“I missed you,” he murmured. I didn’t roll over just yet; the feel of his warm belly against my mark was amazing, and I think he knew it. “Tell me about your day.”
“I went to the village with Max.” Micah withdrew my hands from underneath the blankets and made a show of counting my fingers. “What are you doing?”
“Ensuring that he returned you to me in one piece. Toes next.” Micah dove under the blankets and proceeded to count my very sensitive toes. He was lucky I didn’t kick him in the head. When he emerged, after much shrieking on my part and laughter from both of us, he was serious again. “If you travel with Max again, take the silverkin to guard you.”
“Max wouldn’t let anything hurt me,” I protested. I left out how, if it hadn’t been for the pixie, that would have been a moot point.
“He does not have to let them,” Micah replied. Then he gathered me close in that way of his that made it nearly impossible for me to remain angry with him. “I cannot bear the thought of you harmed. Please, for my sake, take them along.”
“Micah…” I looked into those silver eyes, so wide and accepting of me and my wackadoo family. “I can’t.”
“Why?” he asked softly, tracing my cheekbone. “Why can my Sara not promise to be safe?”
“Max is looking for Dad.” Micah’s brow furrowed, and I misinterpreted his expression as anger. “I’d have told you, if I knew before today,” I babbled. “It’s what Max has been doing, raising hell and—”
“Hell?” Micah repeated, alarmed.
“Not real hell,” I soothed. “When Max started brawls or gambled all night or—”
“Or destroyed parts of my home?”
“He was looking for Dad,” I finished in a small voice. “He…he thinks that if he makes a spectacle of himself, word will get to Dad, and that Dad’ll come find us.” As I said it out loud, I realized how stupid Max’s plan really was. Of course I’d known it was a foolish endeavor from the get-go, but I’d ignored my misgivings, hoping that Max was right. He wasn’t, and we were just two stupid, stupid kids.
“You think this plan is sound?” Micah inquired, and his soft, nonjudgmental tone made me break down in tears. After much holding me close and stroking of my hair, I was calm enough for him to ask, “So, not sound, then?”
“No,” I snuffled. “Not sound.” I didn’t offer any more, and Micah didn’t press. I stroked Micah’s mark, and in the process found hard knots in his neck and shoulders; he always carried his tension there. “How was your meeting?’
“Curious,” he replied, rolling onto his back. “I saw Oriana.”
“She’s well, then?” I asked. The last time I’d seen the Gold Queen she’d just been lifted out of the Iron Court’s oubliette and was little more than a cadaver. A screaming, filthy, furious cadaver.
“Well? No.” He brought my hand before him, playing with my fingers. “I suspect her captivity has driven her to madness.”
“She can hardly be blamed for that,” I murmured, shuddering as I recalled the stinking hole of darkness she’d been hauled from; Micah and I had the honor of attending, being that we’d caused the Iron Queen’s demise and had thus inadvertently restored Oriana to the throne. Ha. Some honor. “What did she do?”
“First, she proclaimed that we were all sent to kill her. Then, she announced that she suspected one of us of sewing poison into her clothing, so she stripped naked. Then, she danced and laughed, quite pleased with herself that she’d thwarted her poisoner.”
Can you sew poison? I kept my musings to myself and prompted him to continue. “Then she demanded that we all expose our marks to her, to prove that we are, indeed, Elementals. Shapeshifters cannot duplicate Elemental marks, you know,” Micah added, then laughed mirthlessly. “She went so far as to touch each mark, to prove our authenticity.”
“She touched your mark?” Jealousy rose like bile in my throat. Micah was mine, his beautiful silver mark off-limits to everyone but me.
“For the barest moment,” Micah replied. “She was far more interested in the Inheritor of Fire.”
Ayla was the Inheritor of Fire’s name; I’d made a point of meeting her, since she was human like me. She was tall and lean, with a head of hair such a bright shade of red she made me look like a mere brunette. “Why was Ayla there?”
“Oriana requested her.” Micah rolled again, now onto his side as he pulled me into his cocoon of Micahness. “I do not know how we of metal should proceed, if our queen proves mad. Our queen is meant to symbolize wisdom, not weakness.” He fell silent, his fingers caressing my back in long strokes.