Chapter 53
Iwaited for him to fall asleep.
He waited for me to do the same.
I could have sung him into a slumber. It certainly would have been a relief to unburden myself from his iron stare as he stretched his legs over his bed, leaned onto his pillows, and watched me with every sense of suspicion.
But I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
The thought of taking his mind now, even just to send him to sleep, turned my stomach. So, I watched him instead, until the small hours of the morning.
“You should sleep,” I finally muttered, my own eyes groggy. It was exhausting, recovering from a shock. It wore me to the bone and beyond, stripping any morsel of energy from me it could find.
“I can ride on no sleep.” He wriggled into his pillows deeper, no sign of the fatigue that was slowly claiming me.
My chin tucked into my collar bone, and I pulled myself back into awareness, but a moment later, my eyelids drooped, heavy with the beckoning promises of sleep.
I woke to the early sunrise, dawn sending blue light over the horizon, and Kye’s steady breaths humming from across the room. He’d turned in his sleep, facing away from me.
“Oh.” Came a voice from the door.
A servant stood frozen, a tray of steaming tea and pastries in her hands. I recognized her; she also served my rooms. Our eyes met, and she blushed furiously enough to make a tomato jealous.
I could only imagine what the scene looked like to her. My wedding dress in a heap of pastels on the floor, my lace underthings torn and strewn about, and me, tied in a chair while Kye slept.
Mihaunain the sky.
“I’ll just… leave this in the other room.”
She spun on one foot, fleeing through the door.
“Wait,” I hissed.
The tray banged down on the distant wooden table, footsteps thudding across the floor.
I threw a glance at Kye and swore under my breath before singing softly. If humming could reach Diara through the walls, it could reach the servant. I wasn’t sure if it would incant Kye as well. Did a mind have to be awake for it to become invaded with oxytocin? Or could the incantation pierce the veil of sleep itself?
The scent of chemical burn rolled through the bedroom from the open door.
“Come here,” I commanded, sitting upright.
She came, pupils dilated and unseeing.
I swallowed the resulting queasiness down, hardly able to look at her after my discovery the night before. “Free me.”
It took no time before I was unbound. There were only a hundred weapons in this moon-forsaken room. Rubbing the rope burn out of my wrists, I released her back to her palace duties, crossing the hall for a simple dress from my wardrobe. Then I left my suite, sprinting down the stairs.
Eleven days alone with Thaan.
There was little I could do to protect Kye. But there was one thing I knew would shield him for a short span of time. And maybe if he witnessed the strange prospect of Thaan singing, then trying to command him, he’d be able to see for himself the danger he was in.
Across the sky bridge, through the whipping wind of the parapets, down more stairs, along a winding corridor, my feet slowed as I approached a certain crane statue just outside a familiar door.
I’d let myself in once before, at Selena’s instruction. The key was hidden in the mouth of the crane. Attached to a floating cork, the only way to it was to call to the water through the throat of the dancing bird. I fished it out, creeping through Selena’s private quarters to the shared office at the end of the apartment. To the glass box of salt water, and the vine that had colonized along the floor and in the corners of the glass in the weeks since I’d planted it there.
Shedding my dress to keep it dry, I sank into the water, my fingers closing over a handful of the weed as I gently pulled it loose.
A door slammed. A door in Thaan’s apartments.
My body stilled, my gaze suddenly roaming over walls. I waited for further sound.
“Hello?” called a male voice I thought I recognized. Neither young nor old. I could almost place it in my memory, but not quite. “Selena?”
I tensed, listening as feet tiptoed from the interior of Thaan”s quarters to the office door. Someone tapped on the jamb, prodding the wood with a single finger.
“Selena,” the man whispered, his voice close. Low and urgent.
Afraid.
My mouth parted, my breath frozen as I listened hard, unable to quiet my sudden pulse.
“Selena, please be there.”
Whoever he was, he knew I was here. Perhaps he could hear my heartbeat, as I could hear his. Lifting my feet over the wall of the glass box, a puddle of dripping water gathered under me. I usually called it back. My eyes focused on the door.
Silence held me captive, the hairs at the back of my neck raising one at a time.
“You should be in bed,” came Thaan’s unmistakable voice, a drawl of false patience and subtle mockery.
“Release me,” said the other man, wild with terror.
Suddenly, the door rattled on its hinges. I grabbed my dress, shoving it over my head and darting to Thaan’s door, my hands shaking as I fumbled for the lock.
A loud crash came from the other side. It vibrated the wood so hard the chain lock sprung loose, whipping out towards me, even as the door remained closed. I jerked my hands away, and something heavy fell to the floor on the other side.
Stepping forward, I gulped down my fear, gritted my teeth, and yanked the door open.
Thaan stood in the doorway, his eyes wide with anger, staring directly at me.
“It is rude to intrude on another’s personal rooms,” he said, taking a step into the office toward me. I backtracked, but looked around his legs, seeing nothing but the floor.
“What was that noise?” I asked, straightening my back and planting my feet firmly over the flag stone floor.
Thaan halted his advance, tilting his head and turning his ear toward the ceiling, as if listening only to amuse me. “The sea, perhaps.”
“There is a man in your apartment.”
He linked his fingers slowly, gazing at me with bored indignation. “You are hearing things. It is only me and Cain, and the wind outside.”
I released a huff, shoving him aside. I expected him to stop me, to reach for my arm and hold me back. He barely moved when I pushed him, the muscles in his arms stronger than I’d have thought, but he allowed me to breach his open threshold.
I hadn’t been in his private quarters before. The air was still, as if he’d somehow insulated the walls against the seaward wind. The layout an exact replica of Selena’s rooms, any similarity ended there. Selena’s rooms were bright, the shades pulled back, light flooding the surfaces of her living areas, bringing texture and color into sharp focus.
Thaan’s windows were shut tight, heavy curtains pulled across, barring all light from the room. The furniture was dark and heavy, wiped clean of dust, though nothing looked as if it’d ever been used. I stalked inside, ignoring the feeling of Thaan’s presence tracing my steps as I flung open all the doors, but only found Cain in one of the bedrooms, watching me with strained curiosity through his spectacles when I barged inside.
“My dear,” Thaan drawled behind me, and I raised a hand at him.
“Don’t lie to me,” I warned him through my teeth. “I’ve had enough of your lies.”
I forced every ounce of poison into the word I could.
He watched me, eyelids blinking in calm disinterest. “Time to leave.”
I closed my eyes, listening for the presence of heartbeats. For quiet breathing, the evidence of a body stuffed into a chest or closet somewhere. But I only heard Thaan and Cain, watching me with mounting impatience. Teeth grating, I glared at them both for a long moment before turning on my heel and storming out.
Thaan’s hand caught my elbow before I fully exited his home. “Maren,” he said, as though a thought had suddenly occurred to him. “You have not cordaed.”
How he knew, I wasn’t sure. My gaze slithered up at him, disgust curling inside me. I wrenched my arm away. “No,” I said, lifting my chin. “You’ve bound me to the kingdom by a piece of paper signed by an Aalton priest—but that part of my blood remains free.”
His mouth tightened, and I thought he might strike me as he had on the ship in the captain’s cabin. I didn’t care. I stepped back within his reach, aiming a single finger at his chest.
“Yes?” he prompted when I didn’t immediately speak.
“If you sing to him while you’re gone,” I answered, my voice a deadly murmur, “if you incant him even once, I’ll dive into the Juile Sea and let Sidra take me.”
He examined me dispassionately, as though I were merely a summer gnat flying around his face, easily squashed.
My teeth clenched. “I vow it on my blood.”
“What’s happened?” Selena asked, her sleepy form appearing in her doorway.
With a final glare at Thaan, I shoved past her, making the return trip to Kye’s rooms.