Page 83 of Heart of Night
“So the plan remains the same?” Myron’s tone is smooth like he’s done this a thousand times. “Kaira gets us in and we use the servant corridors to get close to the dungeon entrance?”
“Unless you can magically get us in?” Clio drawls, her spirit back now that we’re finally in motion. “Much as I’d love to offer, my site-hopping ability hasn’t returned.” And she wasn’t willing to wait a moment longer once we were all strong enough to fight. I don’t blame her. I’d do the same if it was Myron in the dungeon instead of Tori.
“That would have been convenient,” Myron comments. “In and out in the blink of an eye. Would have solved all our problems.”
“We can’t afford to wait that long,” I remind him. “The moment Ephegos realizes you’re gone, Royad and Silas are in immediate danger of suffering his retaliation.”
Myron flinches almost imperceptibly, but I notice the way I notice everything about him. Every breath, every blink of his eyes, every time his mouth presses into a thin line when we discuss the dangers of our mission all over again.
Plan or no, we’re unprepared and weak. Thank the Guardians all but one of our opponents are human, or we’d be dead the moment we set foot into the palace.
Kaira leads us past a quiet street with mostly residential buildings before we step into the richer quarters where I recognize bits and pieces from my childhood years. A carved fountain here, an estate there, a statue…
It’s beautiful and overwhelming, and with matters at hand, so utterly inconsequential that I find beauty in the architecture of this city. The thought is still a mouthful to swallow, but I force it down whenever it pops up. It doesn’t matter what blood runs in my veins, only that I have a family to save before I get the hell out of what, in a different time, might have been my kingdom.
We keep our heads down as we march along the side streets, disguised as peasants. Myron is the hardest to disguise with his impossible height and build, but just like he’s an expert at drawing attention when he enters a room with the authority of an unapologetic king, he has mastered avoiding gazes when he needs to. All but mine, which seems to be glued to his bare shoulder where his tattoo stands stark against his moonlit skin.
The palace looms ahead, onion-shaped roofs towering over the rest of the city as we approach from the east. I recognize the same narrow side gate we used when we left earlier, and my stomach tightens.
“Julj is on duty every night this week,” Kaira says over her shoulder. If I knock a certain way, he’ll open the door for me.”
Myron pauses. “I thought Herinor would do that.”
So did I.
“He’ll open a different door.” Kaira grins, so very fairy of her even when only a minuscule part of her is Fire Fairy. “Having Julj let me in will get Herinor’s attention, though.”
Well, that explains the frown when Herinor reminded her of the signal. It also explains Kaira’s flirting with the guard.
“Hide there.” She points at a wooden fence separating a carriage shed from a backyard, and we dive in, careful not to disturb the water trough at the corner. Myron’s arm sweeps around me, pulling me into him as Clio crouches in front of us, keeping a close eye on Kaira, who’s striding right for the gate, head high, braid swishing in the gentle breeze, and her maid’s cap back on her head, like she doesn’t have a care in the world.
My new senses struggle to keep focus on the female approaching our gate into the palace when my side is lined up with Myron’s hard chest—his very bare hard chest—and his fingers are absently tracing the edge of my waist. I swallow the instinct to curl into him and ignore the rest of the world when we are so close to our goal—so close to danger.
“I expected you sooner,” Julj says by way of greeting, opening the door for Kaira, and the female slips inside, her servant uniform disappearing behind the coarse wood.
“Will you be all right?” I ask Kaira through our mind connection, reading a laugh right back.
“I’m always all right with Julj. He can’t tell left from right when it comes to a female’s body.”
I have no idea why that amuses me and scares me at the same time.
“Tell me you’re not about to offer him left or right or any part of your body.” I don’t add that Herinor might not like the idea, but she picks the thought right from my mind.
“Herinor knows what I’m about to do. He doesn’t like it, but he agrees it’s necessary.” Her tone isn’t as light as her bodily voice before, when she waved goodbye and headed for doom.
“Lord Ephegos’s tasks must have taken quite a while,” the second guard’s voice enters our conversation as her present situation leaks into her thoughts. I startle an inch into Myron, who secures his arm around me, his warmth the only reminder I’m not hallucinating all of this. It’s the same voice as when we left, and I can feel his hand on my hair like a phantom touch.
“I was looking forward to your visit yesterday,” Julj says, ignoring the older guard’s remark. I wouldn’t be surprised if his gaze was glued to Kaira’s chest.
“I was held up by other duties. But I’m here now. I actually have a few minutes right now,” Kaira adds in a whisper. “Why don’t you show me what you were looking forward to exactly?” In my mind, she says to me, “I will be fine, Ayna. Promise. I’ll let you hover in my mind though so you know when it’s time to run for the gate.”
She could have warned me sooner about this particular part of the plan. I didn’t like the way he sized her up when we fled the palace, and I like it even less how she’s willingly returning to his arms now—for me. For Myron and Clio, and the males still stuck in the dungeons. Perhaps a little bit for Herinor because he can’t help me. So she took on the burden for him.
Perhaps she took it on much sooner than I realized.
At the Flame estate, when she first brought me tea, she said she wanted to know me because I’m blood, but perhaps that was only part of the truth. She wanted to go with me to Meer—but she might as well have followed for the male. And here, at the palace … she already admitted that she has been helping him.
“You know I can hear every last part of your doubt, Ayna,” she reminds me, a low moan slipping into her thoughts, and it’s not her own. Julj must be enjoying the encounter already. “He better be because I know exactly what I’m doing.”