands on his hips. “He’s still officially dead.”

“You smell wonderful for a dead man,” Fenric murmured, looking up at Cian through thick black lashes.

That made Cian choke out a laugh, shoulders shaking. Cian wiped at his mouth, trying to hide the grin. Fenric was a highly irreverent being with a cutting sense of humor, one apparently unchanged by the long years since Cian saw him last.

“Oh, Hecate’s balls,” Angel muttered. “There’s two of them now.”

“We can get rid of the body,” Simeon told Angel. “The bloodclan can dispose of it.”

“That’s scary,” Angel said, though he gave his mate a nod and a smile. “Is it legal-ish? I don’t want O’Malley showing up to arrest me. That would get awkward.”

“Sovereignty has its perks,” Simeon replied, and he bent down and grabbed the sword, standing to examine it in the moonlight. “I’ll call and arrange for the coroner to come and get the body. I’ll call O’Malley as well, but he hasn’t doubted our claims of self-defense yet, so I doubt he will this time.”

“Tell your policeman I was the one to kill the assassin,” Rory told Simeon. “In case there’s traces of Cian left on the body. Our DNA is identical, too.”

“I doubt they’ll care that much to do a DNA test, but that comes in handy if they do.” Simeon assured them.

Cian grew bored with the conversation, and handed a dagger to Fenric, who took it without complaint, while Cian pulled a silk handkerchief from the ether and began cleaning the dagger he still held, wiping at the blood. It had been a few minutes so the blood was growing tacky and sticking to the metal, and Cian sighed in aggravation. He enjoyed fighting but cleanup after was always a chore.

Fenric made a disgruntled scoffing noise and shook the hand holding the dagger, magic washing up over the hilt and up the long blade, the blood disappearing, leaving the weapon pristine and shining. “You hate the cleaning of blades yet you do it the long way. Still haven’t changed, I see.”

“Maybe I like the way the blades look after hand-cleaning them,” Cian retorted, gently elbowing Fenric, who dodged the slow nudge with a chuckle.

“Nah, you forgot you could clean them with magic,” Fenric replied, whip-fast and snarky. “You’re getting old.”

Cian glared at Fenric, but without any heat. Fenric was not as old as the Brennan twins, but he was still Elder fae. Most of the cait-sidhe were old, those that remained, at least. At last count the cait-sidhe weren’t functionally extinct, not like the High Court Sidhe. In his travels the last few centuries he’d come across plenty of Elder fae peoples who remained—the selkies, cait-sidhe, kelpies, and many others. It was his own people who numbered the least.

“I might have,” Cian retorted, rueful. “But I would not admit such.” Cian waved the silk cloth and sent power rushing from hand to silk, cleaning away the blood, then did the same to the dagger he was holding, cleaning it as well. He dismissed both into the ether, and took back the blade Fenric cleaned, dismissing that as well after a cursory inspection, finding Fenric’s magic had left it in pristine condition.

Fenric always knew how to care for his weapons.

“How do you know each other?” Angel’s question reminded Cian that there were still other people present, and he looked at the necromancer before arching a brow at his brother to explain.

“Fenric was among the fae we helped leave the Old World for the colonies when we traveled here ourselves the first time. We went by ship, and he was one of the passengers.” Rory shared, going to Daniel and hugging his husband, who gave him a beautiful smile. “We brought over many fae peoples escaping persecution and death at the hands of the High Council of Sorcery.”

Fenric sighed happily, watching the new husbands, who were gazing at each other with love in their eyes and sappy smiles. They were matching his research exactly as he expected them to. “Aahh, newlyweds. So lovey-dovey.”

Cian quirked a brow and pointedly looked down at his arm that Fenric was now hugging with both of his arms, virtually glued to Cian’s side. “Just the newlyweds?”

“Shhhh,” Fenric mock-whispered. “Don’t spoil our reunion.”

“Is the dead body not spoiling it?” Cian asked, curious.

“Oh no, that’s perfectly lovely. Adds to the ambience.” Fenric replied with a sharp grin. Literally. He was blessed with double fangs, two sets on top and bottom, though with a larger primary set and the secondary at least half the size.

Fenric was quite beautiful, with his lush pink mouth, shiny and thick black hair, white skin that glowed in the moonlight, and eyes that reflected the light like mirrors, pupils wide, slit vertically like a feline.

Cian made himself look away, and caught his brother’s amused expression, and the gentle, teasing affection along their bond. Cian appreciated beauty—and Rory knew it.

“Come, let them deal with the body and securing the grounds,” Fenric murmured. “I want to catch up with you.”

Cian nodded and walked into the shadows with Fenric still clutching his arm like he was afraid Cian would disappear.

Not surprising—the moment Rory went into stasis, the connection between them severed, the old Cian was gone. All that he was, gone—nothing but memory clouded by loss and echoing grief. And a creeping abyss that came for him in the end.

If Fenric had seen him after the battle at Lexington, he would not have recognized Cian.

Cian hadn’t even recognized himself.

Fenric

Fenric hung onto the strong, muscular arm of the High Court Sidhe and both cursed himself and counted his blessings—Cian was alive, and while he was glad the reports of Cian’s death were grossly inaccurate, Cian was a distraction, and distractions got assassins killed.

He might’ve lived closer to forever than not, but that didn’t mean he was sanguine about dying. He wanted more forevers. And now that he knew Cian was alive, he knew exactly how he wanted those forevers to be. His conflicting emotions were in turmoil but he stamped them down, refusing to let himself ruin this reunion with Cian.

They walked through the tall dunes, the path winding through the thigh-high grass, the white gravel seeming to his eyes to absorb the moonlight and glow.

His sensitive ears picked up on the men talking on the other side of the dunes, and they had yet to notice them leaving. A neat trick of his, using the shadows to hide completely. They might notice soon, but that was all right. He had nothing to hide. At least nothing the Salvatore clan would be interested in.

“Where have you been these last few centuries?” Cian asked, heading straight for the heart of the matter. He was curious, not accusatory, and that eased some worry Fenric carried.

“Colm was dead and Rory had fallen, and the few people who knew what happened said you were dead with Rory,” Fenric said. “I searched and searched for you both. I could not find you after the battle, and too many people needed help for me to continue forever searching for the two of you. I did what I could to find our party members safe homes, soft places to land, during the escape from Lexington. Do you remember the aftermath of the battle with the British?”

Cian paused and stood looking out over the sand to the ocean, the waning moon a couple of days past full and illuminating the beach with a silver glow. The air was laden with salt, grass, and wildflowers.

The High Court Sidhe gave off a comforting aura of body heat, and Fenric wanted to curl up in Cian’s lap and never leave again.

“Rory took a sword to the heart,” Cian said, and Fenric’s breath stuttered for a second before he collected himself. Cian continued. “A single wound, but it laid him low, nearly took his life. I remember nothing afterwards but for Colm fighting to escape the battle, dragging Rory and me with him in the chaos. We managed to keep Rory alive long enough for Colm’s plan to work. Afterward, I began my search immediately for a priest to resurrect him.”

“Colm’s plan?” Fenric asked, and he had a sneaking suspicion it was something devastating. What he knew from the leaked police reports and subsequent rumors was spotty, and he hoped it wasn’t as bad as the rumors portrayed. He’d paid a hacker to get Cian’s statements after his recent arrest, and the reports were a bit incomplete—he knew it had been Cian censoring himself to prevent certain details from going public. Some things no one should know, especially the authorities.

“It was his plan to place Rory in a stasis spell while I searched for a priest to stop his death and resurrect him with a new heart,” Cian shared. “He volunteered his death to fuel the spell. His sacrifice kept Rory alive for centuries, in time for the Necromancer of Boston to heal him.”

A stasis spell—a living purgatory, limbo—there were many names for the unceasing, endless nothingness that encompassed the person trapped within. And it totally cut Cian off from his twin, and their shared soul. The High Court Sidhe and the cait-sidhe were not meant to be cut off from siblings with a shared soul—it was unnatural for their kind. Fenric was not a multiple, but he knew cait-sidhe who were, and for any of them to lose a part of their very soul was a horrifying thing to contemplate.

Fenric knew the rest of the story from the police reports he bought. Cian spent centuries alone while he searched for a priest of their people, coming up empty-handed, and eventually he succumbed to the madness of losing the other half of his soul; he began killing people, searching for a heart fit to resurrect his twin. Several humans and werewolves were killed, and Cian accepted his guilt and the thousand-year sentence from the human government, ending up in Blackguard Prison.

Cian accepted his punishment despite the fact that his mental state was severely altered and his capacity for making ethical and moral decisions diminished, his conscience and empathy neutered with Rory held in stasis. He had the very valid defense of an insanity plea, yet he did not take it.

How Cian was free and on Salvatore property was still a mystery to Fenric.

Cian found a plush patch of grass and sat, pulling Fenric down with him to sit beside him. Fenric resisted the urge to crawl into Cian’s lap and snuggle, so he settled for curling up against his side and resting his head on Cian’s shoulder.

Cian huffed in amusement but let Fenric be, accepting the contact.

“Why aren’t you in Blackguard?” Fenric asked softly, eyes on the inky black horizon over the ocean. Tiny hints of stars winked in and out, dampened by the moon’s brilliance.

“Humans in the prison conspired with the High Council of Sorcery to torture and abduct me for access to the underhill,” Cian shared, and Fenric was chilled with horror at the words. “I nearly died. Angel Salvatore took me out of Blackguard to prevent humans from trying to use me again, and concocted the fake death to keep me hidden.”

“You still have it then? The underhill?” Fenric asked, curious. The temple was the last bit of it that Fenric ever saw, and he wondered whether it had changed in this modern age.

“Why? Do you wish to use it as others have done? Do you covet its power?” Cian asked, and Fenric was insulted enough to lightly swat Cian on the shoulder with one hand, frowning, until he saw the laughter in Cian’s eyes, which to his surprise weren’t stormy, but a rich amber.

“Your eyes?” Fenric asked, even as the obvious answer clicked. “Ah, you look like Rory with those eyes. Anyone watching will see your brother and not you. Clever.” Fenric settled back down, rubbing his cheek on a strong shoulder, scent marking his old friend. “Though anyone watching will think less of Rory for snuggling with someone not his husband.” Cian sighed at his words, and Fenric chuckled before continuing. “And you know I don’t need your precious underhill to travel. The responsibility of having such a thing at my beck and call is enough to make me ill. You’re welcome to it.”

“Apologies, Fenric. I meant no insult. My teasing was in bad taste. Too much time spent among greedy humans,” Cian apologized sweetly, which made Fenric happy.

“You’re forgiven,” Fenric said with a smile, a purr building in his throat. He let the sound free, happy he bothered to follow his conscience and curiosity and warn the Necromancer of Boston that the High Council of Sorcery was hiring assassins to kill him.

Cian

Cian sat under the stars with Fenric and tried to reconcile his unexpected good fortune with how he had imagined his life going for the foreseeable future. Or not going, as the case may be. Simeon had mentioned that Cian might try living instead of surviving—Rory was awake, no longer in stasis, and Cian was restored to who he had been before Rory fell in battle.

It was time to live.

Living was something he had plenty of experience with—he was older than most mortal species on the planet. Ever since he left his mother’s side and struck out into the world with his twin brother, Cian had been living. And then, with the strike of a sword, he stopped.

With every day that passed he felt that the time Rory spent in limbo was a dream. Disconnected from reality, his mind was now clearer, more focused, and he felt more. Emotions were no longer echoes or discordant memories, but his own to feel again in all their breadth and depth.

Though he was never going to be the epitome of love and compassion that was Rory—Cian was the harsher, sharper side of their soul, far more ruthless and ofttimes reckless.

“What are you thinking about so hard?” Fenric asked quietly, gazing up at the stars.

“Living,” Cian replied readily, looking up at the stars too.

“That’s wonderful,” Fenric replied softly, sincere.

Cian smiled.