Chapter 32
CHAPTER 32
“ N ia.”
My eyes snap open, and I’m instantly alert. It’s the middle of the night, and at first, I’m not sure what woke me. My ears listen for any hint of danger, and I mentally scramble to figure out the best exits and nearby weapons. I sniff for the scent of smoke in case another bomb has gone off.
“Nia.” Then I hear it again, my name in Talan’s tempting, sinful whisper.
As my eyes adjust, I see him sitting on the edge of my bed. Moonlight silvers him, and he’s watching me with a faint half smile.
“What is it?” I blurt, still trapped in the fog of sleep.
“You talk in your sleep, you know.” His deep murmur sends a warm shiver down my spine. I’m suddenly conscious that the sheets have fallen off me, and I’m wearing only a thin silk nightgown that stops at my upper thighs.
I pull the sheets up, my cheeks warming. “What did I say?”
His molten copper eyes gleam from the shadows. “Something about being breathless. You were thrashing around in what I can only imagine is a filthy dream about me, but I still can’t wander inside your head to see the details. Such a shame.”
Slowly, the dream returns. Talan hikes up the hem of my dress, about to fuck me hard against an oak tree…
“I wasn’t dreaming about you,” I lie. “I was dreaming about a giant moth.”
He frowns. “Now there’s a kink I hadn’t anticipated.” He cocks his head. “But it is interesting to picture.”
I raise myself on one elbow, clearing the sleep from my thoughts. “What time is it? What are you doing in here?”
“It’s the middle of the night, about four hours until dawn. Get dressed. We’re leaving.”
I rub my eyes, desperate to curl up under the covers again. “Leaving? Why?”
“I want us to enter Lord Kahedin’s dreams as soon as possible. I might be running out of time to set my plans in motion.”
Yawning, I rise from the bed. “What do you mean, running out of time?”
“The assassination attempt has the king on edge. He launched a full investigation into the people behind it, as did I. But when he digs deeply enough, he’ll find out exactly what I’ve been up to. I might not have long until he realizes I’m trying to dethrone him.”
I swallow, my thoughts ringing with Nivene’s warnings.
Going to the wooden wardrobe tucked in one corner of my library nook, I pull it open and slip a thick, warm dress over my thin nightgown. “And how, exactly, will this plan involving Kahedin keep you safe from your father?”
“Lord Kahedin is the last member of the council I need to control. With him on my side, I will have enough power to destabilize Father’s rule.” He hands me my boots, frowning at them. “Your left boot has faint blade marks in it. Why have you been walking around like an armed assassin?”
I snatch them from him. “Why do you think? A woman can’t be too careful these days, especially if that woman is me.” I pull my boots on, my pulse racing. “So, why do we need to go? Can’t we enter Lord Kahedin’s dreams from here?”
“ I can. But I can’t take you into the dream with me unless we’re closer, at least a hundred feet from his palace, and Kahedin is presently quarantined at his winter palace in the far north.”
I grab my cloak and wrap it around myself. “The far north? It’ll take us weeks to get there.”
“Then we’d better get started.”
He walks to the door and yanks it open. I quickly follow him.
“Your Highness,” a guard outside my door says, bowing. “Are you going somewhere?”
Talan slings an arm around my waist and pulls me in close to him. “My wife and I are going on a moonlit walk. As she likes to say, the Fey don’t belong indoors. We belong in the wild.”
The soldier nods. “Of course, Your Highness. We’ll follow straight behind.”
“You’ll stay here,” Talan says, his tone bored. “I don’t want your presence interfering with whatever we might do in the forest. It won’t be for soldiers’ eyes, I’m afraid.”
“Your Highness, we’ll stay behind, but in order to keep you safe?—”
“Are you suggesting I can’t keep us safe?” Talan’s voice is lethally quiet. “That the Butcher of Brittany and the crown prince needs to be protected by someone stronger? Do you think you are stronger than me, soldier?”
The soldier pales. “Of course not, Your Highness, I just?—”
“Good.” An easy smile curls his lips. “You’ll stay right here like a good little soldier while we take a leisurely stroll, and I’ll return precisely whenever the fuck I want to return.”
Talan turns, dismissing the soldiers, and walks away.
I fall into step beside him and glance at his beautiful, perfectly composed face. His anger had been a pretense. He’d played those soldiers.
“I know you act like a villain on purpose,” I murmur. “Just to get away with whatever you want.”
“Smart girl.” He chuckles softly. “But if you go around revealing my secrets, I’ll have no choice but to punish you.”
A warm shiver skims over my skin.
We step out the main palace doors, and the guards at the entrance stare after us in confusion. The temperature has dropped even further, and the icy wind bites at my cheeks.
Despite the cold, it’s a beautiful night, with only the silver moon full, the air clear and crisp. As soon as we’re far enough from the entrance, Talan turns away from the stables.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“We can’t take the horses. Guards patrol the stables, and they will notify Father immediately if we ride out in the middle of the night.”
“So, how are we going to travel?”
Talan glances at me, raising an eyebrow. “How do you think?”
I realize we’re walking to the Lost Palace, and my heart skips a beat. “You don’t want to ride to Lord Kahedin’s winter palace.”
“No, that would take weeks, as you pointed out.”
“You want to fly.”
“Even my paranoid father won’t anticipate something so reckless.”
My teeth chatter despite my cloak. “It’s going to be freezing up there.”
He turns to look at me, a line forming between his eyebrows, and for a moment, he looks utterly confused. That’s an expression I’d not seen on him before. The icy wind whips at his hair, and a cold rain starts to hammer down on him.
“What?” I ask.
“A strange feeling.” Slowly, he unfastens his cloak and pulls it off.
“What strange feeling?”
“Giving a fuck if anyone around me is cold or hungry, or otherwise unhappy.” As he wraps his cloak around me and fastens the clasp, his fingers brush against my collarbone. “Nia, you are so fragile for a woman who walks around with daggers in her boots. Sometimes, you’re almost like a breakable little human.”
A shudder ripples up my spine, and I’m glad he can’t see my expression in the darkness.
“ Human ,” I scoff. “You say the craziest things sometimes.”
He turns, leading me on the icy cobbled path toward the Lost Palace.
“The assassination attempt made me rethink things. So far, my investigation has made it clear that the assassins had very thorough plans of the palace, as well as meticulous information about the security routines we employ,” he says. “I had a few men I thought I could trust, but now, I can’t be sure about that. No one can know about us leaving. I have no idea whom to trust besides you.”
A twinge of guilt tugs in my heart. Mordred’s words haunt me again. You always act as if your hand is forced by fate. Own your decisions.
I did what I thought was right at the time. But now, I’m no longer sure what’s right.
As we reach the Lost Palace, I glance up at Nimu?’s statue and feel her dormant power ripple over me, singing with the tattoos on my wrists.
I follow Talan inside. Moonlight streams onto the tiled floor through the stained glass windows. Through the second door, Tarasque’s immense head appears from the darkness. She huffs, and the sound echoes off the wall. Her metallic eyes gleam from the shadows, sending a shiver over me.
“Hey, there, my good girl.” Talan rubs the bottom of her jaw. “We’re going on a trip.”
She lets out a rumble. Talan pats her affectionately, then crosses to the side of the hall, where he picks up two leather bags.
“You’ve been preparing,” I say.
“Of course.” He lifts the smaller one and tosses it to me.
I catch it, and it’s lighter than I’d anticipated. When I peek inside, I find only clothes. Talan swings the larger leather bag on his own shoulder.
He crosses to the towering doors at the rear of the hall. As he pushes the thick, metal-reinforced wood, the doors groan. They shift open, and moonlight streams into the hall. Tarasque lumbers out into the snow, steam puffing from her nostrils.
She lowers her neck, and I climb on, tightening my thighs around her scales. Talan slips on behind me, and his powerful arm locks around my waist, securing me in place.
“Ready?” he says in a low voice.
I nod, my heart in my throat.
Tarasque takes a few steps and beats her wings once, twice, and then we lift into the icy air. I hold my breath as we sail into the dark skies, sweeping over darkened, snowy villages. My stomach is left somewhere in the snow beneath us.
Riding a dragon at night might be even more terrifying than in the daytime because it’s almost impossible to tell how high we are. Beneath us, a blanket of silver stretches out across the kingdom.
For a moment, I shut my eyes and lean back into Talan’s warm, solid chest. His thumb brushes up and down my waist, soothing me as my body goes tense from the shock of dragon flight.
I force my eyes open again and look back at the tiny lights of Perillos. I wonder if any of the King’s Watch might have seen us take off. And yet, somehow, with Talan here, I don’t feel scared at all.
Talan guides Tarasque eastward for a few minutes, the dragon arcing wide over the city of Corbinelle, then shouts a command, directing Tarasque to the north over empty fields and forests. He leans in close, and his voice thrums over my skin. “When I ride her to hunt, I go east. If anyone happened to be looking in the skies, that’s what they’ll report.”
Tarasque veers sharply, and the speed of her flight takes me by surprise. I grip tightly to one of her ridged scales, and my heart leaps.
The wind whips over me, stinging my cheeks. Beneath us, glittering, icy forests sweep past, a blur of white and black under the moonlight. A sensation of wild freedom ripples through me.
No one knows where we are. Not Auberon, not Avalon Tower, not even Nivene.
And right now, that’s just the way I want it.
We fly for less than three hours, the sky turning an indigo blue streaked with violet. As we dive lower, I peer down at the dawn-kissed forest rushing past below us. “Are we near the palace?”
“Almost,” Talan says. “We’ll need to walk for a few miles. If we land out here in the forest, no one will see us.”
As much as Talan and his cloak have kept me warm, I’m still chilled to my bones, and my thighs ache from hanging for my dear life.
As Talan pointed out, it’s almost like I have the weak, breakable body of a human.
As Tarasque gently glides down to the snowy, coral-tinged earth, I’m desperate to jump off.
Slowly, she lands in a clearing. As she settles in the snow, I half-tumble off Tarasque’s neck, leaping onto the ground.