Kingdom of Ash

Gavriel huffed a laugh and took the apple
with an incline of his head before cleaning it
on the sleeve of his pale jacket. “Indeed it is.”
Down the alley, Elide could have sworn the
dark figure stiffened. She paid him no heed.
Gavriel bit into the apple, his canines
flashing. Aedion Ashryver’s father—the
resemblance was uncanny, though the
similarities stopped at appearance. In the brief
few days she’d spent with Aedion, he’d
proved himself the opposite of the soft-
spoken, thoughtful male.
She’d worried, after Asterin and Vesta had
left them aboard the ship they’d sailed here,
that she might have made a mistake in
choosing to travel with three immortal males.
That she’d be trampled underfoot.
But Gavriel had been kind from the start,
making sure Elide ate enough and had
blankets on frigid nights, teaching her to ride