Page 24 of The Gathering

Bala jumped to her feet, her laughter dying. “My King,” she choked out.

Dorian was so excited to see Aydra that he threw his hands in the air. “Sister!”

“Drae!” Nyssa joined in, moving over. “Sit here,” she begged her.

It swelled Dorian’s heart to feel such laughter and happiness in one room. Aydra gave him a wink as she stepped up to them and pressed her hands into Nyssa’s shoulders.

“Did you leave us any food?” she asked, eyes glowing between them.

“Barely,” Nyssa replied. “Dorian thinks he’s a starving Ulfram.”

Dorian’s grin widened. “Growing men need sustenance,” he winked.

“Grown men also need sustenance,” Draven said as he sat at the end of the opposite bench, followed by Aydra, who sat between Draven and Nyssa. Dorian eyed the plate of pocket pastries that he knew Nyssa loved and shoved them towards Aydra and Draven.

“Try those,” he said. “One of my own recipes.”

“You wish it was your recipe,” Nyssa rolled her eyes. “You’ve never cooked a thing in your life.”

“I have,” he argued.

“Name one.”

“I…” He paused as he tried to push through his sleepy mind to find an answer. “Soup,” he decided. “Sandwiches. Cheese danishes,” he added with an elevated brow.

Nyssa’s lips puckered as a genuine smile lifted to her eyes. “Fine,” she agreed. “I suppose you’re not horrible.”

Dorian knew her comment was sincere, as he’d learned to cook some things just so that she would eat in the years after their markings. He’d hated how she struggled after their mother degraded her so terribly the year before they were marked that he’d found her nearly dead. He’d sworn he would not see her hate herself as she did that year, and he tried everything to get her back.

“—skipping duties runs in the family,” Draven was saying, and Dorian realized they were talking about practice the day before.

“It was a perfect day for it,” he chimed in. “Rain. Lightning. Nyssa cheated—“

“I did not cheat,” Nyssa argued.

The look on Aydra’s face when she learned Nyssa had shown off in front of Bala made him chuckle. He wished Nyssa had been confident enough to show Aydra what all she had become, the things she’d learned just so she could live up to what she thought Aydra expected of her.

All he could do was smile between them as he watched the smiles on their faces. His favorite people. The two he wanted to see as they conquered the world.

And when he saw Aydra joking with Draven, teasing him, followed by Draven grabbing her, he swore the sun brightened outside the dusty window.

She was blushing—blushing—and laughing. Thatlaugh… he’d never heard her laugh like that, and it made emotion bubble behind his eyes that he wasn’t sure how to comprehend.

“I didn’t know you could laugh like that,” Dorian said as the pair settled.

“Neither did I,” Nyssa said, and he heard her voice breaking as much as his was.

Bala went off on a tangent a few minutes later, distracting Dorian and Nyssa both enough to speak honestly about their fighting the day before. As they talked about their own exploits, he watched Aydra and Draven in their own little world, heard snips of their conversation every now and then, and one look at Nyssa told him she was listening more intently to them than she was to he and Bala.

“Who is Nadir?” Nyssa asked them.

Aydra reached forward for her drink. “Someone you’re not to concern yourself with,” she answered.

“Good luck with that,” Bala muttered, and Dorian turned to see the Venari locking eyes with Draven, who was then shifting in his own seat.

Dorian had only heard the name in passing, though he’d never been told much about the male except that he was of the Honest and one of the traders, as well as one of Draven’s greatest friends.

“What?” Bala was saying to Draven. “She’s his type, isn’t she?”