Page 7 of FoolSilver
“You never need to say sorry, Max.” Caspian’s voice was low, steady. “You can rely on us.”
He leaned forward, and his scent hit me—wild green, male, something animal underneath the soap and sweat. My pulse, which had just started to behave, kicked up again.
The wolf prince smiled, clearly aware of my body’s response to him, and pressed his lips to my cheek.
It was brief, a warm brush of contact, there and gone. Yet heat flushed up my neck and spread to the tips of my ears. My skin tingled where his mouth had been.
Aelindor was behind me, his breath stirring the hair at my temple. He hadn’t moved to stop Caspian. Hadn’t stiffened or cleared his throat. He’d made room for the shifter.
Drakken, on the other hand, frowned.
His gray eyes tracked Caspian with an unspoken criticism.
He hadn’t brought my bedroll. He’d followed us into the tent, planted himself near the entrance, and simply stayed.
The tent felt smaller with all of them in it. My skin was too aware of each of them. The charged space between us hummed until Aelindor tilted my chin up.
“Tell us what happened,” he said, his blue eyes searching mine. I tried not to get lost in them.
I swallowed. “My sister isn’t in Crimson Ridge anymore. The Collector has her.”
“How do you know that, cadet?” Drakken’s eyes narrowed. The general was back, assessing a report for weaknesses. “Don’t you think your story changed a little too fast? Just yesterday, you wanted us to raid Crimson Ridge to extract your sister. To convince us, you demonstrated your abilities with cold metal.”
“Cold iron,” Caspian corrected, more to derail Drakken than to help.
“You made an airtight pitch that you could be an asset,” Drakken continued, ignoring him. “Not even one night later, and now you’re telling us your sister is with Xander. Are you trying to help that psycho and lure us into a trap?”
“Drakken.” Aelindor’s voice dropped, and the temperature in the tent fell a few degrees with it.
“I always speak my mind, Aelindor,” Drakken said, unmoved. “I won’t change that for anyone. Not even for you. I can stomach the witch blood. But I won’t tolerate lies.”
“Can you be any more callous?” Caspian growled, the amber of his wolf flaring in his eyes. “Max is terrified for her six-year-old sister.”
“Six and a half,” I said.
Caspian blinked, then nodded before turning his glare back on Drakken. “You don’t need to be here if you’re just going to stir shit.”
“I sleep here. Same as you.” Drakken didn’t budge. “No one kicks me out. So fuck off.”
“Enough. Both of you.” Aelindor’s gaze moved from one to the other with the look of a man who’d refereed this fight a thousand times. When he turned back to me, the sharpness softened. “Tell us about the vision, Max. Every detail.”
I drew a long breath. Let it fill my lungs, hold, then release—the technique my parents had taught me when I was small, when the mine shafts groaned and the dark pressed in.
In for four. Hold for four. Out for four. Again.
“I was between waking and sleep,” I said. “I felt the pull of the DarkVeil. There were voices, as if from another world, and then a severed head floated toward me through the dark.”
I stared at my hands. They were steady now, but the memory made my fingers want to curl.
“A woman’s head, cut clean and preserved in a warded box of glass.”
A dangerous light glinted in all three pairs of eyes—different shades, different colors, same recognition.
“The head spoke to me. ‘He found out about you. He’s been searching for you for a very long time. Now he knows everything. He has your sister in the Haven.’”
I paused to swallow. The next part was harder.
“Then her eyes changed. From milky to black—absolute black, like the DarkVeil itself.” My voice cracked, but I kept going. “And in that blackness, I saw Missy. I used to call her littleviper.” I sniffled. “She was wearing the same threadbare shift she had on the last time I held her. Smaller, her face thinner than when I left—and she was already too thin. And her eyes…”
