Chapter 24 #2
“The sun.” He sounds frantic, guilt instantly washing away the desire on his face. “Of course. We’ve been working in the glare, and you haven’t eaten since dawn. I…I am an idiot.” He reaches out to steady me, but keeps his touch light, supportive. “Here. Sit.”
I let him guide me to sit on the nearby chair, but it does nothing to calm the confusion whirling in my mind. Why am I like this? Why with him?
Or rather…why not with Vale?
I fan myself a little just to play the part of the fainting maid. The kiss I just gave Kael worked. But it worked because I had a map. Vale had shown me the way, and I had followed it—right up until Kael pressed his hips against mine.
That’s where the map ends.
A sharp rap echoes from the door.
Kael’s spine snaps straight, the lover vanishing, the king returning in a blink. “Enter.”
The door swings open, and a man in travel-stained leathers stumbles in—a messenger, by the looks of it—clutching a scroll case with a white-knuckled grip, sweat shining on his thick brow. He looks frantic, eyes darting around the room until they land on Kael.
“Your Majesty!” The man bows hastily, nearly tripping over his own boots. “We think we have her! We already sent a new carriage, but—”
His eyes land on me.
The messenger’s mouth snaps shut with an audible click. He looks from me to Kael, sheer panic flaring in his gaze as if he’s walked in on a murder. Why?
Kael moves with a speed that would be graceless in another man. He crosses the room in three long strides, grabs the man by the shoulder—rather roughly—and yanks him into the corridor.
The door slams shut.
What’s that all about? Have who? Who is her? Mother? It has to be. Kael promised to bring her here. He sent a carriage. Why would the messenger say they sent a new carriage… Unless something happened to the old one?
A cold prickle of dread races down my spine.
What if the old carriage broke down on a road? Or worse, got attacked. The city is starving, and desperate men look for anything that might hold bread or coin. If they stopped my family, if they opened the door and found only an old woman and a dying boy…
Righteous fear propels me out of the chair. I need to know. I stare at the heavy oak door, straining my ears, but the wood is too thick, the stone too dense. What are they saying? Where is my brother?
Eavesdropping is wrong, but if Kael is hiding a tragedy from me to spare my feelings—or worse, to manage me—then I need to know it now.
I look down at my boots.
Heavy. Loud.
Without a second thought, I toe them off, leaving one abandoned by the chair. The other skids across the boards and stills near the door. In stocking feet, I creep across the room, silent as the dust motes dancing in the sun, and press my ear against the door’s cold, unforgiving wood.
“…village,” comes muffled and torn through the oak. The messenger’s voice. “Not a doubt…heritage…original translation.” Some distorted words I can’t make out follow, and then, “…curse.”
“He must not find out.” Kael’s voice is low, vibrating through the wood, but there’s an undercurrent in it I’ve never heard before—not in his rage, not in his self-pity, certainly not in his gentle moments.
It’s cold. Chilling enough that it sends the fine hairs on my arms straight up.
But they tingle at the roots when he growls, “The bastard is scheming.”
My breath hitches, freezing in my throat like a shard of glass. The bastard. There’s no doubt who he means. A jolt of pure, cold adrenaline floods my veins, making the floor beneath my stocking feet feel miles away.
Kael knows… He knows Vale is moving pieces in the dark. Does he know that I am one of them?
A wave of nausea rolls through me. If he suspects I’m a trap set by his brother, then that kiss, his hesitation, was all a test. A way to see if the weapon would strike?
No. I felt his heart hammer against my palm, felt the raw, shaking need in his body. You can’t fake a tremble like that.
So he knows Vale is scheming, but perhaps he doesn’t know the shape of the blade? Or maybe he knows something about Vale’s plan that I don’t—another layer of rot hidden beneath the floorboards of this cursed palace.
A heavy thud of boots.
He’s coming back!
Scrambling backwards, I turn and flurry-step across the floorboards, practically throwing myself into the chair just as the iron latch clicks. I grab a nearby water cup, my hand shaking so badly water sloshes over the rim onto my wrist, and bring it to my lips just as the door swings open.
Kael enters. The cold mask is gone, replaced by a strained, visible effort to reassemble the gentle lover he was moments ago. His shoulders are tight, jaw clenched, but when he sees me still sitting where he left me, he forces a breath out through his nose and softens.
“Forgive the interruption,” he says, his voice a little too careful.
“He mentioned a carriage.” Unlikely to be about Mother and Daron, given the other context, but I have to be certain. “My family?”
“No. God, no. Your family should arrive tomorrow. Midday, if your brother can keep his resilience up.” He walks toward me, keeping that respectful distance. “How do you feel? Has the dizziness passed?”
“Yes.” I set the cup down with a clatter I can’t quite prevent. “Much better. The water helped.”
He manages a smile. It’s a weary thing, but it reaches his eyes. “Good. I would not want you to end in a faint.”
“What was it about?” I ask, forcing my voice to sound casual, bored even. “The messenger seemed almost frightened.”
Kael’s smile doesn’t falter, but his gaze drops. It slides from my face, down my dress, and lands on my stocking feet.
He stills.
I don’t have to look to know where his gaze travels next. My boot, sitting a bit incriminating near the door, so very far from the other by the chair.
Silence stretches.
Thick. Suffocating.
He stares at it for a long, terrible moment. Then, slowly—so slowly it feels like the turning of a heavy wheel—he lifts his gaze back to mine.
The blue of his eyes is flat, unreadable.
“M-my feet got hot,” I say.
“Of course.” He smiles again, but this time, the dimple doesn’t show.
The skin around his eyes remains tight, the expression pulled taut by invisible strings.
“I apologize if the messenger caused you a scare.” He leans down, his lips pressing a kiss just behind my ear.
It should be warm, but it sends a shiver down my neck as he whispers, “Trust me, it is nothing you should concern yourself with.”