Chapter 15
My bare feet pass over the threshold and sink into the rug before the hearth.
A low light flickers from the logs inside, not much more than a pile of embers.
I’ve walked through the living room enough time to have memorized it—the family portraits hung on the wall, the loveseat in the center that appears unused, the mirrors that Kressa never quite makes eye contact with herself in.
But it’s the carvings in the stone walls that catch my attention. The way they capture light from the dying fire—dipping into the shallow crevices.
I drag a gloved finger through an indentation—a sliver of smoke wafting from an obsidian flame. It’s like Sarenia, how Caelus could never quite wipe the traces of the Earth Court from the castle. But, if the Fire Court never left, why haven’t they reclaimed their home?
Light streams through the bottom of the door to the hallway, punctuated by the shadows of Julian’s boots. I gnaw on my lip, but shake my head. Even if I ripped off the gloves and tried to escape, he’d throw a shield around my power. And without a blade, there’s no fighting my way out.
Bookcases line the wall of windows, curving over the arched panes of glass. I slink closer and pull out a book at random, letting it fall open in my palm. The words are a mix of letters I’ve never seen before—an unfamiliar, ancient language I can’t decipher.
Shutting the book, I return it to its place and study Kressa’s bedroom door. Whenever I come through the living room, it’s shut. And whenever I hear her enter, it’s only in the small hours of the night. Her lack of sleep is only evident in the deep purple buried into the skin below her eyes.
I creep toward her door, keeping my footsteps light on the cold stone. Holding my breath, I hover my hand over the doorknob. If Julian comes in while I’m in Kressa’s room, I’ll be locked back into mine. But I might not get another chance.
Grabbing the knob, I turn it.
Locked.
I groan under my breath and lower to my knees, peering through the keyhole. A dark bedroom greets me on the other side, and I stand, darting back to my bedroom. I ease open the drawer of the vanity and rustle through the contents, pulling out a hairpin.
Straightening it out as I go, I kneel before her door and shove the hairpin into the keyhole. It catches on a gear, and I press my ear against the door, listening as I ease it into the lock.
It gives, and the sound of metal releasing echoes through the room. I grimace, watching the doorway, but the shadow of Julian’s feet doesn’t budge. Pocketing the hairpin, I push open Kressa’s door.
A four-poster bed takes up the center of a wall, the sheets pulled tight against the mattress—as if she doesn’t even crawl beneath them when she sleeps.
Beside it sits a nightstand matching my own, the drawer cracked open a sliver. I slink over, dragging my fingertips over the bed, and sit at the head. An oil lantern sits on the polished oak, but I don’t dare turn it on in fear of drawing Julian’s attention.
A journal sits beside it.
I scoop it into my palm and run a finger over the worn leather cover. An image—similar to the one of the necklace I wore during The Gales—covers the front. The ridges of the mountaintops are flat with age, and the symbols have lost their edges, but it’s undeniable.
I flip it open, and a handful of folded letters fall out, fluttering to the floor. Shifting from the bed, I pick them up and unfold one.
My stomach plummets.
They’re all from Nicole. I swallow and shove them back into the front cover of the journal. It’s not my place to read them, or speculate why Kressa has held on to them after all this time. I turn the first page of the journal, dated only a handful of days after the fall of Sarenia.
I won’t rest until I find the Princess of the Sea.
My mouth dries, and I scan down the page, but the dates are sporadic, each entry only a sentence long in shaky script. Likely when she was recovering from the wound to her throat. I flip through the pages at random until I come to the day The Gales began.
Gemma and Marianne—the whole time, they’ve been here. Julian was successful in obtaining a role as a guard, but there’s one thing that isn’t going to plan. A woman named Briar.
I slam the journal shut and drop it onto the mattress beside me. There’s not enough time for me to comb through years of entries in hopes I’ll find something I don’t already know. And the last thing I need right now are Kressa’s intimate thoughts about me.
Blowing a lock of hair out of my face, I wrap my fingers around the bronze knob on the nightstand and ease it open. Vials of black ink roll around, but as they come to a stop, my breath bottles in my throat.
Behind a stack of parchment and a feathered quill, a wooden figurine pokes from the back. My heart hammers as I ease it out and hold it in front of me, letting it catch the moonlight.
I drag a finger over the mast—carefully. Then the bow, the hull so intricately carved I can make out each board. I press the pad of my thumb against the helm, its handles sharp.
It’s the ship she carved as a birthday gift. The one I promptly dropped into the black sand of the cove. She must have gone back and retrieved it, keeping it all this time.
“What are you doing?”
I jump, dropping the ship to the floor. It bounces on the rug and disappears beneath the bed. Kressa’s gaze follows it, shifts to the open nightstand, then lands on the journal on the mattress.
“I can explain,” I say, shifting away from her bed.
“Explain?” She blocks the doorway, and despite the darkness of the room, the flecks in her eyes shift like molten gold. “Because to me, it sure looks like you were rummaging through my things, taking advantage of me letting you out of your cuffs.”
“I was only curious.” My pulse roars in my ears, and I drop to the floor, grabbing the ship. “It won’t happen again. I promise, I—”
“Did you find anything of interest?”
She stalks closer, her shoulder brushing mine as she lifts the journal and tucks it into the drawer.
My eyes rake over the slope of her neck, studying the way the short hairs at her nape curl against her skin.
Moonlight catches on the scar sloping up her throat, and my fingers ache to trace it—to press my thumb against her artery and remind myself the pace of her heart.
Something shifts into place within my chest—or at least, tries to. The tether wrapped around my sternum that constantly draws me to her is staunched, held back by the same thing jailing my power. Rhodium.
“Well?” she says, pulling the ship from my hand.
I clear my throat and retreat a step, but the backs of my knees meet her bed. “Only a handful of love letters.”
She smirks, undoing the top button of her shirt. It gapes open, and she rubs at the back of her neck. “Well, I heard your training was a failure.” Her raven hair hangs in loose, windswept waves over her chest, and she tosses them over her shoulder. “Elias told me everything.”
I swallow, viscerally aware of her breath as it brushes across my cheek. “I almost had it. All I need is another day to try again. If I could just have tomorrow, I—”
“We don’t have tomorrow. Don’t you understand?
” She huffs and turns away from me, striding to the window overlooking Ignata.
The emerald uniform hugs her body, each curve of her muscles backlit in a silver glow.
“Tomorrow night is when we have to leave. If my father calls on you during the day, you have to be here.”
“Then what about today?” I shoot back, stepping toward her. “My room was empty all day, and he didn’t come searching for me.”
She looks at me over her shoulder. “I told him I had interrogated you, and you were recovering from your injuries.”
I come to a stop. “Oh.”
An uneasy silence fills the air, washing over me as she returns her attention to the window. I make out her profile in the reflection—the bow of her lips. The ones Nicole has pressed her mouth to.
I curl my hands into fists. “You could have mentioned your girlfriend was going to be the one training me. Or that she is from the Fire Court.”
Turning, she leans against the windowsill and shrugs. “I chose the person who was most qualified to help you. One who I knew would keep the information confidential.”
“How many others are there?”
Her lip quirks. “Girlfriends?”
My stomach twists, that same oily sensation winding through my ribs, and I shake my head. “That’s of no concern to me. How many others have fire power? And why are they hiding?”
She drums her fingers against her biceps. “I can’t tell you that. They’ve only survived for so long under the veil of secrecy.”
“So it’s true,” I breathe, my words a rasp. “The Fire Court is back.”
“They never left.”
My lips part. “But Serinos—”
“Is sleeping. But if the wyvern are any indication, the goddess might be awakening.”
The breath in my lungs sours. “If Serinos awakens, the war between our courts will be the least of our worries.”
“I know.” She kicks off her boots, feet sinking into the carpet as she comes closer. “And if my father hears about it and discovers the Fire Court still exists, he’ll wipe them out.”
“That’s why you want the crown.” My words are hardly a whisper, but an accusation nonetheless.
She nods. “Exactly. I was shown the Fire Court soon after I recovered. I’ve met their people and experienced their way of living.
Even though they harbor more power than our courts combined, they’re a peaceful people who don’t deserve what would happen if they were attacked.
All I’ve ever wanted was peace, Briar, and I’ll do anything for it. ”
“Like kill me.”
Her gaze sweeps away from me, and she wets her lips. “Tomorrow evening, we’ll sneak to the dungeon. In that time, you can decide which of your crew mates would be most valuable in finding Inez. You get two. And they’re required to remain in rhodium cuffs.”
So much can go wrong—things I haven’t even considered yet. I wring my hands together. “What happens when your father finds more missing?”
“That’s the risk you have to be willing to take.” She wraps a hand around the poster at the end of her bed. “If you want them to come that badly, you must realize that severing off a finger is just the beginning. We could return to none of them left.”
A vise squeezes my heart, a pressure building in my chest. I’ve made so many decisions that put them all in harms way—caused them to lose all trust in me.
Perhaps I shouldn’t take any of them. Do this all on my own.
But then again, if Isolde is waiting on the other side of Golan’s perimeter, I’ll only be leaving for a handful of hours.
“I’ll think about it,” I settle on.
“You don’t have much time.” She rounds the mattress and comes within an inch of me—close enough for me to study each individual lash that frames her eyes. “I know you suspect me of kidnapping Inez, but you have to trust that I would never do that. I’d never harm the people you love.”
“I don’t trust a word that comes out of your mouth,” I snarl.
Her gaze lowers to my lips. “Yet I hang onto every one that comes out of yours.”
The anger dies on my tongue, and heat spreads across my chest. But it’s not the blaze from her fire power that burns the undersides of my skin. This is different. Softer.
Our bond.
She clears her throat and steps back, and the warmth in my chest snaps shut.
Her eyes narrow. “If I catch you in my bedroom again, I’ll be sure those cuffs never come off you again. Understood?”
“Understood.”
Her absence lingers like an echo, and with each moment that passes without her skin close to mine, a chill crawls over my skin. This is a bond neither of us want, but by some cruel twist of fate, one we stumbled upon. It was only a matter of time until it snapped into place.
Adjusting the gloves on my hand, I pin my attention to the floor as I stride toward her doorway. The weight of her gaze presses on the back of my head, and I focus on putting each foot in front of the other.
“Briar,” she says, as I pass over the threshold.
I pause and turn, lifting my gaze to her. It traces over the curve of her hip, her waist. It’s only been days since I felt her weight above me, yet it feels like I’ve endured years trying to remember the way it feels. All that’s left behind is a hollow ache.
I raise a brow. “Yes?”
She shifts on her feet. “When I left Ignata to search for you, I left behind a letter to Nicole, ending things with her. I was a coward—too scared to say it to her face. Apparently, it never made it to her hands, so she spent the last five years writing me letters, thinking I’d return to her.”
“And will you?” I breathe. “Return to her?”
Silence settles between us, and her eyes flicker over mine. “My duty is to my court.”
“As is mine.” Dragging my lower lip between my teeth, I nod. “Good night, Kressa.”
“Good night.”
I step into the living room, and the dying firelight catches on a metal tray at the foot of my doorway. Striding closer, I pick it up, and my chest swells.
She brought me dinner.