Page 37 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

“Are we having an epiphany or a mental breakdown?”

I grunted in response, and then sighed. Hells, I was becoming my brother.

“Have you told her where you went? Maybe you should have started with that. Hells,” he said, standing in front of me, “You can start by telling me, too.”

“No.”

“Very glad you’re the still insufferable piece of shit, princeling.”

I banged on Visha’s door until she came out, trying her best to hide Elias groaning in the background. “What?” she asked, clouds of desire to maim pooling around her floating red locks.

“I’ve done something, and I can’t remember it.”

Cai pulled on my shoulder. “What are you talking about? Did you do something to Thora?” He pushed me against the wall, hard. “What did you do to her?”

“Ten years ago, before Alyone asked me to head to Seraphim with her, I went to the tavern. I had to drink. Fuck, I did a lot more than just drink. I thought I’d imagined her that night. But I think she was really there. I think she was really there, and I did something—I said something.” Turning to Visha, I said, “I need you to go inside my head and find out what I told her.”

“Just ask her,” she boredly replied, trying to shut the door on me.

Grabbing the door, I pushed it back. “She won’t tell me.”

She stood there for a moment, thinking about it. “You’re an Empath. What if you hurt me when I try to get inside your head?”

“I’m not an Empath, I’m the fucking Eldritch Commander,” I said, pushing inside her room. “And wear something, Elias, for heaven’s sake.”

Despite the noise of the tavern, the screeching laughter in my ear from all the women who’d huddled around me, and the thuds of a few soldiers still celebrating a war we’d somewhat won a month ago, it was still not enough to drown memories and the voices in my head who kept taunting me still. I was mostly numb. Head to toe, nothing on my body felt mine. All except my mind. The only thing I really wanted to numb. It usually worked—it had worked for me since I was thirteen and had found my father’s liquor one night. It wasn’t working anymore.

All because I was…worried.

About her.

A chill went down my spine, feeling the cool of her magic near me.

She’s found me.

Again.

Even the ghost of her had found me, because she couldn’t be here. She was miles away. Ruling her little frosted kingdom. Acting like she was alright. Faking smiles left and right. She’d faked them for me, too.

“Who is she?” one of the girls on my arms asked, looking at the woman who didn’t belong in a place like this enter the tavern. Even as a blurred apparition of my depraved mind, I could tell the shape of Thora Krigborn. The damn drugs were tempting me with her, reading into what I desired most and feeding her to me.

She stopped at the door, her eyes darting to the women around me, to their arms over my shoulders, around my waist, draped all around my body. It was suffocating and heavy. When she had hers around me—it never felt so heavy or suffocating.

Thora stepped before me, finally looking at me. At least I hoped so, I hoped she was looking at me. I waited for her to say something, to give me one fake fucking smile so I could explode and wipe it off the face it didn’t belong on.

Tempt me. Make me say something I will not return from.

But then, even the ghost of her knew what I wanted to do. She knew long ago, this was why she had never said or done anything—she knew me too well. “May I speak to you?” she asked calmly—so calmly.

My ears rang when I said, “Then speak.”

“Tell them to leave.”

“Why?”

Instead of answering me, she reached for her pockets and threw bags of coins at the women. “Leave.”

Celia scoffed, picking up a bag and throwing it back at her. The bag hit her shoulder and then dropped to the floor, the coins splattering everywhere. “You really think he keeps me around because of that? Silly, little girl.”