An impossibly large man towered over him, his golden hair pulled back into a bun and a frown permanently etched on his face.
Callias slung Vesper's arm around his shoulder. Vesper beamed at him regardless of his friend's annoyance.
“Hey Cal,” he slurred. In his blurry vision he saw two, nothree, of the bronze skinned man. “We—you should stay, I’ll buy.”
Cal sucked a breath through his teeth as he spotted Vesper’s left eye swollen shut, his split cheek, and a heavy smear of blood crusted around his ear.
“We're not staying,” Cal said, his voice brimming with disappointment. "You look terrible."
With a heavily muscled arm, Cal helped Vesper to his feet. Once he was upright Vesper sobered a little. His vision reducedto one Cal in front of him, and the head rush faded enough to grasp his speech.
“Andyoulook great. You been working out?” Vesper limply punched Cal’s bicep and winced as his bloody fist connected. “Look at those things. You could wrestle a boar with your bare hands.”
As Vesper stumbled, Callias caught him under the arm. His friend’s nose screwed up in a grimace. “You stink like sex and ale.”
He bopped Cal’s nose with his forefinger. “My two favourite things.”
Callias sighed and his eyes fell shut. Maybe he was praying to Kahlia for strength. “What did you do, Vesper?”
As they shuffled out the door, Vesper heavily favoured his left leg. People gawked, whispered, and some darted away like he carried some infectious plague while others marvelled at the Prince of Ellynne, reduced tothis. Vesper felt their stares sink into his bones.
“What are you bloody looking at?” he spat at them. The aches, previously numbed by alcohol, returned with vengeance in violent waves. Vesper gritted his teeth against the pain and turned back to Cal. “Some guy made an obscene comment. I had to set him straight.”
“What did he say?”
Cal steered him through the crowded streets as Vesper tripped over his own boots. Oblivious to Cal’s struggle to get him to the gate, Vesper fingered a substance on his tunic, likely a mix of his own blood and vomit from the colour. He smeared it between his fingers before he wiped it back on his shirt.
“They were spewing some shit about Emmery. That she’s the beginning of the end. Prophetic garbage.” He snorted. “My fist shut him up pretty quick.”
Even through Cal’s emotionally stunted nature, his icy blue eyes revealed Vesper was in a shitstorm of trouble. “Did you at least use your words before you punched him?” he asked, none too gently.
“I’m not achild, Cal.” Vesper’s grin pulled at his split lip. “And when have you ever known me to talk over using my fists?”
Fuck, the world was twirling like a bloody hurricane. Vesper swallowed his nausea, but it rose again like a riotous tide.
Cal grunted as Vesper wormed like a petulant child. “Would you stop? I’m trying to help you.”
“I didn’t ask for your help,” he slurred. “Youcame to getme.”
“You didn’t need to ask.” As Cal smoothed his hair, his massive bicep flexed beneath his long-sleeve grey tunic. “You can’t start fights over some girl, Ves.”
He shot Cal a scowl and pulled away. “She’s not just ‘some girl’. She’s supposed to save our sorry asses from this fever, remember?”
As he limped forward on his own, he winced at the sharp pain that shot up his leg. He couldn’t remember exactly how that happened in the fight, but damn, his ankle wasscreaming. At least he’d gotten the last hit to the fat prick’s jaw and sent him sprawling to the ground.
After they exited through the gates, Vesper sloppily tapped his cuff and Balthasar appeared in a swirl of black mist. The spectral steed neighed and nudged Vesper’s bloodied face with his fuzzy muzzle.
He leaned his brow against Balthasar’s snout and murmured, “Hey buddy.” Then Vesper attempted to climb onto his steed. The kicking and flailing was obscene, but he was too drunk to care. At some point in the struggle, Cal seized Vesper’s belt and heaved him onto Balthasar in one abrupt shove. Once he was secured, Vesper glared over his shoulder at the crowd of peoplewho had stopped to gawk. They scattered, but he didn’t miss the embarrassment that creased Cal’s mouth.
Cal untied his horse from a post and mounted the buckskin stallion with far more grace than Vesper ever could, at least in his inebriated state. Then the two of them set off for the long ride home.
“You have to let her go,” Cal said softly. “It’s for the best.”
His friend’s voice was gentle but his words pried open something in Vesper’s chest. Something he’d been wrestling with since he first saw Emmery that day across the gate. “I know you don’t care for her,” he said. He pushed his sweaty hair back. Balthasar’s jarring gait made his stomach churn. “As we know, if anyone can hold a grudge, it’s you.”
A muscle ticked in Cal’s jaw. “You’re not being fair. She destroyed our home. Who’s to say it wasn’t on purpose?”
“I know her. She wouldneverhurt us. Never hurtme.”