“I’m fine.”
“You think I don’t know what you’re doing?”
Chaol’s face was a hard mask, sweat sliding down his temple.
“This was your sanctuary,” she said, gesturing to his honed body, the sweat on him. “When things got hard, when they went wrong, when you were upset or angry or sad, you would lose yourself in the training. In sweating until it burned your eyes, in practicing until your muscles were shaking and begging you to stop. And now you can’t—not as you once did.”
Ire boiled in his face at that.
She kept her own face cool and hard as she asked, “How does that make you feel?”
His nostrils flared. “Don’t think you can provoke me into talking.”
“How does it feel, Lord Westfall?”
“You know how it feels, Yrene.”
“Tell me.”
When he refused to answer, she hummed to herself. “Well, since you seem determined to get a complete exercise routine in, I might as well work your legs a bit.”
His stare was a brand. She wondered if he could sense the tightness that now clamped down on her chest, the pit that opened in her stomach as he remained quiet.
But Yrene rose up on her knees and moved down his body, beginning the series of exercises designed to trigger pathways between his mind and spine. The ankle and foot rotations, he could do on his own, though he certainly gritted his teeth after the tenth set.
But Yrene pushed him through it. Ignored his bubbling anger, keeping a saccharine smile on her face while she coaxed his legs through the movements.
It was only when she reached for his upper thighs that Chaol halted her with a hand on her arm.
He met her stare—then looked away, jaw tight, as he said, “I’m tired. It’s late. Let’s meet tomorrow morning.”
“I don’t mind starting now with the healing.” Perhaps with the exercising, those wrecked pathways might be firing up more than usual.
“I want some rest.”
It was a lie. Despite his exercising, he had good color in his face, his eyes were still bright with anger.
She weighed his expression, the request. “Resting doesn’t seem at all like your style.”
His lips tightened. “Get out.”
Yrene snorted at the order. “You may command men and servants, Lord Westfall, but I don’t answer to you.” Still, she uncoiled to her feet, having had quite enough of his attitude. Bracing her hands on her hips, she stared at where he remained sprawled on the carpet. “I’ll have food sent in. Things to help pack on the muscle.”
“I know what to eat.”
Of course he did. He’d been honing that magnificent body for years now. But she only brushed out the skirts of her dress. “Yes, but I’ve actually studied the subject.”
Chaol bristled but said nothing. Returned to staring at the swirls and flora woven into the carpet.
Yrene gave him another honey-sweet smile. “I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow, Lord—”
“Don’t call me that.”
She shrugged. “I think I’ll call you whatever I want.”
His head snapped up, his face livid. She braced herself for the verbal attack, but he seemed to check himself, shoulders stiffening as he only said once more, “Get out.”
He pointed to the door with a long arm as he said so.
“I should kick that gods-damned finger you’re pointing,” Yrene snapped, striding to the door. “But a broken hand would only keep you here longer.”
Chaol again bared his teeth, ire pouring off him in waves now, that scar down his cheek stark against his flushed skin. “Get out.”
Yrene just flashed another sickly sweet smile at him and shut the door behind her.
She strode through the palace at a clip, fingers curling at her sides, reining in her roar.
Patients had bad days. They were entitled to them. It was natural, and a part of the process.
But … they had worked through so much of that. He had started to tell her things, and she’d told him things so few knew, and she’d enjoyed herself yesterday—
She mulled over every word exchanged the night before. Perhaps he’d been angry at something Eretia had said on their ride here. The woman wasn’t known for her bedside manner. Yrene was honestly surprised the woman tolerated anyone, let alone felt inclined to help human beings. She could have upset him. Insulted him.
Or maybe he’d come to depend on Yrene’s constant presence, and the interruption of that routine had been disorienting. She’d heard of patients and their healers in such situations.
But he’d shown no traits of dependency. No, the opposite went through him, a streak of independence and pride that hurt as much as it helped him.
Breathing uneven, his behavior dragging claws down her temper, Yrene sought out Hasar.
The princess was just coming from swordplay lessons of her own. Renia was out shopping in the city, Hasar said as she looped her sweat-damp arm through Yrene’s and led her toward her chambers.
“Everyone is busy-busy-busy today,” Hasar groused, flicking her sweaty braid over a shoulder. “Even Kashin is off with my father at some meeting about his troops.”
“Is there any reason why?” A careful question.
Hasar shrugged. “He didn’t tell me. Though he probably felt inclined to do it, since Sartaq showed us all up by flying off to his nest in the mountains for a few weeks.”
“He left?”
“And he took Captain Faliq with him.” A wry smile. “I’m surprised you aren’t consoling Lord Westfall.”
Oh. Oh. “When did they leave?”
“Yesterday afternoon. Apparently, she said no word about it. Didn’t take her things. Just left a note and vanished into the sunset with him. I didn’t think Sartaq had it in him to be such a charmer.”
Yrene didn’t return the smile. She’d bet good money that Chaol had returned this morning to find that note. To find Nesryn gone.
“How did you learn she’d left a note?”
“Oh, the messenger told everyone. Didn’t know what was inside it, but a note with Lord Westfall’s name on it, left at the aerie. Along with one to her family in the city. The only trace of her.”
Yrene made a mental mark to never send correspondence to the palace again. At least not letters that mattered.
No wonder Chaol had been restless and angry, if Nesryn had vanished like that.
“Do you suspect foul play?”
“From Sartaq?” Hasar cackled. The question was answer enough.
They reached the princess’s doors, servants silently opening them and stepping aside. Little more than shadows made flesh.
But Yrene paused in the doorway, digging in her heels as Hasar tried to lead her in. “I forgot to get him his tea,” she lied, disentangling her arm from Hasar’s.
The princess only gave her a knowing smile. “If you hear any interesting tidbits, you know where to find me.”
Yrene managed a nod and turned on her heel.
She didn’t go to his rooms. She doubted Chaol’s mood had improved in the ten minutes she’d been storming through the palace halls. And if she saw him, she knew she wouldn’t be able to refrain from asking about Nesryn. From pushing him until that control shattered. And she couldn’t guess where that would leave them. Perhaps a place neither of them was ready for.
But she had a gift. And a relentless, driving thrum now roared in her blood thanks to him.
She could not sit still. Did not want to go back to the Torre to read or help any of the others with their work.
Yrene left the palace and headed down the dusty streets of Antica.
She knew the way. The slums never moved. Only grew or shrank, depending on the ruler.
In the bright sun, there was little to fear. They were not bad people. Only poor—some desperate. Many forgotten and disheartened.
So she did as she had always done, even in Innish.
Yrene followed the sound of coughing.
CH
APTER
27
Yrene healed six people by the time the sun set, and only then did she leave the slums.
One woman had a dangerous growth on her lungs that would have killed her. She’d been too busy with work to see a healer or physician. Three children had been burning up with fever in a too-cramped house, their mother weeping with panic. And then with gratitude as Yrene’s magic soothed and settled and purified. One man had broken his leg the week before and visited a piss-poor physician in the slums because he could not afford a carriage to carry him up to the Torre. And the sixth one …
The girl was no more than sixteen. Yrene had noticed her first because of the black eye. Then the cut lip.
Her magic had been wobbling, her knees with it, but Yrene had led the girl into a doorway and healed her eye. The lip. The cracked ribs. Healed the enormous handprint-shaped bruises on her forearm.
Yrene asked no questions. She read every answer in the girl’s fearful eyes anyway. Saw the girl consider whether it would land her with worse injuries to return home healed.
So Yrene had left the coloring. Left the appearance of bruises but healed all beneath. Leaving only the upper layer of skin, perhaps a little tender, to conceal the repaired damage.
Yrene did not try to tell her to leave. Whether it was her family or a lover or something else entirely, Yrene knew that no one but the girl would decide whether to walk out that door. All she did was inform her that should she ever need it, the door to the Torre would always be open. No questions asked. No fee demanded. And they would make sure that no one was allowed to take her out again unless she wished it.
The girl had kissed Yrene’s knuckles in thanks and scurried home in the falling dark.
Yrene herself had hurried, following the glimmering pillar of the Torre, her beacon home.
Her stomach was grumbling, her head throbbing with fatigue and hunger.
Drained. It felt good to be drained. To help.
And yet … That hounding, restless energy still thrummed. Still pushed. More more more.
She knew why. What was left unsettled. Still raging.
So she changed course, spearing for the glowing mass of the palace.
She paused at a favorite food stall, indulging in a meal of slow-roasted lamb that she devoured in a few minutes. It was rare that she got to eat beyond the confines of the palace or the Torre, thanks to her busy schedule, but when she did … Yrene was rubbing her satisfied belly as she made her way up to the palace. But then spotted an open kahve shop and managed to find room in her stomach for a cup of it. And a honey-dipped pastry.
Dawdling. Restless and angry and stupid.
Disgusted with herself, Yrene stomped up to the palace at last. With the summer sun setting so late, it was well past eleven by the time she headed through the dark halls.
Perhaps he’d be asleep. Maybe it would be a blessing. She didn’t know why she’d bothered to come. Biting off his head could have waited until tomorrow.
He was likely asleep.
Hopefully asleep. It’d probably be better if his healer didn’t barge into his room and shake him silly. It definitely wasn’t behavior approved by the Torre. By Hafiza.
And yet she kept walking, her pace increasing, steps near-clomping on the marble floors. If he wanted to take a step back on their progress, that was just fine. But she certainly didn’t have to let him do it—not without trying.
Yrene stormed down a long, dim corridor. She wasn’t a coward; she wouldn’t back down from this fight. She’d left that girl in that alley in Innish. And if he was inclined to sulk about Nesryn, then he was entitled to do so. But to call off their session because of it—
Unacceptable.
She’d simply tell him that and leave. Calmly. Rationally.
Yrene scowled with each step, muttering the word under her breath. Unacceptable.
And she had let him kick her out, no matter what she might have tried to tell herself.
That was even more unacceptable.
Stupid fool. She muttered that, too.
Loud enough that she nearly missed the sound.
The footstep—the scrape of shoes on stone—just behind her.
This late, servants were likely heading back to their masters’ rooms, but—
There it was. That sense, pricking again.
Only shadows and shafts of moonlight filled the pillar-lined hallway.
Yrene hurried her pace.
She heard it again—the steps behind. A casual, stalking gait.
Her mouth went dry, her heart thundering. She had no satchel, not even her little knife. Nothing in her pockets beyond that note.
Hurry, a small, gentle voice murmured in her ear. In her head.
She had never heard that voice before, but she sometimes felt its warmth. Coursing through her as her magic flowed out. It was as familiar to her as her own voice, her own heartbeat.
Hurry, girl.
Urgency laced each word.
Yrene increased her pace, nearing a run.
There was a corner ahead—she need only round it, make it thirty feet down that hall, and she’d be at his suite.
Was there a lock on the door? Would it be locked against her—or be able to keep whoever it was out?
Run, Yrene!
And that voice …
It was her mother’s voice that bellowed in her head, her heart.
She didn’t stop to think. To wonder.
Yrene launched into a sprint.
Her shoes slipped along the marble, and the person, the thing behind her—those footsteps broke into a run, too.
Yrene turned the corner and slid, skidding into the opposite wall so hard her shoulder barked in pain. Feet scrambling, she fought to regain momentum, not daring to look back—
Faster!
Yrene could see his door. Could see the light leaking out from beneath it.
A sob broke from her throat.
Those rushing steps behind her closed in. She didn’t dare risk her balance by looking.
Twenty feet. Ten. Five.
Yrene hurled for the handle, gripping it with all her strength to keep from sliding past as she shoved against it.
The door opened, and she whirled in, legs slipping beneath her as she slammed her entire body into the door and fumbled for the lock. There were two.
She finished the first when the person on the other side barreled into the door.
The entire thing shuddered.
Her fingers shook, her breath escaping in sharp sobs as she fought for the second, heavier lock.
She flipped it closed just as the door buckled again.
“What in hell—”
“Get inside your room,” she breathed to Chaol, not daring to take her eyes off the door as it shuddered. As the handle rattled. “Get in—now.”
Yrene looked then to find him in the threshold of his bedroom, sword in his hand. Eyes on the door.
“Who the hell is that.”
“Get inside,” she said, her voice breaking. “Please.”
He read the terror in her face. Read and understood.
He shoved back into the room, holding the door for her and then sealing it behind her.
The front door cracked. Chaol locked his bedroom door with a click. Only one lock.
“The chest,” he said, his voice unfaltering. “Can you move it?”
Yrene whirled to the chest of drawers beside the door. She didn’t reply as she threw herself against it, shoes again slipping on the polished marble—
She kicked off her shoes, bare skin finding better grip on the stone as she heaved and grunted and shoved—
The chest slid in front of the bedroom door.
“The garden doors,” Chaol ordered, finishing locking them.
They were solid glass.
Dread and panic curled in her gut, ripping the breath from her throat.
“Yrene,” Chaol said evenly. Calmly. He held her gaze. Steadying her. “How far is the nearest entrance to the gard
en from the outer hall?”
“A two-minute walk,” she replied automatically. It was only accessible from the interior rooms, and as most of these were occupied … They’d have to take the hall to the very end. Or risk running through the bedrooms next door, which … “Or one.”
“Make it count.”
She scanned the bedroom for anything. There was an armoire beside the glass doors, towering high above. Too high, too enormously heavy—
But the movable screen to the bathroom …
Yrene hurtled across the room, Chaol lunging for a set of daggers on his nightstand.
She grabbed the heavy wooden screen and hauled and shoved it, cursing as it snagged on the rug. But it moved—it got there. She flung open the armoire doors and wedged the screen between it and the wall, shaking it a few times for good measure. It held.
She rushed to the desk, throwing books and vases off it. They shattered across the floor.
Stay calm; stay focused.
Yrene hauled the desk to the wood screen and flipped it onto its side with a clattering crash. She shoved it against the barricade she’d made.
But the window—
There was one across the room. High and small, but—
“Leave it,” Chaol ordered, sliding into place in front of the glass doors. Sword angled and dagger in his other hand. “If they try that route, the small size will force them to be slow.”
Long enough for him to kill it—whoever it was.
“Get over here,” he said quietly.
She did so, eyes darting between the bedroom door and the garden doors.
“Deep breaths,” he told her. “Center yourself. Fear will get you killed as easily as a weapon.”
Yrene obeyed.
“Take the dagger on the bed.”
Yrene balked at the weapon.
“Do it.”
She grabbed the dagger, the metal cool and heavy in her hand. Unwieldy.
His breathing was steady. His focus unrelenting as he monitored both doors. The window.
“The bathroom,” she whispered.
“The windows are too high and narrow.”
“What if it’s not in a human body?”
The words ripped from her in a hoarse whisper. The illustrations she’d seen in that book—
“Then I’ll keep it occupied while you run.”
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