Freyrík struggled over his map table for a long hour, deploying and re-deploying figurines of the contingents he hoped the Aegis would send. A scattering of red pebbles represented the recent darker attacks: small groups of twisted animals that had terrorized some outlying village before dying at the hands of a patrol or some eager farm boys. Soon there would be more beasts—hundreds, thousands, breaking in a great wave upon his lands. The numbers wouldn't square no matter how he moved the figurines. Men would die in force.

Gods, he needed more troops. And not some hastily drafted merchants' sons, but practiced soldiers. Warriors like Ayden.

Now there was a fearsome weapon, if only he would strike where Freyrík pointed him. The creature had slaughtered sixteen trained men within moments; if he were unleashed upon the witless darkers, what grand devastation might he wreak? He would resent being used, true, but his sister's wellbeing would make fine incentive. Freyrík grimaced as he measured that gambit against the virtue of honor, but the numbers on the map table decided him. He would do what he must.

And what of the threat of a second elven war? He was inclined to believe what little he'd heard of Ella's tearful story. After all, his garrisons had received but this one alert of elven trespass, and only because some sharp-eyed grain merchant had watched the fair visitor since boyhood and never seen her age. That the merchant also claimed Ella had spelled his widowed neighbor, perhaps even brought about her death, Freyrík was less inclined to believe.

But the fact remained that an elf had been stealing regularly into his villages for decades at least, and another had just crossed over in open hostility for the first time in over two and a half centuries. Perhaps 'twas wishful thinking to believe that Ella and Ayden really were alone, and not the heralds of new hostilities between elves and humans.

Well, there was only one way to find out.

The four guards posted outside his rooms saluted sharply as Freyrík approached with his own personal guard of four. He stopped a hairsbreadth from his door and took a fortifying breath. No matter what greeted him beyond, he must keep his faculties tightly reined. The elf would be a challenge. Already he knew Freyrík's weakness toward him, and if he were anything like Freyrík, he would exploit it quite thoroughly.

Perhaps, then, he should delegate the interrogation to someone else, someone less involved—

No. He recognized this for cowardice and sliced its head clean off. This was his duty to perform, and if anything remained sacred in this befanged age, 'twas duty.

A protested command and a sharp rebuke saw that his personal guard, who would gladly shadow him into the befanged privy during his annual spell as prince-regent, remained in the hall. Then, feeling a bit ridiculous with eight armed men at his back, he threw open his doors.

And was greeted with an almost comic sight.

Ayden was sitting stiffly in a highback chair at the center of the drawing room. Around him, six more palace guards stood bristling with drawn weapons, their eyes glued to the elf as if he were a darker snake poised to strike.

Freyrík's military instincts reared. He scoured the elf with a stare, but all he saw was an exhausted, wounded creature, sitting straight through force of pride alone and masking his tension with a strained sneer. Some far-sighted guard had washed the blood and filth from him, or rather doused him with a few bucketfuls of water, from the looks of it. He'd been given a fresh pair of breeches, thank the gods, but no shirt—so much for Freyrík keeping his thoughts in check. All that expanse of fair skin, that lean, muscled torso . . .

The guards snapped to attention when they realized who had entered. Freyrík yanked his stare from the elf and turned it to them, but he spared them no words, merely raised an eyebrow and waited. One by one, the guards sheathed their weapons sheepishly.

"Leave us," Freyrík said when they were done, and at their obvious hesitation he added, "Wait outside." With the other eight guards, he thought, and clamped his lips tight; the Prince Regent did not chortle.

But the sight of Ayden's thin amusement sobered him. He caught the elf's eye with a hard stare and said loudly, "If he harms me, kill the girl."

Ayden's amusement disappeared with the twitching of a muscle in his jaw, the clenching of hands in his lap. Rage and fear subsumed the bravado in his eyes, but otherwise he made no move. In his mind, Freyrík offered him a quick bow of respect for his restraint.

When the room emptied, Ayden slumped in his chair, unwilling or unable to keep up the pretense anymore.

Freyrík surveyed him for a long moment. "You look like a man convinced he's about to be tortured."

Ayden's eyes narrowed. "Aren't I?"

"The choice lies with you," Freyrík said, though he could hardly imagine this creature choosing any but the most difficult path.

Ayden held his stare a moment longer, then bowed his head—less an act of contrition, Freyrík suspected, than a shielding of expression. He wondered what hidden emotions had graced those rich green eyes, for they blazed only with suspicion when Ayden looked up again.

"What have you done with Ella?"

"Her needs are being seen to, as with any guest in this house." In fact, a battalion of footmen and maids were still busy transforming two officers' rooms into a lady's apartment in the north turret; Ella herself was asleep in a third room, so soundly that even the bellow of a darker bull wouldn't wake her. Freyrík knew; he'd tried before coming here. "I am a man of my word, elf. Your sister shall not be harmed as long as you obey me."

Ayden's nod was nearly too slight to see. He sank further in the chair, and for a moment Freyrík feared he'd spill to the floor. He stepped closer unthinkingly, knee to knee but not quite daring to touch. Ayden tensed under his shadow and pressed back against the chair, hugging crossed arms to his chest. The motion called Freyrík's attention to a soaking bandage on the elf's left bicep, and he reached for it with a frown, but in the space of a blink the elf had captured his wrist in a startling grip, fingers digging into the tender space below his thumb.

Freyrík just barely swallowed a shout for the guards. Now was not the time to show fear or weakness. Nor was it the time for a flexing of sword-arms; pride would quickly turn this bloody. Nay, he would campaign on the battlefield of wit and will instead.

"Thus fares the promise of an elf," he said, forcing a wry smile despite the growing threat of his thumb coming out of joint.

Ayden bared his teeth in a quick, silent growl, but a moment later he let go of Freyrík's wrist. He still flinched when touched, but did not object when Freyrík pulled his arm up to examine it.

The elf's skin seemed to smolder under Freyrík's fingers as he carefully worked loose the bandage, exposing a gash that no longer bled but still looked raw. When he leaned in, the scent of the elf hit him like a lance to the chest: blood and sweat and the roads, yes, but also a strong hint of forest loam and fallen leaves riding in on his quickening breath.

Only when Ayden squirmed did Freyrík realize he'd closed his eyes and nearly touched his lips to the elf's shoulder. He straightened up to see Ayden panting hard through his nose, teeth clenched, head turned resolutely away.

Freyrík cleared his throat. "Is this my men's doing?"

"Yes," Ayden spat, but before Freyrík's anger could flare at his guards' disobedience, Ayden added, "When they captured me." He glanced back with an echo of his previous sneer. "Your men have poor aim, Prince."

"Hmm." Freyrík was more concerned about his own discomfort as he tried to rebind the wound without touching skin to skin, grateful for the many layers of formal clothes he wore. 'Twould not do for Ayden to think he was aroused by the sight of the wound, when in fact it was the wiry muscle, the smooth skin, the intimate angle between shoulder and neck that fascinated him so—

And shouldn't he be interrogating the elf?

"Does it hurt?" he asked.

At this Ayden jerked away from Freyrík's hold. "Why would you care?"

Well asked, Freyrík supposed.

He took a subtle step back, putting some distance between them to clear his head. 'Twas a blessing the elf could not know how disconcerted he truly felt, or how reluctant he was to ask his next question, which would almost certainly lead to . . . unpleasantries.

Another moment of silence, and Ayden sat up straight and defiant. "I grow weary of you, human. Ask your questions, do with me what you so clearly wish to do, but gods be cracked, hurry up. Even I grow old waiting for you to come to the point."

Freyrík huffed, amused despite himself. "Very well. As you're so eager to oblige, you may start by telling me who you are."

Ayden blinked. And blinked again. Squared his shoulders and said, "I am Ayden barn Vaska barn Alarra barn Oneisi barn Hilmir barn Tívar the Blessed."

Freyrík gave him a mock bow. "Your recital does honor to your forefathers."

"Foremothers, you tone-deaf imbecile."

Mothers? Truly? Or was the elf merely taunting him?

"Well, human? We are introduced. Are you satisfied?"

"Not so easily," Freyrík said, feeling his groin tighten at the double meaning. "Tell me more."

"What more would you know?"

You, Freyrík thought, and Everything, but his mind got hold of his tongue in time, and instead he said, "Start at the beginning."

Ayden's eyebrows arched high above his wide green eyes. "Do I look a storyteller to you? Choose a better question."

Freyrík bit back a smile. He had chosen his question carefully; surprising, really, how few could answer it without fluster. But, "You forget yourself, elf. 'Tis not for you to command me. I will have your answer."

"I've no answer to give."

Freyrík unsheathed his dagger and held it up to Ayden's eyes. "Then you leave me no choice but to carve it from you by blade."

He had anticipated a number of different responses to this threat—including the possibility of attack—but it had never occurred to him that the elf would simply throw his head back and laugh.

"Oh, human," Ayden said, pushing the dagger away as if 'twere a child's toy, "you cannot lie to an elf! I can hear your feelings!"

Startled—nay, rattled to his very core at the mere possibility of such power—Freyrík stiffened as his mind raced through everything he'd felt since he'd entered the room. Amusement, arousal, anger . . . no doubt the elf could sense his current agitation, too, if the creature spoke true. He wanted to punch the smirk clear off Ayden's face, but 'twould be foolish to let the elf strip him of control. No, if Ayden could truly see through him, he would simply have to match emotion to action.

"You hear my feelings?" he said quietly. Then he lunged into Ayden's space, grabbed him by the chin and pressed the tip of the blade between his collarbones, just hard enough to draw blood. "Then hear me when I say that I will do what I must to protect these lands. You will tell me who you are and why you've come here, and I will know if you lie. Do you hear that, elf?"

Ayden held his stare as a single drop of blood rolled slowly down the dagger's blade, and Freyrík cursed under his breath, bracing himself to follow through.

But then the elf jerked his head away, sagging as if the tiny puncture wound had drained him of all his fluids and air. "Fine. You may have my story; it is of little consequence. But I will allow you to kill me and Ella both before I betray my people."

Freyrík nodded his understanding, one warrior to another. Then he took a step back, resheathed his knife, and settled against the sofa to listen.

Ayden knew not what to make of the human's question. He felt like he'd been dropped in the middle of an open field: no visible paths, all directions equally open, and the gods knew what pitfalls lay where. He had no intention of tripping, though, or of leading the prince anywhere significant. In fact, if he were feeling stronger, he'd have taken grim satisfaction in wearying the human with every minute detail of his childhood—from the name of every plant he'd discovered, to the song of every animal. No, better not to mention elfsong at all.

Yet he had to start somewhere.

"I grew up in Kappi Dómr," he said, skimming two centuries with that single statement. "My mother is an artist, a painter; she holds such love for frivolous things. My father was an—" advisor to one of the Fallen, but no, that would prompt difficult questions, "—a great elf."

He prattled on about his life, leading the prince in meaningless circles. The human, fallen gods be praised, never tried to steer him toward subjects of greater import. He spoke of joining the army to his mother's crushing protests; of taking two decades' leave to travel the known world, as the young were wont to do; of following his family to the Council's seat at Rád Dómr in the time of the Great Peace.

"Which, of course, you humans had to ruin with your betrayal," he couldn't help but add.

The prince hardly seemed contrite as he said, "So your people claim."

Anger trumpeted through Ayden, driving the weariness from his muscles. "What else would you call murdering the Council in cold blood?"

"A convenient lie," the human said easily, but before Ayden could jump to his feet or whip up his song into a wounding heat, the prince's own song flared harshly. "And what would you call giving birth to a race of dark beasts that have spilled our blood ever since?"

Ayden felt his lips twist into a cold smile as he said, "Justice."

He winced as the prince's song crashed upon his inner ear in a cacophony of drums and shrieking strings. "But the Ferals are not our doing!" he cried over the mental noise. "'Twas Nature herself who raised the Hunter's Call against you!"

The prince's song gradually folded back round him, and Ayden felt a traitorous stab of admiration as he realized that throughout the rage, the prince had remained motionless but for tensed muscles and quickened breath.

"So your people claim," the prince repeated coldly. "But 'tis of no import now. On with your tale, elf."

Ayden stifled a groan and turned his weary tongue back to his stories of nothingness. He skipped his father's death in the War of Betrayal—'twas too private, and still as raw as the wound in his arm despite near three bitter centuries' passing. Instead he spoke of his dispatch to the front lines of the war, of being captured once before ("You hold no candle to their skills of persuasion, Prince"), and of returning to border patrols when the war was ended, this time with skills enough to tread alone. His voice softened when he recounted Ella's antics and strange beliefs about humans, and that brought him to her last, fateful crossing of the border.

"The rest of it you will need to ask of your men," he finally said, "for I spent much of these last days senseless."

The prince nodded once, pursed his lips. His thoughts, no doubt, were circling round and round Ayden's story, searching for discrepancies and exploitable slips. Yet he would find none. Ayden had been too careful.

Perhaps the prince had reached the same conclusion, for his song lost its predatory edge, relaxing into fascination and slithering back toward arousal—and crack it all, what was it about Ayden that the human found so appealing, anyway?

But then the prince gave himself a shake, and the timbre of his song changed once more, determination riding in afresh on every note. He stood and stepped too close for comfort. Ayden could not help flinching back, though he scorned himself for it. His neck protested the sharp angle it took to return the man's stare.

"So. Your people spy often on our movements."

"We do not spy. We merely watch the border to ensure no foolishness on your part."

"Indeed, and I'm merely having a charming discussion with a new friend."

Ayden choked on his response, half snort and half snarl, but managed to hold back reckless words. As furious as the prince made him, he had to admit the man was clever. Besides, a war of sarcasm would get him nowhere; best stick to logic.

"Humans have already tried to flee the Ferals into our lands. What will stop them from demanding passage with drawn swords next time? In our place, would you not wish to be prepared?"

The prince made no reply, but his song wavered, and Ayden could tell his last question had hit the mark.

"And yet you are the one who's crossed the border now," the prince said. "Perhaps your people think differently, but under Aegean law, 'watching' and 'trespassing' are as different as man and elf."

"I told you, I only went to save Ella from your soldier beasts."

"Indeed." The prince thankfully paced away, then turned back to him. "Let us revisit that part of your tale, where by your own admission your sister has been stealing across the border for over a hundred-year."

Ayden groaned and closed his eyes. He needed to sleep. Crack it, he needed salt. "She was only visiting with friends."

"Ah, my apologies, I'd forgotten. These friends, then, what have they been telling her?"

"How should I know?"

The prince strode up to him again, and crack it all, but again Ayden failed to control a flinch. This time, the human's hands—strong and battle-hardened—gripped the backrest of the chair on either side of Ayden's head. The prince leaned in until his forehead nearly touched Ayden's. How could a man's eyes be such a clear blue?

And just how addled was he now to be thinking such things?

"You trifle with me," the prince said, and from this close, his low voice reverberated through Ayden's flesh and sent a shiver clean through him. "Do not. What did your sister want with them?"

Ayden swallowed, shuddering when the motion drew the human's stare to his throat. "Just . . . to meet them. To learn their ways, perhaps. She makes no sense to me either, human."

The prince lingered in Ayden's space, breathing hard of Ayden's own air, one wavy lock of hair tickling Ayden's left cheek. Ayden could see nothing beyond the man's face, strangely handsome in its brutish, stubble-roughened way, and gods but he wished it gone that he could think beyond the hunger wailing like an infant in the prince's head.

The prince licked his lips and swallowed hard, his throat muscles flexing. Ayden fought an overwhelming urge to twist away, knowing that any moment now the prince would grab his head and force a kiss—

But instead the human wrenched himself away and took two long strides from the chair, putting his broad back to Ayden. Ayden breathed out a shaky sigh and scrubbed at his face with both hands, not sure what brought him more relief: the distance now between them, or that the prince at last seemed to believe him.

. . . Or not. The prince whirled back and pinned him with an unyielding stare. "How many other spies have crossed the border?"

"What? Ella is not—!"

The human's hand lashed out like a scorpion's tail, and pain exploded in Ayden's cheek a second before he crashed to the floor, dazed. He'd not even heard it coming.

"At last, the human shows his teeth," he mumbled round the blood in his mouth, regretting it almost as soon as he'd spoken. Another such blow would surely render him unconscious . . . though for the answers he'd given so far, perhaps that would only benefit his people. "I'd begun to think you had none, Prince."

He heard clothes rustling, and braced himself for a kick that never came. When he glanced up, the prince was coolly putting the chair aright—he must have knocked it down when he'd fallen.

"Get up, elf."

Gladly, Ayden thought; but his ears were ringing and the floor was churning beneath him as if seized by an earthquake. How long since he'd last eaten, drank, slept rather than lay unconscious in the back of a moving cart? How much of his blood had been spilled, how much of his mind's voice spent by singing out for that lightning?

How much longer could he keep this up?

He couldn't sense the prince's song over the faint roar in his mind, but he certainly did sense the hands on him, strong fingers pressing deliberately into the wound on his left bicep, hauling him off the floor and back into the chair. A whine of fear wormed through his own song, but he wrestled it down.

The human leaned in closer, cheek to cheek, his unrelenting grip making Ayden's eyes water. "It appears teeth is all you understand," he said, hot breath puffing across the shell of Ayden's ear. "I do not wish to harm you, elf. But do not mistake that for me not knowing how." Another squeeze, and pain sparked white-hot from Ayden's shoulder to his fingertips.

"Now," the human said over Ayden's cry, his tone as sharp with restrained rage as the fingers digging into Ayden's wound, "you will answer me, or I shall take this conversation to Ella. Do I make myself clear?"

Whatever fear Ayden felt for himself seemed suddenly insignificant, a mere drop amongst his sudden rush of panic. He nodded furiously.

Yet still the human clawed at his wound, and pain crested into agony that left him moaning on every exhale. "Speak aloud when you answer me. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes," Ayden panted, barely able to spit the word out without unleashing the scream welling behind it. "Yes!"

"Good."

The pressure disappeared at last, though the pain lagged long behind, stubborn and unforgiving. Ayden watched the prince flick blood from his fingers and swallowed hard to keep dry heaves at bay. He knew not if the nausea swirling in his mind and gut was his or the human's. Both, he suspected.

The human's voice drew Ayden's attention back to his face. "How many spies besides Ella?"

Ayden recoiled, reeling with helpless frustration. "How can you think her a spy! The only reason she crossed—"

The moment the words left his mouth, the human was atop him again, his knee in Ayden's groin and one hand round his throat, the other hand tearing back into his wound. Ayden thrashed, screamed as white flame scorched through nerves and sinews, fanning into his head and back as he arched against the prince's hold like an overdrawn bow.

"How many!"

"None! None would care enough to do it! The only elf foolish enough to bother with your beastly lot is a—" he choked on a watery gasp as the fingers round his arm tightened "—is a sweet girl who believed there was something worth saving in your traitorous race!"

His unspoken words hung between them: And look what her compassion bought her.

The prince's fingers fell away and Ayden sagged, shuddering and panting. When the tremors faded, he lifted his right hand—the left one would no sooner obey him now than the writhing tongue of fire it currently resembled—to wipe the wetness from his eyes. He could hear nothing of the prince's emotions over his own howling pain, but he thought he'd glimpsed in his eyes . . . Well, he wasn't quite sure what, really. Cautious belief, he thought, and regret, and . . .

And gods crack the brute for being able to gaze upon Ayden in all his abject misery—such as he had caused, no less—and still envision pleasures with him. He was staring again as if transfixed, standing far too close, reaching out to touch . . .

Ayden jerked back, and the human startled too but in the opposite direction, leaving a good two feet of space between them. The human turned abruptly, poured himself a glass of water from the pitcher on the tea table, and downed it so quickly that Ayden thought—hoped—he would choke.

Gods, but the water looked good.

The human poured another glass and turned back, caught Ayden staring as it was halfway to his lips. He eyed Ayden shrewdly, then brought the glass back down and rolled it between his palms, back and forth, making the water slosh gently with a murmur of music fit for the fallen gods themselves—and may they crack the human again for playing on Ayden's thirst.

Though 'twas fitting punishment, perhaps, for Ayden betraying his thirst in the first place.

He ripped his eyes from the water glass, but they landed instead on the prince's lips, glistening with moisture, on the prince's tongue that darted out to catch a stray drop . . .

"Well?" Ayden choked out, forcing his gaze up to the prince's eyes. "You have your answers, human. Are we done here?"

The prince took a sip of water, heedless of Ayden's blood smeared all across the glass. "No, not yet. Tell me, how many elves infest the woodlands at our border?"

Ayden found the direction of that question frankly terrifying. This human's people outnumbered Ayden's by orders of magnitude. If the human ordered a raid into elven lands, not even his people's elfsong and knowledge of the forest would prevent a great many deaths. He must put a stop to this, right now.

"Thousands."

The human's hands tightened round the water glass, and a shiver of fear like tiny cymbals crashed across Ayden's inner ear. "What manner of warriors? Swordsmen? Archers?" A pause, then, "Sorcerers?"

"As I am: all three and more."

That was clearly the wrong thing to say, for the human slammed the glass down on the tea table and leaned in close, grabbing Ayden by the hair and snarling into his ear, "What did I say about your lies!"

Ayden shoved him away in a fit of fury to match the human's, but then forced himself still, horrified by his action. "Well what did you expect of me!" he demanded. "I told you I would not betray my people."

"And I told you," the human growled, fisting Ayden's hair again and pulling his dagger from its sheath, "that I would stop at nothing to protect mine."

The blade nestled behind the shell of Ayden's ear and Ayden froze, holding his breath as cold steel sent a shiver down the side of his neck. This time, the human's song grated with equal parts disgust and determination.

"You may heal quickly, elf, but I doubt even you can grow a new ear."

He had the right of that. Ayden swallowed, and the fine muscles behind his ear moved against the blade. He closed his eyes; the pain he could endure, but not the sight of his own ear falling to the carpet.

"Tell me, when do your people march on mine, and in what force?"

He heard each word acutely—never was one's ear more keen than when it might be hearing its last—but their joined meaning eluded him, for his mind rejected its absurdity. Yet that was what the human had asked, was it not—when elfkind would launch a second war?

That was the secret he meant to pry from Ayden at any cost?

Ayden burst into laughter.

Thankfully, his response shocked the human into releasing him rather than cutting off his ear.

Ayden sprawled back in the chair, laughing so hard he could barely breathe. "Oh, human!" he wheezed, nearly choking on the tension as it drained from him. "Is that your fear? That we'd invade your lands?"

He looked up into the prince's face through teary eyes, and the affronted scowl there nearly undid him all over again. Gods, he was past tired, to be laughing at a time like this.

Especially when the human clearly found no humor in his words. In fact, the prince's song was whipping into a steely crescendo that would surely climax in violence—

But even in the face of that, Ayden could not stop. He held up a placating hand, begging a moment. "Do you believe," he gasped out, "do you truly believe we have nothing better to do than trouble ourselves with your pitiful, dying race?" He managed to contain himself to a snicker, a few hiccups, and added, "Especially when the Ferals do so well on their own? No, human, they do not need our help!" He wiped at leaking eyes and shook his head, his whole body trembling with laughter and the effort to contain it.

The human studied him in stony silence for many long moments, jaw clenched and face pinched. Ayden's dismissal of his fears had clearly insulted him, but wending through the prince's anger was relief so profound that Ayden felt it as his own. Or maybe it really was his own; the gods knew he hadn't been looking forward to being carved up like some grass-eater destined for the supper table.

"Are you quite finished?" the human asked, but though Ayden nodded and bit into his fist, still he snorted once, twice, a third time, his shoulders twitching in restraint.

The human sighed, lifted his eyes to the ceiling and shook his head, but his anger was fading. Perhaps he realized that Ayden could no sooner control this now than the human could control the weather. Or perhaps the human's own relief was making him a little giddy too, though it did not show on the outside.

He did, however, pick up the glass of water and thrust it against Ayden's chest. 'Twas the last thing Ayden had expected, and he fumbled and nearly dropped it. But once his hands had wrapped round the glass, he chugged the water in a single breath. It was gone impossibly fast—surely the glass held more than that?—and did nothing for his thirst but bring it to stark, demanding attention.

At least the drink had drowned the laughter, but his body continued to betray him, for now he found himself holding the glass out in a silent request for more.

The human jerked his chin at the pitcher and said, "I know not the ways of your lands, elf, but under this roof, a prince does not wait upon a prisoner."

That nearly set Ayden laughing again, but he was too focused on his needs, now that the human had given him leave to indulge them. Yet when he stood, the floor bucked beneath his feet and sent him stumbling to all fours, the glass flying from splayed fingers and rolling across the carpet.

He glared up at the human, daring him to speak so much as one mocking word. But the prince merely pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head again, then stooped to pluck the glass from the floor. He refilled it and handed it to Ayden, who gulped it down eagerly.

The prince was peering at him as if seeing him for the first time. "Have they fed you at all this past week? No, of course not. I'll have something sent up."

Ayden dropped his scathing reply in favor of a loud protest when he was scooped off the floor (or rather, he thought he protested; 'twas hard to concentrate with the water sloshing so in his stomach), but he was too weary to struggle against the strong arms that cradled him—fallen gods have mercy—to the human's chest.

They passed through a set of double doors he'd not noticed before and into a cool, shuttered room. A moment of dizziness, and Ayden found himself dumped on the edge of an oversized bed. The mattress dipped under him, softer even than the roving-stuffed bedding waiting for him back home.

"Don't bleed on my sheets," the prince warned as he disappeared through yet another door.

Ayden wondered how he was supposed to control that, even if he'd wanted to. 'Twas the prince's fault that he was bleeding again, in any case. Gods, but he was tired! How sweet it would be to lay his head upon the pillows, close his eyes and simply—

The human returned with a water basin and fresh strips of linen, took a seat by Ayden's side, and started washing his arm as if he weren't the one who'd mauled it in the first place.

Ayden's clouded thoughts and weary tongue refused to reconcile, and so all that made it past his lips was, "Why?"

"You've told me what I need to know," the prince said, trading the sodden cloth for the linen and rebinding the wound. His hands moved deftly, but even their light touch left Ayden stupid with pain after the damage so recently done. For a moment, whatever words spilled from the human's mouth flowed right past his ears.

". . . no threat to me now." The prince tied off the linen and smoothed a hand over Ayden's shoulder, down his arm. Something shifted then within the human, and his hand lingered a moment too long. A song of need—the first hesitant touch of the bow to a violin's deepest strings—slithered like a millipede through Ayden's head. He fought the urge to recoil.

"Eat and rest, Ayden," the human said—and Ayden did not, for one moment, miss the sudden use of his name—"and I promise you that our next meeting won't be the slightest bit unpleasant."