Feast of Chaos (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 3) by Christian A. Brown

for a pelt,” said Adam, touching her hair. On the voyage to Pandemonia, she’d emerged one morning with a gentleman’s military cut, streaked along the sides with gray. The haircut gave her the air of a military commander. She’d said she barbered herself because she was
simply ready for a change
.
    “A pelt?”
    “None of us are above animals.”
    Mouse went to slap him again, but he caught her hand and made a small, challenging growl. Too easily she forgot that he was, truly, part animal. He held her wrist longer and more firmly than a friend should, and that flame they’d convinced themselves was smothered sparked up. Accentuated in the morning glow, his lean, tanned physique held a gleam of copper, and his eyes were as deep and brown as ancient amber. His charisma was poorly hidden by the light sash and kilt he wore. Down the valley of his sinewy, tattooed chest hung the dark stone talisman given to him by Elemech. He kept a trim and perfect beard, and Mouse saw the musclesof his jaw moving underneath, as if he were chewing or hungry. Feeling light and a little detached from reality, Mouse watched the man’s gaze move over her slight hips, small breasts, and up to the sharp face people told her was pretty. All the while, the changeling’s nostrils flared as he smelled her perfume of iron, roses, and sage.
    They were interrupted by a strained and aggravated laugh—likely from someone responding to one of Moreth’s witticisms, which were usually at someone else’s expense and often led to arguments. The two returned to the half-circle of furniture set back from the more orderly rows of bolted seats around the stage. There, the company had gathered in typical fashion. Thackery and Talwyn sat beside one another and nursed porcelain cups of tea. Their lordly poses lent them an air of brotherly masters, kings upon thrones. Now that Thackery had cheated time, the sage and scholar looked similar; both had square high-browed faces and stares that glimmered with vast intellect. Still, Thackery’s raven-dark hair and Talwyn’s reddish-gold locks distinguished one from the other. Alastair sat next to the two, hidden in his cloak, tuning a lute. Legs crossed and oozing leisure, Moreth reclined in a seat many chairs away from the others and cradled a book in his hands. Physical separation from the group did not seem to diminish his need for a disagreement.
    “What you’ve suggested is absurd,” he said, not looking up from his book, nor repeating whatever absurdity Mouse and Adam had missed. “Street-level rumormongering. You are intelligent men; please stop embarrassing yourselves. How can either of you—you, especially, Thackery, Thule as you are—not see the connection between the disruption at Taroch’s Arm and the doom of Menos?”
    Not everything had been relaxation and measured preparation aboard the
Skylark
. Moreth, Alastair, and the crew had informed the lost wanderers of Geadhain’s current events. Of all the ill tidings, the destruction of Menos had become the topic that circulated most often and provoked passionate discussions. Genocide on that scale seemed somehow even more dreadful when no one knew the identity of the perpetrator and all were unable to investigate the area thoroughly enough to venture an opinion. Ruins—everything lay in ruins, the companions were told. Foul entities were said to stalk the remains of the Iron City under a blanket of perpetualnight made up of smoke and ash that would not disperse from the realm. Mouse wouldn’t have believed such an old wives’ tale herself if she and Adam had not seen the queer, distant globe of black smoke from out of one of the
Skylark’s
windows one bright, beautiful day. They had run to fetch the Wolf and asked for his opinion, which had been grim. “I can see nothing but death,” he had said.
    “Taroch’s Arm is missing, gentlemen and gentlewomen,” declared Moreth.
    A hush seized the company. Mouse took a seat before tempers erupted,