Page 160 of A Dagger of Ice and Intrigue
Death was universal, but each Clan had its way of revering it. I’d heard the Blood Brotherhood burned their warriors, but this seemed vastly different.
This was the most intimate peek I’d ever get at the heart of this city–the way it remembered its dead.
A short old man with a hunch and a golden walking stick waited right beside the door, face partially hidden underneath his black robes.
I nodded my head in greeting and made to walk through it.
His walking stick jutted out with the speed of the wind, blocking my path.
“No candle, no entrance,” he said with the voice of a smoker.
I swallowed my sigh, even as I deflated. I stared through the door, but all I could see was a stone hallway, nothing more.
Just as I readied to calm my curiosity and turn, a rustle resounded from right behind. “She’s with me.”
Chapter
Thirty-Three
ALLIE
The Commander stood before me in all his glory, towering, unflinching, but with a quirk to his lips.
Heat rose up my neck as I remembered I’d tasted those lips and had those blue eyes of his gliding over my exposed legs. But his gaze didn’t hold the same intensity as before.
He looked tired. Weary. Worn.
My day had been freeing and curious.
His looked like it had weighed him down in a way I’d never seen before.
A thousand clever words and questions stung the tip of my tongue, but they didn’t get a chance to spill out. Something in his energy told me verbal sparring wasn’t ideal right now and, miracle of all miracles, I didn’t press.
I wanted to ask, but something in the slope of his shoulders, usually so angular and regal, didn’t feel right.
“Didn’t imagine I’d find you here, of all places,” he muttered gently.
Even his voice, though gruff and still sliding down my spine as it had no business doing, sounded exhausted. More so against the low melody vibrating from the temple.
“Then it’s quite a coincidence,” I said. I looked up at Sylvester, who was suddenly very interested in staring at the stars, as if his beak hadn’t been directed straight at us only moments before. “Or someone tattled on me. When did you even have the time?”
Sylvester ruffled his wings, but didn’t look down at me.
The Commander hummed low in his throat. “I see you two are getting along.”
“Yes, we’ve had a breakthrough today.”
“I’m glad,” he said, eyes never leaving my face, as if watching me was the only thing keeping him awake. “Did–did something happen?”
The blue in his gaze flashed. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
I wanted to ask more, I did. But the words tangled in my throat as I stared up at him. He held the same lit bloody candle as the rest, the light dancing across his jaw and making it look even more angular.
My body began to lean toward him, searching for his heat.
Luckily, I caught myself before I did something stupid, like resting my head on his shoulders and letting him sigh his problems away against my hair.
I cleared my throat and slid to the side of the door. “I don’t have a candle, so I’m out. Literally.”
