Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“There you are,” a familiar male voice says as I drag my feet after Daria.
It’s Arkin.
Yes, here I am , I think. At least a maid gave me back my dagger in its leather sheath, and I don’t feel as vulnerable, as exposed as I did when I first woke up, though the robe doesn’t feel like much protection against anything.
I don’t feel like pretending I care whether he’s here or not. My head still aches and my stomach feels heavy, unused to the fae food that favors cream and spices. My bitten leg is much better, I’ll hand it to the healers, but it feels weaker than the other, and my arm that had been wrenched so badly during the trial feels less like it’s about to come out of its socket.
“Good to see you back on your feet,” Arkin says, falling into step beside me.
He’s dressed like Tru was, in a formal uniform, his long red hair caught back in a high ponytail. His ears are covered in bright silver and black nightgold—hoops, studs, bars, intricate designs like leaves following the slope of his ear to the sharp tip.
“Don’t glare like that,” he goes on, “you’ll get cross-eyed, and the king won’t like it.”
I stick my tongue out at him and cross my eyes as much as I can to show him where he can stick my concern about the king’s preferences.
“Yeah, I see how this is going.” He snorts. “I didn’t ask to be on babysitting duty, you know.”
Babysitting? I was never much good at keeping my feelings off my face, and he chuckles.
“Guess who sent me, human lady, just like he sent Tru to your bedside.”
I huff and follow Daria through yet another passage with the annoying fae guard by my side, trying not to limp.
“He’s worried about you,” he says more softly. “Athdara, I mean.”
I roll my eyes. Just use his name , I mouth.
“Nobody is allowed to use his true name,” Arkin says, slowing his strides to match my pace, “except for his close friends.”
I frown. Isn’t it Jaien?
Arkin stops. His reddish brows go up. Then he catches up with me in one huge stride. “Right. Jaien.”
“My friends call me Jai,” that’s what he told me, but I’m not his friend. Then again… I finally huff a laugh. He only told it to a mute girl who can’t repeat it to anyone else.
But the question is… why?
“Of course he told you.” Arkin chuckles, oblivious to my inner turmoil. “I should have seen it coming. The man went out of his mind the moment he saw you. Search me why.”
I aim my elbow at his midriff, but damn him, he has good reflexes and steps out of the way. I hope my glare sets his red hair on actual fire.
“A feisty human girl,” he muses, resuming his place beside me as if nothing happened. “Found in the swamps, bedraggled and half-drowned, she decides to enter the games without being forced to… and for some reason, Athdara, the King’s Sword and famed dragon speaker of the Seventh World, decides to follow her to what could mean his death.”
I wave a hand at him. What’s his point? It’s not like it’s my fault he entered the games.
“You’re right, he is a hard one to kill.” He nods thoughtfully, his long red hair in that high ponytail swinging. “Though one is often tempted to try again.”
I shoot him a sharp look. Is he joking?
He is joking. He’s grinning that unnerving fae grin full of sharp teeth. The fae prefer to give tight-lipped smiles most of the time, as if embarrassed by that animalistic mouthful of fangs to go with the pointy ears and sharp senses.
Arkin doesn’t seem to care, though, and I kind of like that about him. He doesn’t seem to care about much, if I consider what I’ve seen from him. Unlike Tru, who is always so careful and cautious.
And Athdara… Jai. Still hard to get used to the name. Did he really send his friends to watch over me? Why? And why hasn’t he come himself now that I’m awake if he was so damn worried?
Something doesn’t add up, and I snarl at myself for softening toward him. None of this makes any sense—him joining the games, helping me survive, sending his friends to hover over me… In fact, the fact he’s keeping himself away from me makes the most sense of all.
It’s as if he’s keeping secrets. But why would he, when I’ve never met him before, when I know nothing about him?
What is he hiding?
My thoughts are cut short when Daria stops in front of an arched, lilac door with a symbol like a crown engraved on it in black and gold.
I frown at it while she unlocks and ushers me inside, into a vast bedroom with a canopy bed and a sitting area, drapes, carpets, and paintings, all made in tones of lilac and mauve. A lit fireplace dominates one wall, flames jumping merrily in the grate. A table and chairs are arranged before it, and…
A bronze clawfoot tub, that’s what snags my attention. I walk toward it, entranced.
Placed at the other end of the room, filled with steaming water, it is set against a vast floor-to-ceiling window giving over the sea, then the land beyond. We’re facing away from the Pillar, and despite the weirdness of being in such a room, I find I’m vaguely disappointed I can’t see it.
A man clears his throat somewhere behind me. “May I?—”
“Please, stay outside, sir knight,” Daria says sweetly. “I must look after my lady, and time is short.”
Sir knight? They are actual royal knights , not just nobles acting as ceremonial guards for the festival? I turn around to find Arkin opening his mouth as if to argue with Daria, but upon finding me staring at him, he shuts it again.
The confused expression on his handsome face is comical for a few brief moments.
Then, with a curt nod, he steps outside, and the door closes, hiding him from view.
“Men,” Daria mutters under her breath. “Can’t he see you’re about to take a bath and rest? He’s not your betrothed, nor your bonded mate, he isn’t even supposed to set foot inside a lady’s room…”
That is… yes, it’s definitely funny, and I crack a smile in spite of myself. When she looks at me, I mouth, I’m no lady.
Not anymore.
“I know a lady when I see one.” Daria bustles about, carrying a folded blue bath sheet and placing it on a stool by the tub.
Well, I can’t argue with that, and the tub full of water draws me like a drug, like a promise of relief and lightness. Of peace.
I need to be alone, so I shoo her with my hands. Go. Go away.
“I’m staying to help you bathe.” Daria looks startled. “To scrub your back, to?—”
I can scrub my own back. In fact, I don’t intend to do any scrubbing. I shoo her again. Then, when that fails, I actually take her hand and lead her to the door.
Go , I say without a sound, go and come back later.
She looks uncertain. “Are you sure? I’ll have to look for available gowns in your size. Hopefully, I can find some we can modify for you.”
I nod enthusiastically. Yes. Go. Go!
Shooting me a faint smile, she goes away at last, and I peer around the doorjamb, starting when I find Arkin there.
He’s standing with his back to the wall, arms folded over his chest. He nods at me, eyes sparkling.
I frown.
“My lady,” he says, and I all but slam the door shut again, stepping backward inside the room.
I just need a moment. This is all wrong. I’m not supposed to have guards outside my door and people fussing over me. I’m not supposed to be still standing on two feet, on solid ground, breathing air.
Not to forget, I’m no lady, not anymore. I’m a fighter. And I need to find my focus and prepare for my battle.
The siren song of the tub is irresistible, though, and I wander back to it. Hypnotized, I stare at the clear water. A complex herbal perfume floats in the air. Lavender. Rosemary. Roses. Daria must have added aromatic oils.
Letting the robe fall off me, I walk to the tub and skim my hand over the water’s surface. I had to send her away. I had to bathe alone, hoping to immerse myself in the water in a last-ditch attempt to reverse the spell.
Yet as I bow over the steaming water and see my pale, human face in its mirror, I somehow know that this is hopeless.
Placing one foot inside the tub, then the other, I lower myself, sinking into the warmth, welcoming the feeling of weightlessness. I shiver when the heat hits the small of my back, where my birthmark is. I swear I feel it like pins and needles.
I lean back, and my body floats, pale and filthy, dirt coming off my skin in brown clouds, blurring the crystalline water. The gashes on my legs, self-inflicted for my damsel-in-distress role, are healing nicely. Every cut and bruise burns pleasantly.
Closing my eyes, gripping the edges of the bronze tub, I search for the feel of the spellwork, for the actual bubble of the spell deep inside of me. I had sensed it entering me, wiggling into me like a worm, spreading and sealing off my magic. It should be gone, I should feel my own power filling me, but…
But I can’t. My magic is still unreachable. In its place sits the spell, like an animal wrapped around me, forcing me to stay in this form, keeping me human and mute and magicless.
This spell has to let go; it needs to unhook its claws from me.
Cease , I think. Leave. Release me!
I grimace as I poke at the spell, trying to shift it with my mind. It’s a physical thing of sorts, as much as my magic is physical—a flow, an energy, a thing living inside of me. It’s a part of me, as much as my blood and flesh and bones are.
But even as I pant and shake, my legs kicking in the warm water, nothing happens, no change I can detect in me. The spell is still wrapped around me. My magic is imprisoned, isolated. Taken from me.
Screaming silently, I slip underwater, tugging at my long hair, welcoming the pressure of the water over my eyelids, its feel inside my open mouth.
Seeking to sink and forget.
Then, hands clamp down on my arms and yank.
Not expecting it, I don’t resist when they haul me to the surface. Spitting out the water, I drew a shuddering breath and another.
A girl’s pale face comes into focus, her dark eyes round as saucers. “My lady. What happened? Are you well? Did you slip? I should never have left you alone to bathe! If anything should have happened to you…”
My chest aches. I’m still sucking in sweet air as I squint at Daria, her words and panic taking a long moment to sink in. Of course. If something happened to me, then she would be blamed for it.
It shouldn’t be my problem. I’m here for a reason and I was trying to find a solution, but the fear in her doe eyes does something to me.
I’m fine , I mouth. Not true, but I will have to be, not only for her sake but for mine.
“You didn’t scrub yourself,” she scolds me, the fear lingering in her gaze. “Please, let me do this for you, my lady.”
Taking my lack of reaction for agreement, she gets to work. Grabbing a huge sponge and a bar of scented soap, she proceeds to scrub every part of me, enveloping me in the perfume of roses and lavender. She is mindful of the scrapes and cuts and the still-healing snake bite, though the rest of my skin burns hot from all the rubbing.
Then she tackles my long, soaked hair.
It’s kind of brutal, her strength unexpected, and I admit I relish the pain as she works her way through the knots. I want her to pull on my hair, scratch my scalp. Punish me.
I only made it here because Jai helped me. Because he willed it, throwing himself into the trials to save my ass.
It burns worse than my raw skin.
And Arkin’s asinine, romantic conclusions don’t convince me. Jai is after something, and that’s the only reason he helped me. What could it be?
“One might think you haven’t combed your hair in a lifetime,” Daria mutters, her voice trembling only a little. She sounds better now. Work seems to calm her down. “It’s so tangled I’m tempted to cut off half of it, but it will be so pretty once it’s brushed and dry, despite its color.”
In the cooling water of the tub, I wrap my arms around my folded legs and let her work through her fear—and mine. Each punishing tug, each snag the comb hits, grounds me more.
I’ll be okay. I’ll dress up and step out of here perfumed and coiffed, yet again pretending to be someone I’m not. And I’ll play the role just fine.
I can do this.
Eventually, Daria seems satisfied that my hair is as knot-free as she can make it and gets up to unfold the bath sheet for me. Wrapped in it as if inside a cocoon, I stand by the tall window, gazing out at the expanse of sea and land. The hills and mountains are faint smudges at the rosy horizon, and behind them flows the Circle Sea, marking the edge of the world.
Closer up, outside the window, gambol draks and seabirds, chasing one another in ever-widening circles, their colors flashing bright against the iron sky. I lean closer to the thick glass, framed with thick iron, and tap it with my fingertips. It vibrates like a gong, like a mermaid’s song.
Such an expensive material, glass. Only found in palaces and the occasional rich manor, hand-crafted with the added use of earth spells, unlike the windows of poorer houses which are made of latticed woodwork and animal hides.
The light slants through, distorted, playing on my hand.
Then a winged, pale shadow passes outside, so close it startles me into taking a step back.
A darakin.
It flies by once again, its colors white and gray, its wings like lace. It screeches the next time it flies by, and with a trembling hand, I grab and haul the heavy drape over the window, plunging the room into darkness.