Abaddon's Mark

Chapter Thirty-Four

Nendan looked up as Graydon slipped into his study.

The office furniture had been replaced after getting smashed the night before. A side effect of the blood alongside a supposedly heightened sex drive, a boiling rage, short patience, and a craving for jam and toast.

He hated jam.

The heir settled in the rickety seat across from him, and Nendan didn't have the damned patience for that nonsense.

Not then. Not with what he had to do still.

"What is it, Lord Graydon?" he asked as calmly as he could as he tilted a report to the light as if that would make the request make any more sense.

Silence met his question.

A quip, unprepared, or anger, waiting for an acknowledgement.

He looked across his desk to Graydon, expectation clear on his own features, he knew, for he saw the Pan heir blanch.

It had meant to be a friendly meeting, then. For a second, Nendan felt a bit of guilt, but then he buried that guilt. He reminded himself that he was Lord Lugh and didn't always have time for friendly. Those who wished to remain his friend needed to understand that.

And of all the people in his life, he expected Graydon to understand.

Some part of him felt a profound ache as he understood that such advances on Graydon's part would be few and far between. Because the Pan heir understood all too well what their places were in the world. The recent bridging between the pair of them had come because Naena kept dragging them together.

"Business then," Graydon murmured, wiping a hand over his lips and chin as he sighed out. "Right, so, I've obviously come from Naena."

"Obviously," Nendan said, an edge to his voice.

He hadn't had the time to visit Maeno. That guilt ate away at him and put an edge to his temper. He had the reports, all sorts of information on the physical and lack of magic and surprise from the healers but he didn't actually know how Maeno was doing.

Graydon hesitated.

"Out with it, Graydon," Nendan barked.

Surely Pan had never seen their heir hesitate in such a manner. Nendan couldn't imagine any conversation that Graydon would have with him in an unsecured location that would make either of them hesitate.

"I know that when my mother first took my father's ear regarding Theon, my father went to Lugh," Graydon said.

Health of the mind instead of the body. A concept the Seven grasped in some ways, but only Lugh might have control over. Even for them, healing a mind wasn't always possible. Ask anyone else to talk about their feelings and vulnerabilities, though?

Yes, Nendan could understand Graydon's sudden hesitance.

"You worry about her wellbeing?"

"Don't sound so surprised," Graydon spat out.

"I am only surprised that you think of such concerns at this point in her life instead of a decade down the line," Nendan said, setting the report down for more interesting conversation. "The cracks would be seen, certainly, but not in such a way that others might understand. Not yet."

"But I know that those things... are like a plate hitting the floor," Graydon said, clearly struggling to articulate what he wanted to say. "You could drop a plate once and it'll break in half and you could put it back together, sort of, or you could drop it half a dozen times and suddenly it shatters into a million pieces and it will never be the same again, never be a plate again."