Chapter 26
I didn’t sleep.
So I was ready for the final ward long before Groth tentatively knocked on my tower door.
He drifted up the stairs to find me seated at my dressing table. Lips pursing, he averted his gaze. “His Majesty is in the chalice room.” He spoke unusually soft and fast. “He believes it’s best if you two leave while there’s still some hours of daylight remaining.”
Frowning at him, I set my lash ink down. “Look at me.”
As soon as he did, pink infused his cheeks, and he quickly looked away. Either he’d overheard Brey and me, which I doubted, or he’d not so accidentally entered the king’s tower while we were…
Well, whatever that had been.
Intense. Enlightening. All-consuming.
Even now, it consumed me. Ever since I’d left Brey’s rooms, all I’d done was think about the feral reunion of our bodies and all he’d said.
I shook my head, about to tell Groth that it made no sense for a ghost to blush over such things, especially when he enjoyed sharing a human in the dungeon with a vampire. But I just made sure the ribbon holding my braid was secure, then followed him down into the palace.
In the hall, Groth’s voice halted me. “Forgive me if this is incredibly intrusive, my queen.” As I turned, he tugged at his cravat and asked cautiously, “But will you perhaps stay now?”
He definitely knew what had happened, then.
I don’t know, lingered on my tongue. Mingling with, it depends.
Rather than give either of us hope, I only said, “I fear I don’t understand where this question is coming from.”
Discomfort shimmered the edges of his form. “Last night, I went to ask the king about returning to the ball, as your father wanted a word with one of you about the final ward, and I heard you two…” Flushing again, he tossed his gray eyes over the railing. “Together.”
The distant shriek of gulls entered the silence.
When he finally looked back at me, I sighed. “Nothing has changed.” Though, for me at least, that wasn’t entirely true. “He still loathes me, Groth.”
“I’ve never quite believed that.”
I scoffed and turned to continue down the hall. “You should.”
Before I made it two steps, Groth lobbed another question at me, even more cautious than the last. “Did you happen to come across a certain room?” He added, “A very, ah, colorful room.”
I almost tripped on nothing. A smile so wide it hurt dug into my cheeks as I whirled and hissed, “You left that door open.”
He didn’t deny it. He also didn’t confirm it. The ghost merely tried to fight a smile as he drifted backward and vanished.
I meandered down the hall and into the next, my steps slowing as I passed that aforementioned room. The door was closed. I swept my fingers across it and wondered if it was time to tell Brey that I knew about the portraits—how he’d haunted me for years.
I wondered if now that he knew I’d discovered one of his truths, he might be willing to at least hear mine.
A familiar energy climbed into the hall from the chalice room, growing thicker with each step.
Brey had already removed the chalice’s glass case.
It sat on the floor in front of the stand. In tight black pants and knee-high boots, Brey waited before the coral-wreathed cup. His loosely braided hair blended with his black tunic. Sensing my arrival, his shoulders stiffened. But he didn’t greet me.
He didn’t even ask if I was ready.
He grasped the chalice handle, then looked over at me. Except he didn’t really look at me. His gaze flicked beyond me to the open door.
I hesitated.
Not because of the ward. Words tangled on my tongue as my racing thoughts began to scream through my head. So many thoughts. Too many conflicting feelings.
Brey shifted. Waiting.
He didn’t wish to speak about what we’d done. All I now knew. Evidently, he didn’t wish to speak at all, and I no longer wanted to either. Not when it was clear that simply opening my mouth would only humiliate me.
So I crossed the room and gripped the other handle.
The dark sent us tumbling across sandy grass.
A giant boulder halted my descent downhill. My shoulder barked, and my teeth clacked from the impact.
Brey, on the other hand, continued rolling right past me.
He cursed and dug the heel of his boot into the hillside. Dust plumed as he came to a groaned stop.
I pushed tendrils that’d escaped my braid from my face. Dizzied, I used the stone to climb to my feet. The salty breeze washed over my cheeks as I peered down either side of the rise we’d been thrown onto.
Endless and uninterrupted, the sea was visible no matter where I looked.
This island was so small that we could likely cross it in a handful of hours. Groves filled it in patches. North was a lagoon, separated from the sea by a mangrove-lined sandbar. Another sandbar appeared to be in the middle of the lagoon, a dark object within.
I brushed sandy dirt from my tunic and britches, then carefully trekked downhill to Brey. “It cannot be that easy.”
He joined me in staring at what had to be the ward. “I suspect it won’t be,” he said. “It’s in a lagoon housing darkness knows what.”
I hadn’t realized how much of a relief it would be to hear his voice.
But as we gingerly waded down the rock-shrouded hills into a grove, he didn’t speak again. He kept his hand on the hilt of a blade at his hip and his eyes cast upon the shadows growing between the trees.
I didn’t want to talk.
Yet I found myself distracted by all of the things I could say if I did want to—until a spiked creature scuttled out from the brush.
I jumped and scrambled behind Brey, who drawled, “It’s as small as your hands.”
“It has spikes.” I peered around his arm at the creature. “And it’s coming closer.”
Amusement drenched his voice. “It’s harmless.” He crouched down, as if he’d pet the round critter who was now wriggling and narrowing its beady black eyes. “Aren’t you—”
The tiny terror leaped off the ground to his outstretched hand.
Brey howled.
He stood and gaped at his finger. A long green barb hung from it. “Not harmless.” He shook his hand and groaned. “Fucking ruthless.”
The critter wriggled, as if readying to strike again.
Hissing, Brey plucked at the barb in his finger.
I unsheathed his dagger. “Not another step, rodent.” As I waved the blade about, the creature squeaked and curled into a ball.
Then rolled into the brush.
I peered into the thick shrubs until Brey gently pried his blade from my hand. Tempted to further touch his fingers, I turned into him and said, “You’re welcome.”
“Do you think you saved me from another ferocious attack?” Lips twitching, he slid the dagger back into the sheath at his hip. “You weren’t actually going to stab it.”
“As a matter of fact, I was.”
With a half roll of his eyes, he walked on. “You most certainly were not.”
I followed him. “I most certainly was.”
“Weren’t.”
No longer sure what we were even saying, I fell quiet.
I was more concerned with encountering other little evils than having the stupid last word. Besides, he was probably right. If that thing had jumped at me, I likely would’ve just dropped the blade and screamed.
In glimmering fragments, the lagoon appeared through the trees. As we breached them, the ocean roared, and Brey slowed.
He surveyed the grassy terrain separating us from the ward, then turned to gesture for me to hurry up. “Night will soon fall.”
I stopped beside him. “So?” We’d survived the last ward in nothing but darkness.
“I want to make sure that is in fact the ward and assess where the lagoon is most shallow so that we know where to cross.” With that, he took off.
Sighing, I ran after him across the clearing.
The ward indeed resided in the middle of the lagoon. Well, what was left of it.
Our boots squeaked quietly in the sand. Sweat dampened my skin. I pushed up my tunic sleeves while eyeing the water that grew darker with each step we took around it, wanting to splash it onto my flushed cheeks.
A whisper of unease warned against it when my gaze caught on the well again.
My clammy skin cooled as I halted to study the stone sloping like crooked steps.
The longer I looked, the more certain I became that this well had been damaged by more than its environment.
It almost seemed as if someone had held on to it while something had pulled at their legs, causing a large portion of the stone to be torn away with them.
Brey stopped several feet from the mangroves. He rubbed at his jaw, eyes on the water. “The best place to cross seems to be here.”
Looking from him to the ward in the lagoon, my unease intensified. It did appear to be the safest place—sand clouding the water he stood before.
It also led straight to the broken side of the well.
“Seems,” I said.
He glanced at me. “Mm.”
Gazing at the softly rippling water, I whispered, “A trap, perhaps.”
“Perhaps.”
For some moments, we stood in silence, still and thoughtful. Then we moved at the same time, toward the other side of the lagoon. There, we stood in silence again—staring at the stretch of deeper water between us and the ward.
Dark descended with thick and spreading fingers.
When I looked at Brey, I found him watching me. Hair that had fallen from his braid was knocked across his bladed cheeks by the breeze. But I saw the glow of uncertainty in his emerald eyes. That we were both this apprehensive…
I withheld a groan and shook out my tense shoulders. “We won’t get home any faster by hesitating.”
A sable brow arched. “Home?”
Right.
My freedom awaited.
Though I was no longer so sure I wanted to be free of this duplicitous king, I was incredibly sure I didn’t want to linger on this spine-tingling isle any longer than necessary.
Leaving his question unanswered, I sat on the sand to remove my boots.
I didn’t like them enough to have them slow me down in the water.
Squeaking traveled on the breeze. Booted steps over sand.
But we weren’t walking.
Cold sluiced through my bloodstream. I peered up at Brey.