Kadara dove, a sharp, swift motion that had Sartaq tightening his arms around her, bracing her thighs with his own.
She let him guide her, keeping them upright in the saddle as Kadara dipped into the water, thrashed, and sent something hurling onto the riverbank. A heartbeat later, she was upon it, talons and beak spearing and slashing. The thing beneath her fought, twisting and whipping—
A crunch. Then silence.
The ruk calmed, feathers puffing, then smoothing against the blood now splattered along her breast and neck. Some had splashed onto Nesryn’s boots as well.
“Be careful, Captain Faliq,” Sartaq said as Nesryn got a good look at the creature the ruk now feasted upon.
It was enormous, nearly fifteen feet, covered in scales thick as armor. Like the marsh beasts of Eyllwe, but bulkier—fatter from the cattle it no doubt dragged into the water along these rivers.
“There is beauty in my father’s lands,” the prince went on while Kadara ripped into that monstrous carcass, “but there is much lurking beneath the surface, too.”
CHAPTER
13
Yrene panted, her legs sprawled before her on the rug, her back resting against the couch on which Lord Chaol now gasped for breath as well.
Her mouth was dry as sand, her limbs trembling so violently that she could barely keep her hands limp in her lap.
A spitting sound and a little thump told her he’d removed the bit.
He’d roared around it. His bellowing had been almost as bad as the magic itself.
It was a void. It was a new, dark hell.
Her magic had been a pulsing star that flared against the wall that the darkness had crafted between the top of his spine and the rest of it. She knew—knew without testing—that if she bypassed it, jumped right to the base of his spine … it would find her there, too.
But she had pushed. Pushed and pushed, until she was sobbing for breath.
Still, that wall did not move.
It only seemed to laugh, quietly and sibilantly, the sound laced with ancient ice and malice.
She’d hurled her magic against the wall, letting its swarm of burning white lights attack in wave after wave, but—nothing.
And only at the end, when her magic could find no crack, no crevice to slide into … Only when she made to pull back did that dark wall seem to transform.
To morph into something … Other.
Yrene’s magic had turned brittle before it. Any spark of defiance in the wake of that healer’s death had cooled. And she could not see, did not dare to look at what she felt gathering there, what filled the dark with voices, as if they were echoing down a long hall.
But it had loomed, and she had slid a glance over her shoulder.
The dark wall was alive. Swimming with images, one after another. As if she were looking through someone’s eyes. She knew on instinct they did not belong to Lord Chaol.
A fortress of dark stone jutted up amid ash-colored, barren mountains, its towers sharp as lances, its edges and parapets hard and slicing. Beyond it, coating the vales and plains amid the mountains, an army rippled away into the distance, more campfires than she could count.
And she knew the name for this place, the assembled host. Heard the name thunder through her mind as if it were the beat of a hammer on anvil.
Morath.
She’d pulled out. Had yanked herself back to the light and heavy heat.
Morath—whether it was some true memory, left by whatever power had struck him; whether it was something the darkness conjured from her own darkest terrors …
Not real. At least not in this room, with its streaming sunlight and chattering fountain in the garden beyond. But if it was indeed a true portrayal of the armies that Lord Chaol had mentioned yesterday …
That was what she would face. The victims of that host, possibly even the soldiers within it, should things go very wrong.
That was what awaited her back home.
Not now—she would not think about this now, with him here. Fretting about it, reminding him of what he must face, what might be sweeping down upon his friends as they sat here … Not helpful. To either of them.
So Yrene sat there on the rug, forcing her trembling to abate with each deep breath she inhaled through her nose and out her mouth, letting her magic settle and refill within her as she calmed her mind. Letting Lord Chaol pant on the couch behind her, neither of them saying a word.
No, this would not be a usual healing.
But perhaps delaying her return, remaining here to heal him for however long it took … There might be others like him on those battlefields—suffering from similar injuries. Learning to face this now, however harrowing … Yes, this delay might turn fruitful. If she could stomach, if she could endure, that darkness again. Find some way to shatter it.
Go where you fear to tread.
Indeed.
Her eyes drifted closed. At some point, the servant girl had come back with the ingredients Yrene had invented. Had taken one look at them and vanished.
It had been hours ago. Days ago.
Hunger was a tight knot in her belly—a strangely mortal feeling compared to the hours spent attacking that blackness, only half aware of the hand she’d placed on his back, of the screaming that came from him every time her magic shoved against that wall.
He had not once asked her to stop. Had not begged for reprieve.
Shaking fingers brushed her shoulder. “Are … you …” Each of his words was a burnt rasp. She’d have to get him peppermint tea with honey. She should call to the servant—if she could remember to speak. Muster the voice herself. “… all right?”
Yrene cracked her eyelids open as his hand settled on her shoulder. Not from any affection or concern, but because she had a feeling that the exhaustion lay so heavily upon him that he couldn’t move it again.
And she was drained enough that she couldn’t muster the strength to brush off that touch, as she’d done earlier. “I should ask you if you’re all right,” she managed to say, voice raw. “Anything?”
“No.” The sheer lack of emotion behind the word told her enough of his thoughts, his disappointment. He paused for a few heartbeats before he repeated, “No.”
She closed her eyes again. This could take weeks. Months. Especially if she did not find some way to shove back that wall of darkness.
She tried and failed to move her legs. “I should get you—”
“Rest.”
The hand tightened on her shoulder.
“Rest,” he said again.
“You’re done for the day,” she said. “No additional exercise—”
“I mean—you. Rest.” Each word was labored.
Yrene dragged her stare toward the large clock in the corner. Blinked once. Twice.
Five.
They had been here for five hours—
He had endured it all that time. Five hours of this agony—
The thought alone had her drawing up her legs. Groaning as she braced a hand on the low-lying table and rallied her strength, pushing up, up, until she was standing. Weaving on her feet, but—standing.
His arms slid beneath him, the muscles of his bare back rippling as he tried to push himself up. “Don’t,” she said.
He did so anyway. The considerable muscles in his arms and chest did not fail him as he shoved upward, until he was sitting. Staring at her, glassy-eyed.
Yrene rasped, “You need—tea.”
“Kadja.”
The name was little more than a push of breath.
The servant immediately appeared. Too quickly.
Yrene studied her closely as the girl slipped in. She’d been listening. Waiting.
Yrene did not bother to smile as she said, “Peppermint tea. Lots of honey.”
Chaol added, “Two of them.”
Yrene gave him a look, but sank onto the couch beside him. The cushions were slightly damp—with his sweat, she realized as she saw it gleaming on the contours of his bronzed chest.
; She shut her eyes—just for a moment.
She didn’t realize it was far longer than that until Kadja was setting two delicate teacups before them, a small iron kettle steaming in the center of the table. The woman poured generous amounts of honey into both, and Yrene’s mouth was too dry, tongue too heavy, to bother telling her to stop or she’d make them ill from the sweetness.
The servant stirred both in silence, then handed the first cup to Chaol.
He merely passed it to Yrene.
She was too tired to object as she wrapped her hands around it, trying to rally the strength to raise it to her lips.
He seemed to sense it.
He told Kadja to leave his cup on the table. Told her to go.
Yrene watched as through a distant window while Chaol took her cup and lifted it to her lips.
She debated shoving his hand out of her face.
Yes, she’d work with him; no, he was not the monster she’d initially suspected he’d be, not in the way she’d seen men be; but letting him this close, letting him tend to her like this …
“You can either drink it,” he said, his voice a low growl, “or we can sit like this for the next few hours.”
She slid her eyes to him. Found his stare to be level—clear, despite the exhaustion.
She said nothing.
“So, that’s the line,” Chaol murmured, more to himself than her. “You can stomach helping me, but I can’t return the favor. Or can’t do anything that steps beyond your idea of what—who I am.”
He was more astute than most people likely gave him credit for.
She had a feeling the hardness in his rich brown eyes was mirrored in her own.
“Drink.” Pure command laced his voice—a man used to being obeyed, to giving orders. “Resent me all you want, but drink the damn thing.”
And it was the faint kernel of worry in his eyes …
A man used to being obeyed, yes, but a man also inclined to care for others. Look after them. Driven to do it by a compulsion he couldn’t leash, couldn’t train out of him. Couldn’t have broken out of him.
Yrene parted her lips, a silent yielding.
Gently, he set the porcelain teacup against her mouth and tipped it for her.
She sipped once. He murmured in encouragement. She did so again.
So tired. She had never been so tired in her life—
Chaol pushed the cup against her mouth a third time, and she drank a full gulp.
Enough. He needed it more than she did—
He sensed she was likely to bark at him, withdrew the cup from her mouth, and merely sipped it. One gulp. Two.
He drained it and grabbed the other one, offering her the first sips again before he took the dregs.
Insufferable man.
Yrene must have said as much, because a half smile kicked up on one side of his face. “You’re not the first to call me that,” he said, his voice smoother. Less hoarse.
“I won’t be the last, I’m sure,” she muttered.
Chaol simply gave her that half smile again and stretched to refill both cups. He added the honey himself—less than Kadja had. The right amount. He stirred them, his hands steady.
“I can do it,” Yrene tried to say.
“So can I,” was all he said.
She managed to hold the cup this time. He made sure she was well onto drinking hers before he lifted his own to his lips.
“I should go.” The thought of getting out of the palace, let alone the trek to the Torre, then the walk up the stairs to her rooms …
“Rest. Eat—you must be starving.”
She eyed him. “You’re not?” He’d exercised heavily before she’d arrived; he had to be famished from that alone.
“I am. But I don’t think I can wait for dinner.” He added, “You could join me.”
It was one thing to heal him, work with him, let him serve her tea. But to dine with him, the man who had served that butcher, the man who had worked for him while that dark army was amassed down in Morath … There it was. That smoke in her nose, the crackle of flame and screaming.
Yrene leaned forward to set her cup on the table. Then stood. Every movement was stiff, sore. “I need to return to the Torre,” she said, knees wobbling. “The vigil is at sundown.” Still a good hour from now, thankfully.
He noted her swaying and reached for her, but she stepped out of his range. “I’ll leave the supplies.” Because the thought of lugging that heavy bag back …
“Let me arrange a carriage for you.”
“I can ask at the front gate,” she said. If someone was hunting her, she’d opt for the safety of a carriage.
She had to grip the furniture as she passed to keep upright. The distance to the door seemed eternal.
“Yrene.”
She could barely stand at the door, but she paused to look back.
“The lesson tomorrow.” The focus had already returned to those brown eyes. “Where do you want me to meet you?”
She debated calling it off. Wondered what she’d been thinking, asking him of all people to come.
But … five hours. Five hours of agony, and he had not broken.
Perhaps it was for that alone that she had declined dinner. If he had not broken, then she would not break—not in seeing him as anything but what he was. What he’d served.
“I’ll meet you in the main courtyard at sunrise.”
Mustering the strength to walk was an effort, but she did it. Put one foot in front of the other.
Left him alone in that room, still staring after her.
Five hours of agony, and she’d known it had not all been physical.
She had sensed, shoving against that wall, that the darkness had also showed him things on the other side of it.
Glimmers had sometimes shivered past her. Nothing she could make out, but they felt … they had felt like memories. Nightmares. Perhaps both.
Yet he had not asked her to stop.
And part of Yrene wondered, as she trudged through the palace, if Lord Chaol had not asked her to stop not just because he’d learned how to manage pain, but also because he somehow felt he deserved it.
Everything hurt.
Chaol did not let himself think about what he had seen. What had flashed through his mind as that pain had wracked him, burned and flayed and shattered him. What—and who he’d seen. The body on the bed. The collar on a throat. The head that had rolled.
He could not escape them. Not while Yrene had worked.
So the pain had ripped through him, so he had seen it, over and over.
So he had roared and screamed and bellowed.
She’d stopped only when she’d slid to the floor.
He’d been left hollow. Void.
She still had not wanted to spend more than a moment necessary with him.
He didn’t blame her.
Not that it mattered. Though he reminded himself that she’d asked him to help tomorrow.
In whatever way he could.
Chaol ate his meal where Yrene had left him, still in his undershorts. Kadja didn’t seem to notice or care, and he was too aching and tired to bother with modesty.
Aelin would likely have laughed to see him now. The man who had stumbled out of her room after she’d declared that her cycle had arrived. Now sitting in this fine room, mostly naked and not giving a shit about it.
Nesryn returned before sundown, her face flushed and hair windblown. One look at her tentative smile told him enough. At least she’d been somewhat successful with Sartaq. Perhaps she’d manage to do what it seemed he himself was failing to: raising a host to bring back home.
He’d meant to speak to the khagan today—about the threat last night’s attack had posed. Meant to, and yet it was now late enough to prevent arranging such a meeting.
He barely heard Nesryn as she whispered about Sartaq’s possible sympathy. Her ride on his magnificent ruk. Exhaustion weighed on him so heavily he could hardly keep his eyes open, even while he pictured tho
se ruks squaring off against Ironteeth witches and wyverns, even while he debated who might survive such battles.
But he managed to give the order that curdled on his tongue: Go hunting, Nesryn.
If one of Erawan’s Valg minions had indeed come to Antica, time was not on their side. Every step, every request might be reported back to Erawan. And if they were pursuing Yrene, either for reading up on the Valg or for healing the Hand of the King of Adarlan … He didn’t trust anyone here enough to ask them to do this. Anyone other than Nesryn.
Nesryn had nodded at his request. Had understood why he’d nearly spat it out. To let her go into danger, to hunt that sort of danger …
But she’d done it before in Rifthold. She reminded him of that—gently. Sleep beckoned, turning his body foreign and heavy, but he managed to make his final request: Be careful.
Chaol didn’t resist when she helped him into the chair, then wheeled him into his room. He tried and failed to lift himself into bed, and was only vaguely aware of her and Kadja hauling him onto it like a slab of meat.
Yrene—she never did such things. Never wheeled him when he could do so himself. Constantly told him to move himself instead.
He wondered why. Was too damn tired to wonder why.
Nesryn said she would make his apologies at dinner, and went to change. He wondered if the servants heard the whine of the whetstone against her blades from her bedroom door.
He was asleep before she left, the clock in the sitting room distantly chiming seven.
No one paid Nesryn much heed at dinner that night. And no one paid her any heed later, when she donned her fighting knives, sword, and bow and quiver, and slipped into the city streets.
Not even the khagan’s wife.
As Nesryn stalked by a large stone garden on her way out of the palace, a glimmer of white caught her eye—and sent her ducking behind one of the pillars flanking the courtyard.
Within a heartbeat, she removed her hand from the long knife at her side.
Clad in white silk, her long curtain of dark hair unbound, the Grand Empress strolled, silent and grave as a wraith, down a walkway wending through the rock formations of the garden. Only moonlight filled the space—moonlight and shadow, as the empress strode alone and unnoticed, her simple gown flowing behind her as if on a phantom wind.
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