Page 115 of The Mercy of Dawn

“All that lockmead? Oh, yes, you are,” Mikael chuckled and patted the hand she gripped his bicep with. Her fingers flexed a bit more into his arm, entirely of their own volition. “I was going to see if you wanted to come to the barracks tomorrow night, but, well…that was before I knew you were roll around in the grass and get lost in the stars levels of inebriated.”

Cyril gaped.

“I was not rolling around in the grass, and I wasn’t lost in anything! I was just…appreciating the night and having some…quiet time. Lying down. In the grass.” Her argument wasn’t a strong one, she realized, and Mikael’s look of skepticism confirmed that. “But that’s beside the point. I can come tomorrow…if you want me to.”

Cyril hoped he did, because she was still disgruntled about not being able to go the first time he invited her. Spending all those days cooped up in the damned city of all places had done nothing to help that sentiment.

And now that she knew Dion brought her there just to keep her away from Mikael…

The nagging little urge to spend some time with the abrasive, arrogant prince evolved into a demanding beast that would not be told no under any circumstances.

The lockmead might’ve had something to do with that too…

“If by the grace of the gods you make it upright by sundown tomorrow, come and find me, please. It would astonish everyone to meet the only person to not be laid out flat on their ass for a day after getting hammered on lockmead.”

Mikael cast her a pointed look like he’d spent a few too many days flat on his ass for the same reason.

But he didn’t know Cyril well at all.

If there was one thing she’d learned how to do well back home, it was putting back liquor. Hangovers be damned, the rogues liked their potations, and the stronger the better.

“I feel like hammered is a bit of an exaggeration.” She felt pleasantly—and thoroughly—buzzed at best. At least half her wits were still hanging about somewhere inside her. Maybe.

Mikael dared to laugh at her.

“Well, if that’s the case…”

He freed his arm from the death grip she had it in and splayed a hand towards the stairs. She had no clue when they’d made it here, or how long they’d just stood here for, and paid no attention to the way her body swayed when Mikael stepped away from her.

“After you, my lady.”

Cyril was sure she scowled as she brushed past him with a couple of uneasy steps. She planted one hand on the railing, gathered a fistful of her skirt in the other, and started up the stairs one cautious step at a time.

“Are you wearing boots with your dress?” he asked, as if that was really what shocked him about her.

“I… Yes? Why wouldn’t—”

Cyril made the critical error of looking down at her riding boots, the worn brown leather on full display from her lifted skirt, and then back at Mikael. Quickly. The entire damn staircase felt like it swayed with Cyril, and her stomach lurched halfway up her throat.

“Mm, definitely not hammered,” Mikael chuckled as he splayed his hand across her upper back, mercifully steadying her. The feeling of his warm, calloused palm against her bare skin was distracting in a lovely way. “Eyes ahead, soldier, and do not look back down the damn stairs.”

Cyril wanted to argue that, purely on the principle of him thinking he could so easily tell her what to do, but she also wanted to make it to bed in one piece. With the contents of her stomach in place too.

“I like my boots,” she said after she’d pieced together enough strands of focus to climb the next few stairs. They were almost at the top, and the guarded doors to the residences were in sight. Mikael’s guiding hand hadn’t left her back, and she wasn’t mad about that in the slightest. “They’re comfortable and practical.”

Were the embroidered silk slippers they forced her to wear with fancy gowns no short few times in her life pretty to look at? Sure, she supposed, if you had nothing better to do than look at pretty things. But they never fit properly, and they always left Cyril’s feet aching by the end of the night.

Problems she never had with any of her boots.

“I wasn’t saying it’s a bad thing,” Mikael said as they crested the top stair. He offered her his arm again, and she took it gladly, threading hers through his and wrapping her hands around his bicep. “My mother wears boots all the time too, you know. I find it…endearing that you do too.”

Cyril scoffed.

Endearing? What a lousy compliment.

She hadn’t realized those words breached the confines of her mind until Mikael cast her a sidelong glance and said, “Yes, endearing. And that isn’t a bad thing either.”

He gave the guard standing watch at the residence's doors a casual nod and an easy smile, and Cyril clamped her mouth shut. The doors had only just clicked shut behind them when Mikael continued without missing a beat.