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Not a threat; not an enemy. Just Gwyn.
Rubbing the top of his head, he stooped to grab the offending rock. Heavier than he anticipated, the blue stone glittered with turquoise fire in the moonlight, casting the scars on his fingers in stark relief.
The Invoking Stone of a priestess.
He’d never touched one before. Never realized how much presence it seemed to have, like his Siphons, but wholly different, somehow. “Did you throw this at me?”
She choked on a breath. “No! I was just . . . fidgeting with it while I sang. Tossing it, mostly. May I have it back?”
Gwyn extended her pale, slender hand. She wiggled her fingers in silent emphasis.
Calming his racing heart and the instincts that had been howling to draw blood, Az tossed her the stone. She caught it gracefully before slipping it smoothly into her pocket.
His shadows lingered at her feet, peering up at her, evidently impressed by the easy movement as well.
This person was so far from the priestess he’d found at Sangravah. For a moment, even with everything crumbling apart around him, he could only marvel at the changes between the priestess she’d once been and the one before him now—the Valkyrie. There was no sign of her white ribbon, or even the necklace he’d left for her last Solstice, but he supposed neither mattered. She was a Valkyrie, with or without the ribbon. And as for that necklace he’d been so keen to get rid of, had so recklessly given away at the first opportunity after Elain had rejected it—
He forced himself to focus on the conversation at hand.
At a snap of his fingers, his shadows rushed to his side, clustering at his shoulders, apparently keen to obey him now. “What are you doing up here?” His voice was dull, even to his ears.
Gwyn’s large teal eyes sparked with something like annoyance. “It’s nice to see you, too, Azriel.” She nodded toward his bare torso, nose crinkling. “A little cold out for that, isn’t it?”
He tapped both Siphons on the backs of his hands and his scales of armor spread up his tattooed arms, over his body. The metal and leather lay bitingly cool against his already-icy skin, but he ignored the discomfort as he asked again, his head throbbing where she’d nailed him, “What are you doing up here?”
This was the last thing he wanted to deal with right now.
She crossed her arms. “Nesta said I could come whenever I pleased. I didn’t think anyone else was here.” She stood with that Valkyrie’s stillness, even as her eyes danced, lit with starlight. “Did my singing wake you?”
“It’s past one in the morning,” he hedged. His shadows poked their proverbial heads over his shoulders curiously. “You should be in bed.”
Gwyn studied him, unimpressed and annoyed. “You’re in a grand spirit.”
She didn’t know the half of it. “With Bryaxis back, how can I not be?”
“Well, she’s not living in your house, is she?”
He gave her a flat look. “Is that why you’re up here? Hiding from her?”
“No.” She tossed her sheet of coppery hair over a shoulder. It had grown longer since he’d last seen her, falling nearly halfway down her chest now. “I’m not hiding at all.” Something sharpened in the way she said hiding. “Clotho said Bryaxis won’t disturb us, and I believe her.”
A half-truth, his shadows revealed.
But Gwyn went on, “Are you afraid she’ll unleash herself upon the city again?”
“It seems a distinct possibility, Clotho’s word or no.”
“Hence your arrival here looking ready to fillet an enemy?”
He didn’t feel like smiling. “Yes.”
Her bright gaze slid toward his hip. “Where’s Truth-Teller?” Cauldron spare him, this female missed nothing.
He didn’t have the energy to invent a lie, so he said, “It decided it didn’t want me as its bearer anymore.”
Az turned back toward the stairwell before she could respond, exhaustion weighing every bone in his body.
Maybe he’d sleep here tonight, then fly his things to the town house at dawn. Then figure out what the fuck to do with himself after that. “Good night,” he said without looking back.
