Prince of Air and Darkness (The Darkest Court)

It was painless. It was glorious.

I don’t know how long I burn for, but in the depths of the fog, there comes the lightest brush of something over my skin. The crisp caress of an autumn evening, the whispered kiss of snow about to loose from the clouds. It reminds me of something I needed to remember. Something important.

The fire recedes and the ley line’s golden haze clears from my vision. Roark stands there, waiting. He stares at me as shadows flicker in and out over his face. Says a word I’ve never heard from him.

“Wha—?” I start.

I’m interrupted as he crumples on himself. It’s the smoothest collapse I’ve ever seen.

He’s dead. I lost control and killed him.

My muscles protest when I rush to his side, hot and sore from channeling unchecked. Doesn’t matter. I press fingers against the column of his neck and the nausea fades a bit at the sensation of his steady pulse. The sight of his chest rising and falling mesmerizes me.

“Thank you,” I mumble to any deity listening. “He’s alive.”

Which poses a new problem. An inspection of the area shows that Roark’s order to disband was far too effective. I try to rouse him, but he’s deeply unconscious; when my efforts fail, I hoist him up and start trudging toward our apartment.

It’s a small miracle that we don’t run into anyone on the way there. I have no idea what excuses I could make to explain the situation. Even better, I manage to avoid doing any further damage to him...not counting when his head accidentally hits our door while I wrestle for my keys. At least it’s proof he’s out for the count. If he weren’t, he’d try to kill me for offering any kind of help, especially physical support. No one touches Roark. He’s not big on vulnerability, and this version of him is exactly that.

It makes me equal parts guilty and protective as I try to lay him comfortably on his bed. He’s a force of nature. I have never seen him falter in battle. He insults me and kills things in the same breath. He weaves spells and hexes and curses through the air so easily it’s like watching the conductor of a symphony orchestra. He even managed to keep himself together during our fight until I snuffed out first.

But I put him on his ass when I unleashed the ley line.

A strand of hair lies over his forehead, fallen free in the aftermath. I reach out to brush it away and register how my hand trembles with the action. Adrenaline. Guilt. Nothing more than that.

He looks older with his hair brushed back. I wonder if he does it to help with the optics of his position; looking young and inexperienced while acting as the Unseelie queen’s right hand can’t be easy. He’s so confident I tend to forget that we’re about the same age when you take the conversion into account. Same age, but worlds apart in almost everything.

Sometimes, I wish that were different. Especially now, when all I want to do is give in to the insane urge to stay by his side until he wakes up and I can confirm he’s okay.

A flutter of dark eyelashes shocks me enough to yank my hand back. Roark opens his eyes, blinks a few times to focus, and pins me with an indecipherable stare.

“Hey,” I say. “How do you feel?”

“Where are we?” He must feel truly awful to completely ignore my question.

“The apartment. I figured you wouldn’t want to stay... Shit.” I cup his jaw, and turn his head gently from side to side. “You’ve got a hell of a concussion.”

“You threw me into a wall,” he says, voice far too bland. “I’d be shocked if my brain wasn’t bruised.”

He doesn’t fight my inspection. His pale eyes are half-lidded when I turn him toward the light, shallow lines creasing the corners as he tries not to wince. It’s a strange intimacy; when I finally pull away, the absence of it is as shocking as the touch itself.

“Since I’m kind of responsible for this—” I start.

“Completely responsible, you idiot.”

“Completely responsible,” I amend, “can I get you some water or something?” I trail off when he arches a brow. “It’s just...after I use the ley line I’m usually kind of thirsty and shit...”

My awkward explanation results in a faint, amused twitch of his lip. “Water would be nice,” he finally says, like it’s some huge admission.

“Right. Give me a sec.”

I hurry from his room, closing his door on my way. I’m nearly to the kitchen when I catch a hint of movement near the sofa.

“Hello, Phineas.”

Queen Mab bites back a smile when I curse and slam myself into the wall, attempting to crawl through it in an effort to get away from her. The ley line cowers back for once, avoiding the icy touch of her glamour. It remembers her, too.

This afternoon, she’s nothing like the monster from that chamber; she must have put on her human costume before leaving the sídhe. The long midnight-blue dress is understated and her black hair is braided back. The crown’s a simple circlet of bone and stardust. No visible weapons, but that’s no consolation. The blades she used to bleed me out were conjured in the same way Roark conjures his rapier—out of glamour and thin air.