He snorted, but his thumb stilled, right over her fluttering pulse. “She gives us more credit than we’re due.” But that was alarm now flaring to life in Yrene’s eyes. “What do you believe, Yrene Towers?”
She laid her hand atop his own but made no move to remove his touch from her neck.
“I think your presence may have triggered other forces to act, but I do not believe you are the sort of man who plays games.”
Even if their current position said otherwise.
“You go after what you want,” Yrene continued, “and you pursue it directly. Honestly.”
“I used to be that sort of man,” Chaol countered. He could not look away from her.
“And now?” Her words were breathless, her pulse hammering beneath his palm.
“And now,” Chaol said, bringing his head closer to hers, near enough that her breath brushed his mouth, “I wonder if I should have listened to my father when he tried to teach me.”
Yrene’s eyes dropped to his mouth, and every instinct, every bit of focus, narrowed on that movement. Every part of him came to aching attention.
And the sensation of it, as he casually adjusted his jacket over his lap, was better than an ice bath.
The smoke—the opiates. It was some sort of aphrodisiac, some lulling of common sense.
Yrene was still watching his mouth as if it were a piece of fruit, her uneven breath lifting those lush, high breasts within the confines of her gown.
He forced himself to remove his hand from her neck. Forced himself to lean back.
Nesryn had to be watching. Had to be wondering what the hell he was doing.
He owed her better than this. He owed Yrene better than whatever he had just done, whatever madness—
“Skull’s Bay,” he threw out. “Tell her fire can be found at Skull’s Bay.”
It was perhaps the one place Aelin would never go—down to the domain of the Pirate Lord. He’d heard her story, once, of her “misadventure” with Rolfe. As if destroying his city and wrecking his prized ships were just another bit of fun. Heading there would indeed be the last thing Aelin would do, with the Pirate Lord’s promise to slaughter her on sight.
Yrene blinked, as if remembering herself, the situation that had brought them here, to this couch, to be knee-to-knee and nearly nose-to-nose.
“Yes,” she said, pulling away, blinking furiously again. She frowned at the smoldering embers within their metal cage on the table. “That will do.”
She waved away an unfurling talon of smoke that tried to wend between them. “I should go.”
A wild, keen-edged panic glinted in her eyes. As if she, too, had realized, had felt—
She stood, straightening the skirts of her gown. Gone was the sultry, steady woman who had strutted over to this couch. Here—here was the girl of about two-and-twenty, alone in a foreign city, prey to the whims of its royal children. “I hope …,” she said, glancing toward Nesryn. Shame. It was—shame and guilt now weighing her shoulders. “I hope you never learn to play those sorts of games.”
Nesryn remained deep in conversation with Sartaq, showing no sign of distress, of knowledge of … of whatever had happened here.
He was a bastard. A gods-damned bastard.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” was all he could think to say to Yrene. But he blurted as she walked away, “Let me get you an escort.”
Because Kashin was watching them from across the room, a servant girl in his lap, running a hand through his hair. And that was … oh, that was cold violence in Kashin’s face as he noticed Chaol’s attention.
The others might think what had just gone on between him and Yrene was an act, but Kashin … The man wasn’t as stupidly loyal as the others thought. No, he was well aware of those around him. He could read men. Assess them.
And it had not been the arousal that had let the prince realize it was genuine. But the guilt Chaol realized too late he and Yrene had let show.
“I will ask Hasar,” Yrene said, and headed toward where the princess and her lover sat on their couch, mouths roving over each other with an unhurried attention to detail.
He remained on the couch, monitoring as Yrene approached the women. Hasar blinked up blearily at her.
But the lust fogging the princess’s face cleared at the curt nod Yrene gave. Mission accomplished. Yrene leaned down and whispered into Hasar’s ear as she kissed her cheeks in farewell. Chaol read the movement of her lips even from across the room. Skull’s Bay.
Hasar smiled slowly, then snapped her fingers to a waiting guard. The man immediately strode for them. He watched her order the man, watched her undoubtedly threaten him with death and worse if Yrene did not make it back to the Torre safely.
Yrene only gave the princess an exasperated smile before bidding her and Renia good night and following the guard out. She glanced back at the archway.
Even across the nearly hundred feet of polished marble and towering pillars, the space between them went taut.
As if that white light he’d glimpsed inside himself two days ago was a living rope. As if she’d somehow planted herself in him that afternoon.
Yrene did not so much as nod before she left, skirts swirling around her.
When Chaol looked to Nesryn again, he found her attention upon him.
Found her face blank—so carefully blank—as she gave him a little nod of what he assumed was understanding. The match was over for tonight. She was waiting to hear the final score.
The smoke was still clinging to Chaol’s nostrils, his hair, his jacket as he and Nesryn entered their suite an hour later. He had joined her and Sartaq in their quiet little area, watching guests peel off to their own chambers—or someone else’s. Yes, Dorian would certainly have loved this court.
Sartaq escorted them to their room and offered them a somewhat stiff good night. More restrained than his words and smiles of earlier. Chaol didn’t blame him. There were likely eyes everywhere.
Even if the prince’s own lingered mostly on Nesryn as she bid Sartaq farewell and she and Chaol slipped into their suite.
The suite was mostly dark, save for a colored glass lantern Kadja had left burning on the foyer table. Their bedroom doors loomed like cavern mouths.
The pause in the dim foyer went on for a heartbeat too long.
Nesryn silently stepped toward her room.
Chaol grabbed her hand before she could make it a foot.
Slowly, she looked back over her shoulder, her dark hair shifting like midnight silk.
Even in the dimness, he knew Nesryn read what lay in his eyes.
His skin tightened around his bones, his heart a thundering beat, but he waited.
She said at last, “I think I am needed elsewhere than this palace right now.”
He maintained his grip on her hand. “We shouldn’t discuss this in the hall.”
Nesryn’s throat bobbed, but she nodded once. She made to push his chair, but he moved before she could, steering himself into his bedroom. Letting her follow.
Letting her shut the door behind them.
Moonlight leaked in through the garden windows, spilling upon the bed.
Kadja had not lit the candles, either anticipating the use of this room after the party for purposes other than sleeping or that he might not return at all. But in the dark, in the humming from the cicadas in the garden trees …
“I need you here,” Chaol said.
“Do you?” A stark, honest question.
He gave Nesryn the respect of considering her question. “I … We were supposed to do this together. Everything.”
She shook her head, short hair shifting. “Paths change. You know that as much as anyone.”
He did. He really damn did. But it still … “Where do you mean to go?”
“Sartaq mentioned that he wishes to seek out answers amongst his people, about whether the Valg made it to this continent before. I … I am tempted to go with him, if he will let me. To see if there are indeed answers to be found,
and if I might convince him to perhaps go against his father’s orders. Or at least speak on our behalf.”
“To go with him to where, though? The ruk riders in the south?”
“Perhaps. He mentioned at the party that he’ll leave in a few days. But you and I have a slim enough shot. Maybe I can better our odds with the prince, find information of value amongst the rukhin. If one of Erawan’s agents is in Antica … I trust the khagan’s guard to protect this palace and the Torre, but you and I, we must gather what forces we can before Erawan can send more against us.” She paused. “And you … you are making good progress. I would not interfere with that.”
Unspoken words ran beneath her offer.
Chaol scrubbed at his face. For her to leave, to simply accept it, this fork in the path before them … He blew out a breath. “Let’s wait until morning before we decide anything. No good comes from choices made late at night.”
Nesryn fell silent, and he hoisted himself onto the mattress before removing his jacket and boots. “Will you sit with me? Tell me about your family—about the celebration today with them.” He had only received the barest of details, and perhaps it was guilt that now fueled him, but …
Their eyes met in the dark, a nightingale’s hymn flitting through the closed doors. He could have sworn he saw understanding shine in her face, then settle, a rock dropped into a pool.
Nesryn approached the bed on silent feet, unbuttoning her jacket and slinging it over a chair before toeing off her boots. She climbed onto the mattress, a pillow sighing as she leaned against it.
I saw, he could have sworn he read flickering in her gaze. I know.
But Nesryn spoke of the dockside ceremony, how her four little cousins had chucked flower wreaths into the sea and then run shrieking from the gulls that swarmed them to steal the little almond cakes out of their hands. She told him of her uncle, Brahim, and her aunt, Zahida, and their beautiful house, with its multiple courtyards and crawling flowers and lattice screens.
With every glance, those unspoken words still echoed. I know. I know.
Chaol let Nesryn talk, listened until her voice lulled him to sleep, because he knew, too.
CHAPTER
22
Yrene debated not showing up the next day.
What had happened on the couch last night …
She’d returned to her room overheated and frantic, unable to settle. Peeling off Hasar’s gown and jewels, she’d folded them neatly on her chair with shaking hands. Then she’d pushed her trunk in front of the door, just in case that murdering demon had spied her inhaling ungodly amounts of that smoke and thought to catch her out of her wits.
Because she had been. Utterly out of her mind. All she had known was the heat and smell and comforting size of him—the scrape of his calluses against her skin and how she wanted to feel them elsewhere. How she had kept looking at his mouth and it was all she could do to keep from tracing it with her fingers. Her lips.
She hated those parties. The smoke that made one abandon any sort of common sense. Inhibitions. Precisely why the nobility and wealthy loved to bring it out, but …
Yrene had paced her tower room, running her hands over her face until she smudged the cosmetics Hasar had personally applied.
She’d washed her face thrice. Slipped into her lightest nightgown and then tossed and turned in bed, the fabric clinging and chafing against her sweaty, burning skin.
Counting down the hours, the minutes, until that smoke’s grip loosened. Cleared away.
It didn’t let go easily. And it was only during the quietest, blackest hours of the night that Yrene took matters into her own hands.
A stronger dose than usual had been put out tonight. It crawled all over her, running talons along her skin. And the face it summoned, the hands she imagined brushing over her skin—
Release left her hollow—unsatisfied.
Dawn broke, and Yrene scowled at her haggard reflection in the sliver of mirror above the washbasin.
The opiate’s grip had vanished with the few hours of sleep she’d managed to steal, but … Something twisted low in her gut.
She washed and dressed and packed Hasar’s finery and jewels in a spare satchel. It was best to get it over with. She’d return the princess’s clothes and jewels after. Hasar had been smug as a Baast Cat at the information Yrene had given her, the lie Chaol had fed her to hand to the princess.
She had debated not telling him, but even before the smoke, before that madness … When he’d offered to sit with her to avoid refusing Kashin, after a day spent wandering the city in unhurried ease, she’d decided. To trust him. And then lost her mind entirely.
Yrene could barely look the guards, the servants, the viziers and nobility in the face as she entered the palace and made her way to Lord Westfall’s rooms. There was no doubt some had spied her on the couch with him. Some hadn’t—though they might have heard.
She’d never shown such behavior at the palace. She should tell Hafiza. Let the Healer on High hear of her brazenness before it reached the Torre from other lips.
Not that Hafiza would scold her, but … Yrene could not escape the feeling that she needed to confess. To make it right.
She’d keep today’s session brief. Or as brief as they could, when she lost all sense of time and place in that dark, raging hell of his wound.
Professional.
Yrene entered the suite, telling Kadja, “Ginger, turmeric, and lemon,” before walking to Chaol’s bedroom. Kadja seemed inclined to object, but Yrene ignored her and pushed open the bedroom door.
Yrene halted so fast she nearly stumbled.
It was the rumpled sheets and pillows she noticed first. Then his naked chest, his hips barely covered by a swath of white silk.
Then a dark head, facedown on the pillow beside his. Still sleeping. Exhausted.
Chaol’s eyes instantly flew open, and all Yrene managed was a silent, “Oh.”
Shock and—something else flared in his gaze, his mouth opening.
Nesryn stirred beside him, brows knotting, her shirt wrinkled.
Chaol grabbed fistfuls of the sheet, the muscles of his chest and abdomen shifting as he rose up on his elbows—
Yrene simply walked out.
She waited on the gold sofa in the sitting room, her knee bouncing as she watched the garden, the climbing flowers just beginning to open up along the pillars outside the glass doors.
Even with the burbling fountain, it didn’t quite block out the sounds of Nesryn murmuring as she awoke—then the pad of soft feet from his bedroom to her own, followed by the shutting of her door.
A moment later, wheels groaned, and there he was. In his shirt and pants. Hair still disheveled. As if he’d run his hands through it. Or Nesryn had. Repeatedly.
Yrene wrapped her arms around herself, the room somehow so very large. The space between them too open. She should have eaten breakfast. Should have done something to keep from this lightness. This hollow pit in her stomach.
“I didn’t realize you’d be here so early,” he said softly. She could have sworn guilt laced his tone.
“You said I could come at dawn,” she replied with equal quiet, but hated the note of accusation in her voice and quickly added, “I should have sent word.”
“No. I—”
“I can come back later,” she said, shooting to her feet. “Let you two eat breakfast.”
Together. Alone.
“No,” he said sharply, pausing his approach near their usual couch. “Now is fine.”
She couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t meet his eyes. Or explain why.
“Yrene.”
She ignored the command in her name and went to the desk, seating herself behind it, grateful for the wall of carved wood between them. The stability of it beneath her palm as she opened up her satchel from where she’d left it along the edge and began unpacking her things with careful precision. Vials of oils she did not need. Journals.
Books—the ones she’d taken fr
om the library, The Song of Beginning with them. Along with those ancient, precious scrolls. She had not been able to think of a safer place for them beyond here. Beyond him.
Yrene said very quietly, “I can make up a tonic. For her. If such a thing is needed. Isn’t wanted, I mean.”
A child, she couldn’t bring herself to say. Like the fat babe she’d spied him smiling so broadly at yesterday. As if it was a blessing, a joy he one day might desire—
“And I can make up a daily one for you,” she added, every word stumbling and tripping out of her mouth.
“She’s already taking one,” he said. “Since she was fourteen.”
Likely since she first started bleeding. For a woman in a city like Rifthold, it was wise. Especially if she planned to enjoy herself as well.
“Good,” was all Yrene could think to say, still stacking her books. “Smart.”
He approached the desk until his knees slid beneath the other end. “Yrene.”
She thumped book after book on top of each other.
“Please.”
The word had her lifting her gaze. Meeting his stare—the sun-warmed soil of his eyes.
And it was the formation of those two words that she beheld brewing in his gaze—I’m sorry—that had her shooting up from the desk again. Walking across the room. Flinging open the garden doors.
There was nothing to be sorry for. Nothing.
They were lovers, and she …
Yrene lingered at the garden doors until Nesryn’s bedroom door opened and closed. Until she heard Nesryn poke her head into the sitting room, murmur a farewell to Chaol, and leave.
Yrene tried to bring herself to look over a shoulder at Captain Faliq, to offer a polite smile, but she pretended not to hear the brief encounter. Pretended to be too busy examining the pale purple flowers unfurling in the morning sunlight.
She shoved back against the hollowness. She had not felt so small, so … insignificant for a long, long time.
You are the heir apparent to Hafiza, Healer on High. You are nothing to this man and he is nothing to you. Stay the course. Remember Fenharrow—your home. Remember those who are there—who need your help.
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