The clouds are heavy, blocking the light, making the forest look dark and haunted. There’s a charge in the air that smarts my skin in a way that has nothing to do with the cold ...
Movement snags my gaze, and I watch a spotted gray horse clamor through the front gate, lugging a cart down the packed-earth path. He’s lathered in sweat, frothing at the bit, but that’s not what has my eyes narrowing.
It’s the female lumped on the upper seat, barely clinging to the reins, her head flopping around so much it’s hard to see past the mess of her inky hair.
Perhaps she’s asleep?
They get halfway across the lawn before lightning mosaics the clouds. A second later, thunder crackles loud enough to rattle my bones, and the horse rears up, squeals to the sky, then crumbles—sending the cart tipping sideways.
The woman is tossed through the air, landing in a boneless heap on the manicured grass.
She doesn’t move. Doesn’t even scream.
I’m back inside, yanking my door open and bounding down Stony Stem in the very next instant.
There’s the sound of footfalls chasing me, Vanth and Kavan yelling for me to stop but doing nothing to penetrate my resolve.
I move like the wind, limbs churning, mind an axe. There are no hurdles for feet that defy the laws of gravity, and that’s what mine do.
Barely feeling as if they touch the ground.
I reach the bottom of my tower, hair slipping free of its band as I weave down a barrage of tunnels and stairwells until grass cushions my steps. The space between myself and the cart seems to evaporate in seconds, and I fall upon the female in a flutter of blue and unbridled hair.
With hands too steady to be mine, I roll the woman onto her back, and a sharp sound splits the air.
It takes me a moment to realize it came from me.
She’s petite, pretty, with big, brown eyes that are wide and wet and painfully familiar.
Mishka—the Medis from a neighboring village—but she doesn’t look the same as she did a few days ago at the Tribunal ...
Her skin is gray, all the color drained from her sunken cheeks. Her pupils are so dilated the black is almost consuming the brown, and they’re seeing but ... but not. There’s an acrid stench wafting off her that sticks to the back of my throat, and I glance down her body to seek the source.
A sturdy hand grips my chin and yanks, forcing my gaze skyward.
Pewter eyes snatch my breath.
“No,” Rhordyn growls through clenched teeth, dropping to his knees on the other side of Mishka and unhooking his jacket buttons. “Don’t look.”
Holding my stare, he drapes the jacket over Mishka’s midsection while I study every speckle in his smoky stare. Eyes that offer a blanket of comfort while also plying me with a sense of dread.
More footsteps encroach, crunching through what sounds like broken glass, pausing.
He breaks our eye contact to look past me. “Any liquid bane?”
“Smashed.”
Rhordyn swears so sharp I flinch.
“The horse, Baze.”
“On it.”
I look over my shoulder to see Baze step around a spilled leather satchel and walk toward the felled animal. The horse is trying to arch his head off the ground, allowing me a glimpse of shallow slash marks along his neck. Grisly wounds seeping a rank-smelling liquid that’s inky and thick and—
Something tore into him.
“Go, Orlaith.”
Rhordyn’s voice snags me, and my head swivels, stare landing on Mishka’s unseeing eyes ...
On her bleeding lips and restless chest.
“No,” I mutter, maneuvering her onto my lap. “She needs elevation and water. Her lips are cracked.”
I shift my attention to Kavan and Vanth, watching the scene unfold through wide eyes, spears hanging at their sides. “Make yourselves useful and go fetch a pitcher!”
Nobody moves, Mishka continues to battle for breath, and my insides twist into messier knots.
Frantic, I turn to Rhordyn. “Why aren’t you helping?” I hiss, smoothing Mishka’s hair back from her face.
She releases a sob that’s half whimper, then calls out for her mom.
Again.
My heart folds.
I cradle her head and sooth her fevered brow, just like Cook used to do when I was sick. “It’s okay. You’re going to be okay ...”
A bolt of lightning highlights the carnage in a fierce, silver light. The first heavy droplets of icy rain begin to fall, and I lean forward, trying to shelter her from the worst of it.
Her pupils shrink, focusing. Her face crumbles, as if she’s just acknowledged something awful. “Help m-me ...”
I grip her flailing hand and squeeze, staring into wide, wild eyes. “I will. You’re safe now, I promise.”
Rhordyn leans so close his chilly lips skim my ear. “Her wound is from a Vruk.”
The words land like death blows, but I dash them off.
“Has anything vital been severed?”
“No.”
There’s a brief, gurgling squeal behind me, and I gasp, attention swinging to the horse now bleeding out through a slash in its throat—to Baze, crouched beside it with a bloody dagger hanging from his hand.
The animal is no longer breathing. Moving.
Making any sounds.
I blink, and a wet warmth slides down my cheeks.
“It hasn’t severed anything vital,” Rhordyn continues, his words a whispered assault on my ear. “But it will rot her. Slowly, in vicious, vile increments that will suckle her sanity and turn her rabid, until she finally drowns on her own composting lungs.”
I drag a shuddered breath, attention drifting back to the woman who seems to have lost that sheen of lucidity from her stare. “But she’s ... she’s ...”
Rhordyn shifts, and another bolt of lightning draws my attention to the dagger poised in his steady hand.
Our gazes clash.
“Look away,” he orders, and there’s an unapologetic savagery in his stare.
It bites my chest, snatching my ability to draw a full breath.
I remember Mishka standing before Rhordyn at the Tribunal. Remember her hands resting atop her lower stomach like a shield.
My tears flow freely.
Look away, he said.
But I’ve been looking away my entire life.
“No.”
“Look. Away.”
His words rattle with steely command, but I lift my chin and squeeze that cold, trembling hand. Looking down, I give Mishka all of me, leaving nothing but scraps for the man with the blade.
Her eyes are dancing, breaths distorted.
“Tell me about him,” I whisper, grabbing her other hand and resting them both atop her abdomen, trying to ignore the warm, putrid liquid now leaching through Rhordyn’s jacket. “Tell me about the man who gifted you his cupla.”
Rhordyn’s regard is a brand on my face.
I know what’s coming, but I refuse to look away. To hide behind a line that’s only fortified in my imagination. He wanted me to train—to learn to wield a sword and dodge a deadly blow—but he can’t shield me from everything.
He can’t shield me from this.
“V-Vale,” she rasps, cheeks swelling with the beginnings of a smile. “His eyes are like the s-sea. I knew I was his the m-moment I looked into them.”
My lower lip wobbles, so I tuck it between my teeth. “I love that ...”
A soft nod.
“I d-dreamt our baby has his eyes,” she whispers, each word landing a chisel to my chest.
I wonder if she knows. How much of her is painfully aware of what she’s lost.
“A little girl ...” her gaze shifts, landing somewhere faraway as her chest rattles with another inhale. “But we’ll see.”
My next breath slices me up, poisoning me with the residue of her scarcely veiled pain.
I hope she’s seeing that dream. That she’s blissfully unaware of how shredded that part of
her body is. That she believes she’s holding her mother’s comforting hands, and not those of a stranger.
A cough has her buckling in my lap, perfuming the air with more of that putrid smell.
I hold her tighter.
“You’ll see,” I lie, blooming a smile so hollow it hurts. “You’ll see her soon.”
Mishka’s lips part, but then her body jerks and—
Something warm leaks onto my thighs as her eyes widen, then gutter, and I hear the stark hiss of a withdrawing blade.
My heart stumbles a beat.
I don’t want to look, but my eyes drift of their own accord, halting on the spill of blood pushing through a clean slice on the left side of her chest ...
“You—” I sever my sight of the wound that’s scoring me in a way that feels permanent. “You just—”
Rhordyn wipes his dagger on the grass. “Stopped her suffering,” he spits, as if the words were spikes in his tongue.
Our stares collide, and though he doesn’t reply, his cold, detached eyes say everything.
Not the first ...
Probably not the last.
My throat clogs, every breath feeling like a step in a ladder I don’t want to ascend.
This is what I’ve been hiding from; what Rhordyn’s been facing whenever he leaves the castle grounds.
No wonder he sits on that throne wearing dead eyes.
Another fork of lightning splits apart the shrieking silence, and the sky loosens its load, dropping a curtain of water between Rhordyn and I.
Neither of us blink.
He’s watching me, his scrutiny as heavy as my heart. But there’s something more there—like he’s reading every sharp breath, seeing past the skin he’s forced me to wear.
He’s checking for cracks, but I have none. All I have is blood on my hands and a honed resolve.
I have to go.
“Kavan, do you know where to find the morgue?” Rhordyn asks, voice monotone, stare unwavering.
I hear my guard step forward. “Yes, High Master. We’ve had a thorough tour of your castle ... more than once.”
I can’t help but feel that’s aimed at me.
“Take Mishka’s body and have her wrapped. Retrieve her cupla. Since her promised is from the Bahari capital, it’s now your responsibility to return it to him.”
My throat clogs.
Her promised ...
“Vanth, you’ll send a priority sprite so the man has prior warning.”
There’s a long pause, then, “And what about Orla—”
Whatever question Vanth had dies on his tongue the moment Rhordyn turns his head, glancing over his shoulder at the man.
Vanth drops his head in a servile gesture. “Of course, High Master.”
I swallow as Mishka’s body is lifted, leaving nothing but a bloody, putrid stamp I can smell and feel, but can’t bring myself to look at.
Cainon was right. I dug my roots in—hid from a hurting world just as wounded as I am. Rhordyn may have slipped a mask over my face, but I was the one who chose to blind myself to the carnage.
Every second I spend here is another life lost. One more dream that’ll never manifest ...
I have to go. Now.
“Baze,” Rhordyn bites out, gaze narrowed on me again. “Make sure they find their way.”
“Sir.”
More retreating steps, until all that’s left are me and Rhordyn, a felled horse, and this frigid tension I want to shatter.
“This is not your weight to bear, Orlaith.”
“You’ve lost the right to dictate what’s important to me. You’re not my High Master anymore.”
His eyes flash luminescent. “You have no idea how wrong that statement is, Milaje. And fleeing Ocruth is not going to soothe the guilt you nourish simply because you survived.”
The allegation is slung at my soul, and I flinch—spine stiffening, fingers curling.
“Get out,” I snarl.
Get out of my head.
Rhordyn’s upper lip peels back. “Never.”
The word is volleyed at me like a threat ...
By the way he’s posturing himself, I get the haunting sense that stepping onto that boat bobbing by the jetty is going to be a much bigger hurdle than I initially anticipated.
I should have left yesterday ...
Shit.
Perhaps I can still get to it. As long as my feet are touching that Bahari-bourne deck, Rhordyn can’t remove me without inciting some sort of war.
He’s overbearing, but he’s not stupid.
My pulse sounds like a war drum as I lift my chin, pushing my shoulders back. “I’ll be leaving now.”
“And what about your guards?” he asks, deadly calm. “You’re just going to sail off and leave them here?”
“They can hitch a ride on a trade ship.”
No love lost there.
“They’re your people now, Milaje. Your responsibility.” His gaze darts down to my cupla, back up. “You’re their future High Mistress, are you not?”
Asshole.
I leap to my feet and run.
I make it about two dozen steps toward the ocean before I’m swept up and tossed over Rhordyn’s shoulder, landing a blow to my stomach that knocks the air right out of me. Recovery proves difficult when every powerful stride he takes lands another assault to my gut, preventing me from drawing a sufficient breath.
We’re inside the castle by the time I manage to haul my lungs full. I let out a furious scream, pummeling his back with my fists and swearing like I’ve heard the guards do when they think they’re out of earshot.
He doesn’t slow, doesn’t even grunt ... as if he were cut from the very walls of this very castle. So I prepare to sink my teeth into a slab of solid back muscle.
“No biting,” he murmurs, flipping me off his shoulder and catching me in a cradled position. “Those teeth can do far more damage than you realize.”
“Put me down,” I bellow, shucking against his grip. I free an arm and tear my fingers down his shirt, popping buttons and clawing his skin.
All I get in response is a throaty rumble before my arm is pinned down the side of my body. “You keep at this,” he says with a deep, gravelly cadence, “and that pathetic excuse for a garment is going to fall right off you.”
I stop moving. Instantly.
The glint in his otherwise stoic stare tells me he finds a sadistic sense of amusement in my sudden compliance, which only serves to rile me more.
Choosing to look at anything other than his intolerable face, I glance around, realizing exactly where we are ...
Headed down the corridor I’ve walked a thousand times with hungry, scent-starved lungs and empty hope in my chest. A corridor that leads to only one place.
The Den.
My throat clogs, nerves on fire, gaze shifting to the line of Rhordyn’s jaw that looks sharp enough to split wood on.
To the caged look in his eyes.
A week ago, being carried down this corridor would have pitted me with a seed of anxious excitement, but that was before I learned about the lies. That was before he put a sword through Mishka’s heart and smothered us both in blood.
“Rhordyn ... I need you to put me down.”
His grip tightens, and my heart finds a berth in my throat.
We reach the door to his personal chambers, and I’m tossed over his shoulder again while he undoes the handle, storms inside, then slams it shut behind him.
I’m flung to my feet, and it takes four stumbling steps to gain balance, a task made far more difficult by the fact that I’m suddenly choking on the potent perfume of his scent. Layers upon layers upon layers of it diving down my throat and shoving my lungs full.
It snares me. Unhinges me.
Flicking my tangled hair back with an angry toss of my hand, I spin to face Rhordyn and freeze.
There’s something about the way he’s looking at me—a wildness that’s hunting every breath. Every blink. The flutter of pulse in my th
roat.
But it’s not just that.
It’s the way he’s standing over me, smothering my view so all I can see is him. So every breath I draw has come from his chest, and each release is consumed by the same.
I quickly realize I’m entirely out of my depth, and I have one of two choices: swim ... or drown.
“Cover yourself,” he grates out, and I only have a second to shield all my important bits before his hand whips out and strikes through several strips of Cainon’s gown, the movement so swift I barely feel a thing.
Scraps flutter to the ground while others cling to my wet skin, though Rhordyn’s too busy digging through his draw to pay attention to my half-naked state. A shirt is tossed at me before he begins to pace the room, back and forth in front of the massive bed.
His strides are long and violent, hands ripping through sodden, silver-kissed curls.
Figuring he wants me to put the damn top on, I peel the remaining few scraps of blue from my body before tugging his shirt over my head, but I’m snagged the moment I do, pausing with my head halfway through the hole.
Digging my nose into the soft, luxurious fabric, I draw a quiet breath through the fibers, letting my lids flutter shut ...
All I can smell is him.
He’s worn this recently, perhaps even slept in it.
This material has been wrapped around his body. Touched him in ways I’ve never been able to.
The realization spikes heat through my veins that spears right between my legs. My skin tingles, and I have to clamp my lips shut to stopper a moan while forcing the rest of my head free, features smoothing in an effort to mask the utter ecstasy twisting me up.
But Rhordyn’s not looking at me—at the hem that falls to mid-thigh or the sleeves hanging around my elbows. He’s too busy pacing like some tortured beast.
He glances down to his own ruined top as if he just remembered I gouged his chest, and he tips his head, muttering words to the roof that make no sense at all. Gripping the hem, he tugs it over his head in a single motion, revealing powerful bricks of muscle I can’t peel my eyes from.
But it’s not his fierce, statuesque beauty that has me staring. It’s the blood dribbling down his torso, drawing from four deep scratches that cut straight through segments of his silver-scrawled tattoo.
To Bleed a Crystal Bloom Page 34