17. Adair

Chapter 17

Adair

Oberon and I were still sitting at the table in the main sitting room when there was a knock on the door. I was waiting for the painkillers to kick in, trying to catch my breath and think of what to do next, and him...well, he was sitting there nibbling away at his protein bar.

He looked like some kind of enormous sinister chipmunk, meal held in both hands, nibbling the edges of the flat gray-brown bar, cheeks puffed out like he was holding the food there. Maybe he was. Maybe the thing was as disgusting as it looked, and it took an effort to swallow.

Pausing in his eating, he glared at the door, but didn't speak up.

So I dragged myself out of my chair and went to answer it.

It was the housekeeper, looking as smug as a cat with a bowl of cream. Also...was she blushing? "The Sunrunner heir has arrived," she informed me, and the expression turned into an almost girlish smile, making her look twenty years younger .

I was stuck between the dichotomy of fascination at the strange way she was acting and the ball of ice that had just hit my stomach.

"Heir?" Oberon asked behind me, his booming voice sounding like the very word was a slur on his family honor. "That bastard dog sent someone else?"

The housekeeper lifted a brow at me, her lips pursing in displeasure. "The Sunrunner heir," she reiterated. "And he's a lovely, kind young man. Respectful."

The implication that Oberon, in turn, was not so respectful...well, she didn't need to say it. Everyone who lived in the castle knew Oberon didn't respect us. He might not even notice if most of us were replaced with similar-looking people tomorrow. He certainly wouldn't care if he did notice.

Only women cared about things, after all. If I believed he was right about that, I'd despair for the future of men.

"Thank you," I said, not opening the door farther for her to see Oberon preparing to throw a tantrum behind me. "We appreciate the information. Since Lord Dawnchaser is busy this afternoon, we'll see the Sunrunner heir at supper."

She nodded to me, narrowing her eyes at a point past my head, though I was sure she couldn't see Oberon through the wooden door, then turning on her heel with a sniff and marching off. What the hells had the Sunrunner heir done to make her defend him at risk of her job? Or, well, maybe she was just sick of Oberon and his antics and didn't care if he fired her.

I felt similarly, more and more.

Unfortunately for her...or maybe more unfortunately for me, Oberon would fire her in an instant if he thought she was disrespecting him, and I didn't think he'd be so blasé about losing me. Particularly not when Huxley Dawnchaser had implied he was trying to steal me away the night before.

Admittedly, I'd rather drink bleach than work for Huxley or his family, but Oberon didn't know that. Most people would be swayed by offers in the amounts the Dawnchaser tended to make, and I wasn't going to tell Oberon that money didn't mean to me what he thought it did.

He might realize that the reason I'd stayed all these years was loyalty, then I'd be truly screwed.

That, or he'd quickly manage to finally break that loyalty, and I'd be gone.

To Moonstriker lands , Rhodri offered helpfully. It's nice there. Cold, but pretty. Iri is fun. Clever. Good at choosing humans.

That was interesting. Iri? The Moonstriker stone? You know her?

In my head, Rhodri gave a feeling of fond exasperation. Of course. She's how you really know your little friend is the next Moonstriker.

An image floated forward in my mind, the strands surrounding Rain. One of the strong plum strands tying him back toward Moonstriker lands, the thickest pointing in that direction, was outlined in my mind.

There , Rhodri said. Iri. And this one to his other stone is...Sim. They're a new stone, and he's their first human. They sure got lucky there.

His other stone? I stood there for a moment, staring at the wall opposite me, mouth hanging open. Other stone. He had resonated with more than one stone.

Of course other stone, silly. Did you think the scions of the great houses went around stoneless until they bonded their family stones ?

Funnily enough, I had, rather. Okay, I hadn't really thought that. I'd known in theory that Rain had already resonated with a stone and would also have to bond with the Moonstriker family stone. I simply hadn't given much thought to how it would work, bonding a family stone, and the notion of having two stones in my head was overwhelming in the extreme.

Mmm , Rhodri hummed, and it sounded like agreement. Like having an extra mother and a kid to boot, the way he takes care of the little one.

A kid. That was a weird thought. I was too used to Rhodri clearly being elder and wiser than me. Her presence fairly glowed in my mind with pleasure at the acknowledgment.

"Adair?" Oberon demanded from behind me. "Did she say that damned Sunrunner dog sent a child as well?"

"His heir," I corrected, turning to face him.

He was red in the face, his protein bar sitting on the table in front of him, arms crossed over his chest like he was a five-year-old. He was about to explode the whole summit, I realized, over his wounded ego.

I didn't know what had happened between Oberon and Dane Sunrunner that had resulted in a horrible thick red hate-bond, but I was sure I was right, and that was the bond that connected the two of them. So I took a chance, crossed my fingers, and prayed to the earth that I wasn't wrong.

"Did you really want to see Dane Sunrunner?" I went to stand in front of him, crossing my own arms over my chest and facing him like an irritated parent dealing with a tantrum. "Your feelings about each other haven't changed in the last fifteen years. You hate each other more than you even like anyone else in the world. They call him the great wolf. Sunrunners have a reputation for being the best, most terrifying duelists in the Summerlands. Did you want him to come here? Did you want him to challenge you, once and for all?"

That finally seemed to break through his anger. He swallowed hard and gave an involuntary shudder, looking away from me. "He might have gotten fat. I'm as fit as ever. Good diet, you know." He picked up his protein bar again and turned the remaining stub over and over in his hands. "I didn't even do anything to him. He's just such a fucking stubborn ass, and he wouldn't listen to me."

"I doubt he's gotten more likely to listen with time. Probably more likely to jump into a fight without talking first. And my understanding was that his father's wolf form kept getting bigger as he aged. That it barely fit into a room anymore by the time he died."

For the first time in all the years I'd known him, something other than detached disdain crept into Oberon and into one of his threads. Deep, miserable navy blue. Grief.

Oberon Gloombringer was sad.

He didn't show it on his face. Didn't move or speak or give any indication of having had a real live emotion, but it was more than I'd gotten from him ever before. If it hadn't been so inappropriate, I'd have danced for the realization that he was capable of emotion. Time to change tactics, though, maybe. "He sent his son here. It's more than you've had with each other for a very long time, and that means something. Maybe this is a good way to start. Treat his son with the respect you'd have for him. Get through the summit. Make a deal. It could open communications with all the families."

He didn't say anything, but he dropped his arms to his sides. Open. Then he looked up at me and nodded. "We'll go back to it tomorrow morning, first thing. Damn Moonstriker whelp can go on about nuclear missiles all he fucking wants."

I very carefully didn't smile at the reminder of Rain lecturing Oberon and Huxley that morning. No, I just gave him the perfunctory nod and the answer he wanted and expected of me. "I'll see to it immediately."

With that, I turned and left, gratefully breathing deep once I'd gotten out of the stuffy room.

Of course the first time he'd managed an emotion in years, it was misery. Why else would someone shove down their emotions so hard they couldn't even properly have them anymore? Because when he gave in to his emotions, Oberon was a miserable person.

I shook off the oppressive gloom and went to hunt down the housekeeper. I could get her to tell me where she'd put up the Sunrunner and introduce myself. Maybe I'd have the chance to talk to him, person to person, and explain the strained circumstances, before Huxley Dawnchaser?—

The voice of the very man I was most worried about drifted to me in that moment, passing the corridor that led to where we'd roomed his entourage. "Oh stop crying at me," he hissed. "You lost the right to cry when you went and got obsessed with fucking Oberon Gloombringer, the great foolish oaf."

I paused at the edge of the hall, not stepping into view and interrupting the moment. It was, perhaps, dishonest of me, spying on our guests. Just the previous night, I'd promised Rain that Oberon wasn't spying on them, because he was so artless it would never occur to him.

I hadn't been wrong. If Oberon had been with me, we'd have kept right on walking, interrupting the hissed argument.

Well, hissed argument on one side. The other? It had to be the woman who had come with him. A cousin, he'd said. Ivy. She was sobbing. "Please, Huxley. I just want to go home. I want it to be over."

"And I told you no. You're here to help me, and you'll leave when I say you can." He made a dismissive noise, almost a raspberry. "Fucking useless. So emotional. Go compose yourself. Perhaps consider the choices you've made. You're the one who went and fell in love with a man called the fucking Gloombringer."

A moment later, he was breezing out of the corridor and past me. Good thing for me he was so wrapped up in himself and his issues—he didn't even notice me standing there.

The choices she'd made.

Like falling in love was a choice. I'd spent thirty years in Gloombringer lands, and as emotionally stunted as they were—as we all were, even I knew that emotions weren't something people controlled. If they were, my mother never would have agreed to falling in love with my father, who'd been the emotional equivalent of a blank beige wall. Titania would have long since abandoned her brother to his fate and maybe all the Summerlands, sailing off in a boat to leave us to our self-imposed hells.

And me? Well, I...I was one of the only people I knew who hadn't as yet let my emotions guide me through life. I wasn't sure whether to see that as an impressive feat on my part, or...no, I knew. It didn't mean I'd managed something great. It just meant I'd hardly ever been moved to real emotions. I'd lived to be thirty and hardly made a single worthwhile human connection.

That was nothing to admire.

By the time I shook off my depressing thoughts and peeked around the corner, the woman Huxley had been speaking to was gone. But he'd only brought the one woman with him, right? His cousin.

Even Oberon wasn't usually that awful to Titania. Though there had been the incident with the glass the day before.

Oh, screw it. They were both unmitigated asses, and I wanted no part of either of them. I was just feeling sorry for Oberon because he'd finally had a fucking emotion, and it had been a bad one.

I was still trying to carry the summit on my shoulders, and I needed to find the Sunrunner heir and see if he was as agreeable as Rain to working together and saving the whole damned world.