Chapter Thirty-Two
Thirty-two
Arosy dawn found us lying across the bed, naked and tangled. My hair had come loose from its braid and spread like a dark halo across the pillow beneath us. He lay atop me, head on my chest, hand cupped at my ribs like he might keep me from leaving, hold me fast in the world we’d created.
He’d fallen asleep with me again.
“I’m going to have a very difficult time letting you go again.”
I felt that momentary stab of panic. “It won’t be your choice. It will be mine.”
“Of course. You’ve already proven you can sneak out of the palace.” He ran a finger down my arm. “You can stay as long as you’d like.”
“You can’t keep paying the Lady for me to sit around and do nothing all day.”
“I’m a prince, Fox. I can pay her for whatever I want.”
I lifted my brows.
“Did not mean it to sound like that.” He waved it away. “The point is, we both get to make our own choices. I don’t suppose there’s a secret title in your family? That you’re a long-lost Carethian princess? It would ease certain paths.”
I didn’t want to think about those paths. “No. I don’t suppose you’re a plucky thief, pretending to be a Lys’Careth in order to keep the actual prince safe from his enemies?”
“No.” He kissed the spot between my breasts. “Mine,” he said again.
That made my heart beat even faster, the ember keeping time. I slid my hand down to his already impressive erection and gripped it tightly.
“Now you’re definitely not leaving,” he said, and proved it.
The snow didn’t last, and neither did our respite. Grim was once again agreeable to deliver us back to the stronghold. When we arrived at the palace, servants greeted Nik’s arrival—I was getting used to using his name again—with rowdy applause.
The Aetheric practitioner was gone, as was my magically induced pain. I should have felt settled, but I didn’t. Something wasn’t quite right, but I couldn’t find it, couldn’t see it to pull it clear. An invisible splinter.
I found Wren in her room, stuffing items into her small bag. “I’m glad you’re safe,” I said.
“The Lady is aware I’m healed, and has called me back to the manor.”
“Aware you’re healed?” And then anger bloomed anew. “Catalaya told her.”
“More likely her servant.” She lifted a shoulder. “No point in being mad about it. She’d have beckoned sooner or later.” She looked up and around the tower. “Shouldn’t have gotten used to this.”
“Same,” I said quietly, as my beckoning was probably coming. “Are you healthy enough? Nik could send more coin.”
“It’s fine. It’s what comes next.” She slid me a glance. “We’ll need to talk about your overnight adventure.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Worth it?”
I just smiled. “Yeah.”
“Good.”
She shouldered her bag.
“Let me know if you need anything at all.”
Wren nodded, then looked at me, worry in her gaze. “Be careful of Catalaya, Fox. I think she hates you the most.”
“Where’s the weapon?” I asked when we were warming ourselves in front of a fire in his rooms.
“What weapon?”
“The Aetheric weapon. The one the practitioner paid for, and Tommen died for. He wouldn’t have paid unless he’d received it, right? So where is it?”
“In the practitioner’s lair, I imagine. We’ll find it, Fox. But it may take time. Carethia’s a big place.”
“I know.” But it irritated.
And speaking of irritation, I didn’t want to talk about her, not now, but the discussion was inevitable.
“You should tell Catalaya about your empty treasure vault.”
“Her family has nearly as much money as my father. It won’t change her opinion.”
“Her family’s money and her husband’s money are two different things.” I didn’t like giving voice to that possibility, but it had to be said.
“And if she or her servants learn the vault is empty, that tapestries and my personal coin are all I’ve got, what then? Word spreads that the Western Gate is vulnerable. That I’m vulnerable.”
“Then you should marry her for the money.” I regretted the words the moment I said them, but I couldn’t take them back.
“Would you? Marry for money?”
“Of course not.”
“But you’d demand I do it?”
He was close enough that I had to look up to see his face, and that crackling tension swam between us again.
“I don’t care about your damned marriage,” I said, frustration like a living thing, seated beside my heart and burning hot as the ember did. “I care about you.”
The tension crystallized like ice across the river. I was too aware of my body, of his, of our nearness. My head was spinning now, like I’d had entirely too much wine. But I’d had none. There was only us in this empty room.
“Do you?” His voice was quiet, dangerous.
Had I given too much away? Or too little? Didn’t matter. I wasn’t a coward, and I wouldn’t take it back.
So I let out a haggard breath and shifted my gaze to the fire because that was the only thing I was brave enough to look at right now, in this moment. In this vulnerability. “I do.”
He said nothing, and I glanced back, found something equally soft and victorious in his eyes. “I care for you, too, Fox. But you look very conflicted about it.”
“I don’t know how to do this.”
“This?”
“How to care…like that.”
“You care about Wren.”
“She’s my sister in all the ways that matter. You’re…” I waved a hand around the room. “Complicated.”
“And you aren’t?”
“I’m not that complicated.”
His stare was flat.
“Well, maybe except for the Aetheric thing.”
“The Aetheric thing is complicated enough. Maybe as complicated as being royal. Even without a treasure room. Although if there’s no treasure, it’s just a room.”
I stopped, looked at him. “What did you say?”
“That I care about you?”
“No—about the room.”
He looked puzzled, ran a hand through his hair. “If there’s no treasure, it’s just a room?”
Hadn’t I said something similar about the library? Maybe it was time to reveal that particular secret. “Come with me,” I told him, and waited for him to follow.
I led him to the library and heard his sigh behind me when I opened the door. “I can barely stand to see this,” he said. “It’s depressing. Feckless damned brother. Why are we here?”
“Because I found something I couldn’t figure out. Maybe you can.”
“Found something?”
I slipped the coded book from its spot on the shelf, carried it to the bookcase that led to the secret room, and opened the door.
“What in Oblivion?” he murmured, and stepped inside. “A secret damned room?” He walked around, surveying the empty shelves, table, chair. “How long have you known about this?”
“My first visit to the library. I’m a very clever Fox.”
“I’d be mad you didn’t tell me if I didn’t find it incredibly arousing.” He stopped on the other side of the table and looked back at me. “Why did you bring me here?”
“There’s ash on the floor,” I said. “And only one book left hiding in a corner. The ones who apparently cleaned out the room didn’t find it. They didn’t want anyone else to find what they’d had in here, so it must mean something.”
I put it on the table in front of him.
He opened it, his brow furrowed. “By the gods…” he murmured after a moment, and a smile appeared.
“What is it? Can you read it?”
He looked up, a boyish grin on his face.
“It’s the princes’ language—made up by my older brothers.
It was passed along through books and messages so we could communicate with each other in secret.
” He looked up. “Although it’s impossible our father didn’t understand it. He wouldn’t have allowed real secrets.”
“So it was probably made and left by one of the former princes—one of your brothers. What does it say?”
He flipped through some pages. “I’m not sure. I’m going to need to translate it, and that will take a while. I haven’t used these words in years.”
He looked up and pressed his lips to mine. “Good work, Little Fox.”
I did a curtsy.
“You’re getting better at that. Not great, but better.”
I poked him in his side.
We closed up the secret room, the book in the prince’s hands.
“Oh, the things I could do to you in a library, Fox.”
My toes curled in my boots. “Such as?”
“How sturdy do you think that ladder is?”
I blinked, trying to imagine exactly how…
The library door opened, and we both looked toward it. Catalaya walked in, her eyes wide and bright as she saw Nik—but the light dimming when she realized I was standing beside him.
Whatever she thought, she fixed that smile in place again and rushed toward him. “Niko. I’ve only just heard you were back. Thank all the gods you’re alive.”
She put a hand on his face, and he gently removed it. “I’m fine, Caty. We’ve only just returned. The weather—”
“And you came to the library first?”
“We learned some things from the Aetheric practitioner,” I said. “We needed to check on them.” I wanted to be the one to tell her about the treasure room but knew that wasn’t for me to reveal. Damn it.
“You’re alive,” she said, not bothering to look at me. “That’s all that matters. Were you hurt? Do you need healing? If I’d only known you were in trouble, I’d have sent my soldiers.”
“I’m fine. The Aetheric practitioner hoped to use me to capture Fox. But as you can see, we’re both alive and well.”
She shifted her gaze to me, and there was fury in it. “Don’t you think you’ve done enough damage? Caused enough harm?”
“I didn’t do the damage or cause the harm.”
“Words,” she said. “Just the words of a thief.” She looked at Nik. “You know that’s what she is? A thief and a witch and a troublemaker. And you put the entire stronghold at risk by allowing her here. Leave us,” she said, her gaze narrowed and venomous on me. “We need to speak.”
I looked at Nik. Disobeying a royal was still dangerous, even if he outranked her.
“If you don’t mind,” he said.
“It’s fine.” I was fully confident he’d find me when their discussion was done.
I walked to the door, which Catalaya had left slightly ajar. Her maid was not in sight, but Galen stood just outside the door, staring at it with arms crossed and lip curled.