“How long have you been back?” I don’t turn as I ask the question—I don’t need to. I sensed him in here as soon as I walked in.
Ryatt stretches out his legs from where he’s sitting. His shadowed form is blocking the firelight from the heat lantern hanging beside him, its orange flame fed from the oil in our very own mines.
“Couple of hours,” he says roughly, making me finally turn to him.
“There’s only one.” My tone is tilted with a question.
He scratches the back of his head, making his black hair stand on end in some places. He normally keeps his longer than mine, always grumbling when he has to stand-in as Rip and cut it shorter. “You said you needed one to question.”
“I said I needed at least one to question,” I correct.
He doesn’t look the least bit contrite. “If you wanted them all alive, you should’ve sent Judd. You knew I wasn’t going to let all of Midas’s rats come back here. You got what you wanted,” he tells me, tipping his head toward the cell. “I got what I wanted with the others. Especially since they made it so hard to fucking find them all.”
“How many were there?”
“Four. The lucky bit was my timberwing spotted theirs. That’s how I finally found them holed up against some hill not far from here. Once they heard you’d arrived, they took off, scampering like the rats they are, but the storm took them out and grounded them.”
At least the storm was good for something. Ryatt and I had been out searching for days, looking for them, and I was starting to worry we weren’t going to find them.
“You took satisfaction in killing the other three, I take it?”
Ryatt’s wicked grin flashes. “They made a much better adornment in the frozen wastelands dead than they did alive.”
Nodding, I once more look through the barred door, where I see a pitiful heap of a man slumped against the floor, shivering inside his gold-trimmed coat. I wonder how many days Auren spent gilding shit like this. How much of her energy and time and strength was spent on feeding Midas’s reputation and ego. Just thinking about that makes anger burn down my back.
“You’re up early,” Ryatt says, face pitched in my direction, half of it blue, the other half completely shadowed.
I say nothing, taking a seat on the barrel just across from him. The truth is, I’m still struggling to sleep. Auren won’t sleep at night, and I get barely a few hours tossing and turning before I give up before dawn, just as she slips in.
My brother makes a noise deep in his throat. “She’s still not getting up during the day?”
I cut a look over to him. “She’s adjusting.”
“Is she?”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Ryatt shrugs a shoulder. “I see the look on her face anytime someone mentions the gold. She’s terrified of it.”
“She’s not,” I snap, anger making my teeth clench.
“If you say so.”
“Why are you so fucking concerned?”
“Why aren’t you?” Ryatt counters. “We all saw her that night. She might look like a mountain on the surface, but she’s a volcano ready to erupt. And when she does, it’s not some small thing.”
“She’s fine.”
Ryatt doesn’t let it drop though. Not that I would expect him to. Half of his personality is arguing with me.
“She’s scared of her own power—and rightfully so. But fear is a dangerous thing when it comes to magic. You should know that better than anyone.”
We stare at each other across the narrow path, on opposite sides of the cracked corridor. Blue streaks spread out from behind him, smearing him in their light, while the flickering lamps counter their glow.
“It’s going to take time.”
“And how much time can you afford?”
I rake a hand through my hair, tugging at the ends. “As long as she fucking needs.”
He shakes his head, disgruntled and contrary. “You might be a king, but even you can’t sustain that. Besides, you hate it here.”
“I don’t hate it here.”
Ryatt rolls his eyes. “Sure you don’t. That’s why you only visit when you absolutely have to.”
My back teeth feel like they might crack from how hard I’m grinding them. “I have a kingdom to run.”
He scoffs. “Right. But before you had that, you had this village to protect.”
I snap forward, elbows dug into my knees. “I do protect this village. You don’t know even half of what I do to protect it. Of what I’ve sacrificed.”