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I start to breathe. Slowly. Counting. Pria presses a firm hand to mine and meets my eyes, nodding and breathing along with me.
We stay like this for what feels like hours but is likely only minutes.
When I can finally breathe again, I lower the bag into my lap and nod at Pria. “Thank you.”
She shrugs and sits down on the floor next to me, avoiding the whisky spill. Elodie sits down too, crossing her legs.
“So,” Pria says, “are you good?”
I fold my arms in front of my stomach. “I’m all right.”
“Good,” she replies. “Because that’s the one chance you get to freak out. Do that again, I’ll kill you myself.”
The look in her eyes tells me she’s deadly serious.
“Why would you—” Elodie mutters, frowning at Pria as if she can’t understand what’s happening.
“Because all hell is about to break loose, and if we’re going to get out of this city before it does, we need to work together.” Pria looks at me. “Right?”
“Right.” I stagger to my feet. “In which case, we’re going to need more whisky.”
I stumble behind the bar and grab another bottle, my hands still shaking. I pour two more glasses and slide them across the counter to Pria and Elodie.
“What the fuck...” I mutter, taking a long gulp of the amber liquid. It burns my throat but does fuck all to calm my nerves. “Okay, okay.” I’m shaking with adrenaline now, but at least I can see straight. “Okay. So...” I inhale deeply. “So, what the fuck was that?”
Pria downs her whisky in one swift motion. “A demon,” she says flatly. “Or something close to it. I’ve heard stories, whispers, but I never thought...” She shakes her head, her pale wings twitching.
“Stories?” I grip my glass a little tighter. “What kind of stories?”
For the first time in the years I’ve known her, a look of vulnerability flashes across Pria’s face. “My grandfather told me the Shadowkind used to be stronger,” she says tightly. “He never explained what he meant. He started to. He was old, and sick, and my grandmother stopped him, but I always wondered what he meant.”
“Stronger?” I put my glass down on the bar and nod slowly, trying to shake the pieces into place. “All of you? Not just Finn?”
Taking a swig directly from the bottle because her glass is empty, Pria says, “Maybe. Yes. I don’t know. My grandfather said we used to be stronger and then they bound us. That’s why they bound us. To stop us becoming our true selves.” She pauses, brow pinched into a tight frown. “I had no idea what he meant. But maybe this is what he meant.”
Elodie is staring into her glass, her face pale. “So there could be more?” She looks from me to Pria. “What are we going to do?” she whispers.
I run a hand through my hair, my mind racing. “We have to get out of here. Now. Before he comes for us.” The thought sends a fresh wave of terror through me.
“Why would he come for us?” Elodie asks. “We’re not important. We didn’t do anything to him.”
“I was playing him and Eldrion against one another!” I shout at her, and watch as she blinks under the weight of my rage. “If he finds out, you don’t think he’ll want revenge?”
Pria scoffs. “You think that’s our biggest problem? Finn’s not just going to come for you, Garratt. He’s going to destroy this whole fucking city. You heard him. You saw him. He’s got bigger plans than taking revenge on an elf who stabbed him in the back.”
Her words hit me like a punch to the gut. She’s right. This is bigger than just me. Why would Finn care about me? I’m nothing. A speck on the landscape of whatever he has in store for this city.
So, the question is, do I care what happens to anyone else?
Do I stick around and warn the other elves what’s coming their way? Or do I save myself?
SIX
Alana
Eldrion summons two guards and orders them to prepare horses for us. He is different somehow, and yet it is not a physical difference. It’s in the way the air moves around him, and the timbre of his voice.
Unnoticeable, perhaps, to anyone but me.
