Page 79 of A Dance With Fire
Fuck, his whole body hurt. He felt like he was dying, but then that wasn’t right either. He’d witnessed plenty of death in his lifetime. He knew exactly what it was like. Sometimes it was loud and painful, screaming agony that haunted dreams. Other times it was silent, a soul drifting in the shadows.
And death and pain weren’t the same anyway.
But they did hurt a hell of a lot.
“Fuck,” he groaned, pulling his palm from his abdomen. Blood stained his fingers and he grunted. That human had got him good. It was unfortunate his magic didn’t extend to himself. But this? This was nothing compared to what others went through. He’d felt it all, had agonized through so many wounds that weren’t his own and bared the scars so they wouldn’t have to.
This was no different.
He took a steadying breath and pushed himself off the wall, slowly making his way to the room he used as his whenever he was in the castle. After cleaning and sewing his wound closed, knowing it’d heal in just a few days, he changed and went in search of a drink.
Things at the castle were quiet, somber. It was how he knew Valerio’s father, the King of the Seelie, was not here. Had he been, they all would have been ushered into a meeting room as quickly as they could, sick and bleeding be damned.
King Ashera wasn’t cruel. Not exactly. But he and Valerio both had a heavy weight on their shoulders. They needed armies, and the king meant to get them in whatever way he could. That meant the sick could wait but plans of battle could not.
Ryker made his way to the makeshift bar near the hearth where a blazing fire burned. He avoided looking too hard into the flames, because the dramatic flickering reminded him of Shula and her explosive magic.
He took a seat at a stool that groaned under his heavy weight and flagged down the Unseelie Fae behind the counter; a satyr named Ram who knew his order by heart. Without having to utter a word, a bottle and a glass were placed in front of Ryker.
He grunted his thanks and uncapped it to pour himself a generous amount. He brought the glass to his lips and felt the burn of the amber liquid down his throat.
Ryker was alone for all of a minute before the empty seat next to him became occupied with Julius’ much bigger frame. After flagging down Ram and having an empty glass placed in front of him, Julius helped himself to Ryker’s bottle.
“King will be here tomorrow.” Julius brought the rim of his glass up to his nose for a sniff that left his face scrunched in a disgusted expression. “Valerio got word from Weylyn.” He snorted. “Fucking Weylyn.”
Fucking Weylyn, indeed. Ryker grunted his agreement and took another burning sip.
“They want us to wait on interrogating the human until after King Ashera gets here.” He downed the contents in his glass and hissed. “Tastes like piss.” And still, he poured himself a second. “So, how’s your wound?”
Another sip. Another burn. “How’d you know about that?”
“Fire Dancer.”
His reply was so casual and so filled withsomethingthat Ryker slammed his glass down on the table with a growl. Fuck. It was like he couldn’t escape her. She was everywhere.
“Shit, Ryk, had I known she was such a sore subject I would’ve kept my mouth shut.” Unlikely. But Ryker didn’t say so. “She came up to Clay while we were talking, said someone should take a look at your wounds. All worried and shit even while she was frowning. Fuck you do to her, anyway?”
“Mind your damn business,” Ryker snapped. He downed the rest of his drink and served another. He didn’t usually indulge himself in more than one glass, but it had been a hard week.
“Would you clear that look off your face? We fucking won. A small battle, but we fucking won it.”
But we lost Orna and Des.Ryker didn’t have to say those words. They crept out in the spaces between the silence anyway. Any life lost in Ryker’s opinion was a life wasted. Especially when they hadn’t deserved it. Orna and Des were good, kind. He wouldn’t admit this to anyone else, but he liked them.
He downed his drink.
Fuck this world. Fuck what Illyk had become. It was fear, violence, and death. As it had been for the past two hundred years in a war that was never ending. Many battles had been fought, and the humans had won. The Emperor of Illyk had driven the Fae into hiding, into camps, and to death. Now the Fae fought from the shadows.
So if fighting the humans in the shadows of the woods was a victory, then it tasted pretty fucking bitter on Ryker’s tongue.
“All I gotta say is that your head is in your ass, brother.” Julius pushed his glass away with the backs of his knuckles and rapped them against the surface of the bar. “She’s here to stay whether you like it or not. Might as well make nice.” And then he was walking away, leaving Ryker in his melancholy thoughts.
Of the Fire Dancer and of what the world had become.
Of Mairin.
He hated thinking about Mairin because thoughts of her dragged him into depths he didn’t want to be in.
Sighing, he pushed the bottle away just as a dark blur hopped up onto the table next to him. He smiled at his familiar.
