Castles in Their Bones (Castles in Their Bones #1)

Daphne

Consciousness slips through ’s fingers like smoke, but every so often she grasps enough to open her eyes. Every time she does, she isn’t alone. Bairre sits in a chair beside her bed; sometimes he is upright, hands knitted in his lap, brow furrowed. Other times he is sprawled out with his head back and eyes closed, his chest rising and falling in long, even breaths. In those moments, he could be a stranger, his expression smooth and peaceful and open. In those moments, her fogged-over, feverish mind wonders what it would be like to touch his cheek, to run her fingers through his messy hair, to press her lips to his.

Once, she opens her eyes to find him watching her, his silver eyes resting on hers.

“Why are you here?” she asks him. Her voice comes out raspy, and he’s quick to pass her a glass of water from the table beside him.

She doesn’t drink from it, instead staring at its contents.

“It’s been tested,” he says, reading her wary expression. “You remember what happened?”

frowns, taking a small sip of the water, then another. She doesn’t fully trust him, but her thirst wins out over her sense. In a few seconds, she drains the glass, passing it back to him. He pulls a rope hanging beside him. Far away, she hears the tinny ring of a bell.

“Vaguely,” she says. Her voice still sounds rough, but her throat hurts a bit less. She leans back against the pillow. “The waterskin—it was poisoned.”

The thought is a thorn beneath her skin—how disappointed her mother would be, especially after the lessons and her sisters have been given in detecting and concocting poisons of their own. Especially considering has always excelled at those lessons. Her failure to recognize the fact that she was being poisoned is an embarrassment.

He nods. “My father is having everyone questioned, trying to ascertain who is responsible.”

“I’d imagine it’s the same people who were responsible before,” she says.

It’s only when he looks at her with alarm that she realizes she’s spoken out loud. She cringes and sits up a little straighter.

“What do you mean before ? Someone else poisoned you?” he asks.

“No,” she says quickly. She pauses, searching for a plausible lie, but nothing comes. Her mind feels clouded with fog, nothing visible except what’s directly before her—in this case, the truth. “But last week, the girth of my saddle was damaged and I nearly ended up trampled.”

Bairre lets out a long exhale. “Perhaps you simply fell.”

She glares at him. “I assure you I didn’t. You can ask Cliona, she was there.”

Stars above, what was in that poison? Truth serum? She closes her eyes for a moment and opens them again. “Don’t tell your father. It isn’t as big an issue as it seems, they failed both times.”

“And you’re content to let them try a third?” he snaps.

opens her mouth, then closes it again, swallowing her words. She knows he’s right, but she can’t help but feel that the attempts on her life mark her as a failure. Like she’s vulnerable and therefore weak. The thought of anyone knowing fills her with shame.

“If they try a third time, they’ll fail a third time,” she says.

“The only reason they failed this time is because you happened to spot that deer before finishing the water. The physician said a few more sips and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

suddenly feels nauseated, any retort she could have given stolen away by the knowledge of how close she came to death.

remembers the girl who passed it to her, Rufus’s oldest sister, Liana. She remembers that the girl wouldn’t look at her. Her mother’s words come back to her. Men say poison is a woman’s weapon. They say it like an insult because they think it cowardly, but poison is clean, it’s covert. It is so much easier to control the effects of a poison than it is the tip of a blade in the heat of combat. It is easy to get away with and, if used correctly, impossible to trace. Poison is a woman’s weapon because it is a smart weapon.

“Liana,” she says slowly. “She didn’t seem to like me.”

Bairre lets out a long breath. “Zenia confessed.”

Zenia. remembers the youngest girl, her hair still hanging in two plaits on either side of her round, freckled face. She couldn’t be more than ten years old.

“I thought you said your father was still trying to find the person responsible,” says.

“Zenia was only following orders. She didn’t know what the poison would do. All she had to do was empty a vial they gave her into your water. Someone offered her a wish so powerful it would bring her father back from the dead. That someone is the person we’re trying to find.”

“A wish can’t do that,” says.

“No, but she was desperate enough to believe it might be,” he says. He runs a hand through his hair. His eyes are tired—whatever sleep he’s managed to get, it hasn’t been enough. “She’s being held in her family’s rooms until it can be decided what to do with her. Rufus has been begging for mercy, of course.”

“Of course,” says. She tries to sit up, but pain ricochets through her body and her arms collapse.

“Careful,” Bairre says, leaning forward. He reaches out like he wants to touch her but thinks better of it and lets his hand fall back to his side.

“She’s a child,” says, ignoring him. “She didn’t know what she was doing.”

“She tried to kill you,” Bairre says, his eyes sparking with something she can’t quite put a name to.

“If someone told you they could bring back Cillian, you would have done the same, I would bet.”

He shakes his head. “You said it yourself—it isn’t possible.”

“But if you thought it was, if there were even the slightestchance,” she says, “there’s nothing you wouldn’t have done.”

He doesn’t deny it.

“Keep her under watch,” says. “Question her as thoroughly as possible to find who put her up to it. Then let her brother discipline her as he sees fit.”

Bairre looks ready to protest when there is a knock at the door.

“Come in,” Bairre says, and a servant enters, holding a pitcher of water on his tray. He moves to pour it into the glass Bairre holds, but he stops him.

“You drink it first,” Bairre says.

The man pauses, his face turning a shade paler.

“Your Highness—”

“A necessary precaution,” Bairre says with a smile that might as well be strung with barbed wire. “You understand. I’m sure there’s nothing to fear.”

The servant swallows before taking a sip from the side of the pitcher. Satisfied, Bairre holds out ’s glass and lets him fill it before setting the tray on the table.

“Will…will there be anything else?” the servant asks, his voice wavering.

“Not at the moment,” Bairre says, passing the glass back to . “Thank you.”

The servant scurries away, closing the door behind him.

takes a sip from the refreshed water glass, watching Bairre over the rim of it.

“Why are you here?” she asks him again.

He frowns at her. “Someone tried to poison you, remember?”

She shakes her head. “Why aren’t you out there interrogating the rest of the castle?”

“My father is handling that,” he says.

“Still, your time would be better spent helping him than playing nursemaid to me,” she says.

He shakes his head. “Zenia didn’t make that poison herself, it wasn’t her plot. Which means someone—maybe many someones—still want you dead. I wasn’t going to leave you alone, at their mercy, even before I knew about the other attempt.”

“There are guards,” she points out.

“I’m not sure I trust them, either,” he says. remembers her trip to the dressmaker, how three out of the four guards who accompanied them were on the side of the rebels, according to Cliona. Bairre isn’t wrong to have suspicions. “How are you feeling?”

“My head feels like it’s been cleaved in two,” she tells him. “And I’m so cold. But it also feels like my whole body is on fire.”

Bairre leans forward, touching her forehead with the back of his hand. “You’re still burning up,” he says. “You should try to sleep more.”

He takes a cloth from the table beside him and dabs it along her brow, her cheeks, down her neck. It comes away damp with sweat. This close, she can see the tiredness in his eyes, how pallid his skin is.

“How long has it been?” she asks.

“A day,” he answers.

blinks her surprise away. A whole day, gone. “You need sleep too,” she says.

“I’m fine,” he tells her. “I’m not the one who was poisoned.”

“No,” she agrees. “But for some reason you’ve been sitting there for an entire day, taking care of me. Whatever sleep you’ve found in that chair couldn’t have been comfortable.”

“It’s a small chair,” he admits. “But I’m fine. You need sleep.”

She holds his gaze as she finishes the second glass of water. “I won’t sleep if you don’t,” she tells him.

“You can’t be serious,” he says, raising his eyebrows.

She pats the space beside her in the large bed. “You don’t want to call my bluff,” she tells him. “Come on, there is plenty of room and I don’t want to hear you complaining about your aching back tomorrow.”

“It’s not proper,” he tells her.

She laughs, but it comes out weak. Already, she can feel her mind growing fuzzy again, sleep clawing at her. “I didn’t think you cared much about that,” she says. “Besides, we’re betrothed, and I can’t imagine you’ll have trouble keeping your hands to yourself. I must look a fright.”

“That’s an understatement,” he says with a belabored sigh, pushing up from the chair and sliding onto the bed beside her, though he stays on top of the covers. “You look an inch from death.”

tries to give him a shove, but her arm is so heavy and weak it has no effect.

“Just sleep,” he tells her, rolling onto his side to face her, his cheek against the pillow.

She should sleep—exhaustion is ready to pull her under any second—but instead she lets her eyes scan his face, tracing his sharp cheekbones and the long, dark eyelashes fanned over them. His jawline is dotted in stubble. After a second, he opens his eyes again, meeting hers with a quiet intensity that makes it impossible for her to look away.

“I’m glad you aren’t, you know,” he says softly.

“Aren’t what?” she asks.

“Dead,” he says.

She pulls the blankets tighter around her, hugging herself to ward off the cold. “Are you?” she asks. “I thought it would be a relief—you said it yourself. You never asked for this, for me.”

“You didn’t ask for me, either,” he reminds her. “You didn’t ask for Cillian, or to come to Friv in the first place, you were just thrown into all of it. You didn’t ask for any of this.”

You didn’t ask for any of this.

It’s the first time it’s occurred to her that she didn’t. She never protested, never fought it, but she didn’t ask for it, either. Her mother decided her fate before she’d taken her first breath, and she was content to go along with it, but that isn’t the same thing. She never had a choice. A thought pierces her fevered mind, striking true—if she’d had a choice, she might have chosen differently, a life without poisons or subterfuge, without learning to pick locks or code letters, a life without lies.

Suddenly, it occurs to that she’s tired of lies, of pretending. She wants to touch him, so she does. She places a hand against his cheek, feeling the stubble rough beneath her palm.

“,” he says, her name a whisper. At first she thinks he means it as an admonishment, but he doesn’t pull away.

“I’m sure I would have liked Cillian,” she tells him, though she doesn’t mean to. The words fall from her lips before she can think to stop them. “But I don’t think he would have looked at me the way you do.”

“And how do I look at you?” he asks. He sounds like he doesn’t know whether or not he truly wants the answer.

smiles, though even that hurts. “Like I’m a bolt of lightning,” she says, tracing her fingers along his jawline. “And you can’t decide whether I’ll kill you or bring you back to life.”

He doesn’t say anything, but she feels the bob of his throat beneath her touch when he swallows.

“,” he says again, and this time there is no mistaking it, the sigh in his voice, the meaning lurking just below the surface.

“I’m fairly sure that’s how I look at you, too,” she says quietly.

He closes his eyes, then opens them again. “You’re sick. You need to sleep,” he says. “You said you would.”

nods, hugging herself tighter. “I’m just so cold, Bairre,” she says. “Why is it so cold?”

“It’s not,” he says. “It’s sweltering in here. It’s the poison leaving you, making you feverish.”

Distantly, she knows that makes sense, but it doesn’t ease her shivering. She burrows deeper under the covers.

“Here,” Bairre says with a sigh. “Roll over.”

When she does, he brings his arms around her, settling her against his chest.

“Better?” he asks.

It’s not, really, but she likes the feeling of his arms around her. It might not help the shivers wracking her, but it does make her feel safe. She feels his breath, steady and deep, feels the rhythm of his heart beating, and it grounds her.

“Much,” she says, closing her eyes.

Silence falls over them and sleep begins to tug her under once more.

“Why are you here?” she hears herself ask again, though she doesn’t remember deciding to ask. The words slip past her lips, half question, half yawn.

Bairre doesn’t answer—asleep already, she thinks—but before she can join him there, she feels the low rumble of his chest as he speaks, his voice soft in her ear.

“I’m here because I want to be. Because you are lightning—terrifying and beautiful and dangerous and bright all at once. And I wouldn’t wish you were anything else.”