Chapter 17
I shot upright in bed, birdsong ringing in my ears and fragments of a dream floating in my head. The woman on the throne had looked at me again.
Are you a tool or a blade?
The bird outside sang louder, its chirping as bright as the morning sunlight slanting over the bed.
Instinctively, I looked at the doors. They swung open seconds later, and Delphine swept inside with a vase of fresh flowers in her hands. She stopped, her silvery curls swinging around her waist.
“Do you control the birds?” I asked, tipping my head toward the balcony.
Delphine hesitated.
“Never mind,” I said, leaving the bed. “What’s on the agenda for today?
” I bit my tongue before I could ask if we were doing eviscerations or just the usual beheadings.
As I bent over the washstand, Duncan’s face swam in my mind.
Shame followed, and I gripped the edges of the bowl as a lump formed in my throat.
I couldn’t let myself grow flippant about the death I’d witnessed—and partaken in.
That would make me no better than Rasimir.
Delphine swapped the dead flowers for the living ones.
“Prince Lorcan will be along shortly, Your Highness. His Majesty would like you to continue your training.” Frowning at the balcony, she crossed the room and pulled the doors more firmly shut.
“These stick sometimes,” she said. “We’ll have to be more careful with them. ”
I ducked behind the screen, a flush spreading down my neck. She couldn’t know about Vander, could she? He’d used Veradorn’s magic to conceal his presence…and everything that came after he arrived.
Like how I came after he arrived.
My fingers were clumsy as I pulled my nightgown over my head. What was he playing at? And how was I supposed to face him again? How could I face Lorcan, knowing the two of them were involved?
Except I didn’t know that for sure. Possibly I knew less now than when I crossed the Feyline. Every time I thought I had something figured out, new information showed up. Like Lorcan warning me the werewolves would attack seconds before they did.
Like Lorcan kissing me in front of the whole court—and then threatening to put me over his knee unless I released my prey. My skin burned hotter. It was embarrassment, nothing more. And Lorcan had a lot of nerve.
Clothes appeared over the top of the screen, undergarments and stockings dangling against the silk panels. “We should move quickly,” Delphine said on the other side. “Prince Lorcan just left his chamber.”
I scrambled into my clothes and then tried not to fidget as Delphine styled my hair. A servant brought pastries and a steaming pot of tea. I ate standing, frosting coating my fingers as I willed myself to stop thinking about men and their confusing kisses.
“Did you sleep well, Your Highness?” Delphine asked as she made the bed.
Straightening, she rested a hand on the headboard.
“I’m always falling asleep in the oddest places.
Anywhere but my bed, really. Lately, I nod off while reading in a chair next to the window.
” Her tone was lighthearted, but her gaze was steady.
“It’s probably not the most restful place to sleep, but I don’t have as many bad dreams that way.
At least, I don’t remember them. I used to talk in my sleep.
It drove my younger sister crazy. She swore I talked so much that she felt like she’d watched my dreams unfold right there with me. ”
I paused with the pastry halfway to my mouth. Delphine’s chatter hung in the air as we stared at each other. Sunlight fell in thick bars over the bed, dust motes suspended in the beams. The light stopped before it reached the headboard with its carved serpent.
Rasimir’s serpent.
“The prince is here,” Delphine said.
A knock rang out.
I put my pastry back on the plate as Delphine went to the door. Lorcan stood alone on the threshold, his expression cool as I dusted crumbs from my hands and crossed the room. He wore black again.
“Shocking,” I murmured before I could think better of it.
His face didn’t change. “What?”
“Nothing.”
He gave me one of his unreadable looks. “You have frosting on your bodice.”
I jerked my chin down. He was right, damn him. As I brushed at the fabric, I noticed more frosting on my finger. My cheeks heating, I licked it off. When I looked up, Lorcan stared at my mouth.
His dark eyes snapped to mine. “Let’s go,” he said, irritation lacing his voice. “We’re late enough as it is.”
I followed him from the room, my own irritation rising. Apparently, the tentative bond we’d formed at the ball had been pretense like everything else. “If you had a specific departure time in mind, you should have mentioned it last night.”
“Good point,” he said without looking at me. “I’ll try to remember that the next time werewolves attack the castle and start trying to kill everyone.” He increased his pace.
Clenching my jaw, I did the same. But it was a struggle to keep up with him as we moved down the Drakhold’s endless corridors.
Servants moved about, their eyes averted and their movements brisk.
The occasional knight stood at attention against a wall or inside a doorway.
To my relief, we didn’t pass any courtiers.
Probably they were still sleeping off the night’s excesses.
When we neared the passageway that led to the courtyard, Lorcan suddenly flicked out a hand.
Blue danced over his fingers.
I slowed. “What are you—?”
He grabbed my arm and tugged me to a nearby door. Shouldering inside, he yanked me into a shadowy space, shut the door behind us, and pulled me close.
“Change of plans,” he said in my ear. “Your father has knights searching the forest for more wolves. We can’t risk leading them to the Everless. We have to get to Vander another way.”
My heart pounded, the skin under my ear tingling. “Where is he now?”
Lorcan drew back. Black started to bleed across the whites of his eyes.
“Not here.” Gripping my hand, he pulled me to a spiral staircase.
Narrow and made of stone, it looked old enough to have been carved when the Drakhold was built.
Lorcan drew me upward, taking the steps much faster than I would have on my own.
It seemed that racing up staircases was one of his favorite pastimes.
By the time we reached the top, I was breathless and dizzy.
With a firm grip on my hand, he led me through an ancient-looking door and onto a stone rooftop.
Light assailed me and fresh air flooded my lungs.
Nocta’s pink sky spread overhead. The crenellated wall of a tower loomed a short distance away. Beyond it, mountains pierced the sky.
“Come here,” Lorcan said. When I turned toward him, he’d removed his shirt and jacket.
His chest was smooth, the muscles in his arms as well-defined as those on the courtyard’s statues.
Rippling abdominals flexed as he sucked in a deep breath.
He exhaled, and his eyes flicked to solid black.
Enormous purple wings rose above his shoulders.
Sunlight illuminated the web of veins and white speckles in his wings.
Shock tripped through me.
“Let’s go,” he said, knotting his jacket around his waist. He stuffed the shirt under his belt.
Wait. Go? He meant to…Oh gods, did he intend to fly off the tower? Backing up, I shook my head. “Absolutely not.”
Impatience flashed in his eyes. “This isn’t the time for belligerence, Corinthe.”
Was he serious? I put out a hand. “It’s not belligerence. It’s—” My protest ended in a squawk as he rushed me and scooped me into his arms. His wings flared, violet blotting out the sky as he charged across the roof.
“Lorcan!” I cried, clinging to his neck.
The tower dropped from under us. My stomach pitched, and the wind snatched my scream as we plummeted.
Lorcan grunted and tightened his grip. He pumped his wings hard, buoying us up, up, up.
We ascended in great sweeps. Then we soared, shooting toward the pink, sugar-laced clouds so swiftly that I held back another scream.
“I’ve got you,” Lorcan murmured, holding me with one arm under my knees and the other around my ribs. The muscles in his chest bunched as his wings swept back and forth.
Swallowing, I found my voice. “Have you done this before?”
Black eyes dipped briefly to mine. “Not with glomarid wings.”
Puzzle pieces slid into place in my mind.
He’d drained the glomarid at the ball so he could steal its gift of flight.
He’d planned it, perhaps as soon as he learned of the impending werewolf attack.
I opened my mouth to repeat my question, only to shut it a second later.
Maybe I didn’t want to know how many other winged creatures he’d eaten.
We leveled out, our progress through the sky more like floating than flying.
The Drakhold was a dollhouse behind us, its towers and windows too small to be real.
Nocta splayed over the ground like a brilliant green carpet.
The forest was a delicate miniature. Rivers forked through it and drained into lakes and small pools.
A thicker ribbon wound through a valley, and I wondered if I’d speared the merman on its banks.
If, somewhere on the golden sand below, my footprints and the stain of old blood marked the scene of my crime.
“Are you all right?”
I tore my gaze from the ground. Lorcan watched me, the wind in his hair and his stolen wings flexing like sails behind him. His eyes were still black as pitch. One forearm grazed the side of my breast. Heat rolled off him, his skin like a furnace even through my gown and chemise.
“You should have asked me if I was willing to fly,” I said.
“Would you have agreed?”
I clamped my lips together.
The look on his face told me he guessed my answer anyway. With a sweep of his wings, he took us higher. Ghostly clouds raced past us, wetting my cheeks and leaving the taste of rain on my lips.