31. Chapter 31
31
Zara
F rom a soft bed, I stared up at star-shaped chandeliers. Voices buzzed around me, but I recognized none of them. Pain danced down my leg and stabbed at the back of my hands. I was in a cave. Cool, moist air and knobby rock formations filled the chamber.
The palace of the Shadow Court. Nightsong. Cas’s palace.
Memories tapped against my mind like strangers seeking shelter. I couldn’t remember why I was here, or what had hurt me.
I recalled a woman’s freckled face and red hair. A white dress. A wide underground lake. Dragons.
My lungs sucked in air, and I tried to sit up.
A cool hand pressed me back down. “There now, she’s awake.” A man with pointed ears and long blond hair stared down at me. He wore an exquisite suit woven with golden threads, and a beaded headpiece adorned his brow. He was vaguely familiar, but my mind wasn’t filling in all the gaps yet.
“Leave me alone,” I said in a raspy voice.
He glanced up at another fae, a woman with honey-colored hair and amber skin. She was so beautiful that her skin faintly glowed. No—I reminded myself—that was magic.
Large cushions had been stacked under me, and several fae lounged against other pillows on the cavern floor. A woman played a piano a short distance away, filling the room with a calming sonata.
As I took in my surroundings, foggy memories floated in. Snippets of the trial returned to me. The pale dragon watching me. Dropping my sword. Hiding from the flames. I glanced at my hands. Red blisters bulged across my skin.
“Can you stop the pain?” I asked, desperate for one of Cas’s antidotes right about now. These fae had magic. They had the means to heal me, if they chose. I sensed several people watching me and heard a few giggles.
I propped myself on my elbows and took in the cavern and the fae sitting near me. A dark-haired fae still displaying shadowy wings grabbed my hand and pressed it to his lips. The pain in my wounds subsided with a wave. My stomach somersaulted, and my ears heated.
“You want to make the pain go away,” he said. “I have just the thing.” He reached for a goblet that a woman had extended toward him, and he brought it toward my mouth. “This will make all your pain go away.”
Finally, an antidote.
“Where is Cas?” I mumbled as I took the goblet.
The fae exchanged a glance. “The heir is away, tending to court business.”
“But he specifically asked that we take good care of you.”
“He did?”
One of the fae women pressed her lips together to hide a smile, and I distinctly heard a snort from someone behind me.
A stab of doubt prickled through me, but fae couldn’t lie, and I would do anything to stop this pain. If Cas had asked them to take care of me, I was safe. I lifted the goblet in my hands and inhaled deeply. It had a sharp scent, cinnamon and ginger and something stronger. This mulled wine had a lot more than simply grapes. I’d heard of the fae’s spiced wine, but I couldn’t remember exactly what else I’d heard about it. But if I’d heard of it, it must be famous. And famous must mean good. It smelled good.
The pain was making it hard to think straight. Maybe if the pain disappeared, I’d be able to remember more.
I brought the cup to my lips and took a small sip, afraid I wouldn’t like the flavor. But as soon as the liquid touched my tongue, it traveled all the way down to the depths of my body and warmed me. “Oh,” I said aloud, embarrassed at my exclamation but unable to contain myself. This was the most delicious thing I’d ever tasted. I took one more sip, a larger one. Several of the fae around me chuckled behind uplifted hands, but the man who had given me the cup smiled with such intensity, such desire that my entire body leaned toward him. I handed him back the goblet and he took it gently, careful to caress my fingers with his own as he passed the cup to the woman behind him.
I stared at my hands. The bulging blisters began to recede, and the skin across the back of my hands began to mend. I let out a small cry of relief, and then my head began to spin. I crashed back into the pillows as dizziness overtook me. The cavern spun as if someone had picked up one end of the floor and was going to flip it over, much like the dance floor I had been forced to perform on my first night here.
Ignoring the laughter all around me, I slammed my fist into the pillow by my head, willing the dizziness to go away.
“That’s only the magic of the dragon fire leaving your body,” one of the fae women said, suppressing a giggle.
A few people shifted their weight, and the pillows around me moved. Somebody was lying down next to me. My shoulders rocked back and forth.
“The dizziness will go away soon. Don’t worry.” A hand stroked my back.
And then a sound, different, louder, cut through the dizziness and mental chaos.
“Get your hands off her!” a deep voice boomed across the open space.
The hand that was stroking my back leaped from me like a frightened animal, and the people around me scrambled to get away. I still couldn’t open my eyes against the reeling sensation in my head. Even the piano had cased.
I tilted my chin to get a glimpse at whoever was coming, and the entire world began to revolve again. I pressed my mouth into the pillow and groaned. Then, strong hands were turning me over gently, slipping underneath me, pressing firmly under my shoulders and knees. I shook my head, but the movement tortured my dizzy mind.
“Hold on, little spark,” a familiar voice said. I knew this voice. I peeked one eye open as my face sagged against a man’s chest. Cas’s chest.
“You didn’t come,” I mumbled.
He coughed. “I tried. I was delayed. But close your eyes. I’ve got you now.”
My body bounced and clunked against Cas as he carried me. The gentle swaying of my body kept the dizziness at the forefront of my consciousness. I wasn’t aware of where he was taking me. My entire world was still tilting. But when we burst out into the sunlight, my eyes popped open, and I looked around.
Keeping one arm looped underneath my shoulders, he dropped my feet to the ground, where my shoes met tall grasses. I stumbled against him, pressing a hand to his chest as I gained my footing. He gripped my arm with his free hand, steadying me.
“You should sit down,” he said, guiding me to the warm grass. We were in the middle of a large field atop a small knoll. Horses grazed in the distance. A breeze tousled his hair and rippled over the ocean of green grass.
“Where…?” I was so dizzy, so confused, so cold, despite the warm air. My head hurt, and my body ached.
Cas sat beside me, squinting in the bright sun. “Rest for now. The sun will help.”
When I was settled on the ground, Cas’s arm slid off of my back, taking its warmth with him.
“Wait,” I mumbled, barely able to form the word properly. “I’m freez…” My loose lips couldn’t finish the sentence before I tipped sideways, my face smearing against his warm shoulder. For a second, he didn’t move, then he wrapped his arm around me once again. I tucked my face against his chest and breathed deeply into his crinkled white shirt. The comforting scent of cinnamon and cut wood washed over me, soothing me. My tired body melted against his.
With nothing to lean against, Cas rocked backward as my weight sagged against him. When we were lying on the grass, my face pressed against him, he shifted so that I fit in the crook of his arm and propped his other hand under his head.
“Cas,” I mumbled, trying to sort through the shuffled thoughts in my head and feeling a strange desire to express them all. “I have to go home. I have to make it back home. Can’t you take me home?”
His chest expanded underneath me. “I can’t do that, Zara. The bargain still has power over you.”
To my shock, he stroked gentle fingers down my back and a sudden, strange thought occurred to me. If I went back home, I’d never get to feel him do that again.
“I’m not what you think,” I said, exhaustion weighing heavy on me but still feeling the need to explain myself. The fact that I couldn’t see his face made this easier. Or maybe it was the wine. “You wanted me to break, but I’m already broken,” I muttered, thinking back over the mistakes I’d made over the years. “I’ve been broken for years, and I’m afraid that’s why I keep messing things up.”
His hand paused as it traced lines up my back.
“The sunlight will help,” he said again, his voice as firm as the muscles under my smushed cheek.
My body shook with chills and the strange dizziness rattling my mind. He pulled me in tighter, and I tipped against him. As my arm wrapped around his middle, it occurred to me how wonderful this felt, and how I’d never felt safer. Sleep overcame me, and I dropped from consciousness.
When I next opened my eyes, I groaned as my muscles moved from the awkward position of being draped against Cas as we lay on the ground. I glanced briefly around at the sunlit fields and noticed a manor house tucked way in the distance. Cas shifted, looking over at me. The sunlight struck his eyes in a way that made them look lighter.
I struggled to sit up, to pry myself off of him. What in all the worlds had I been thinking ? He was the shadow heir, not a lounge chair.
And yet, he’d held me.
He sat up, raking a hand through his hair to rid it of the grass that clung to him. His cheekbones created shadowed ridges in his face, and I was struck by how handsome he was. I glanced at the back of my hands. The burn marks had vanished, leaving only a faint pinkish hue where they’d been.
“Sunlight helps the effects of the wine dissipate quicker,” he said, his voice rumbling through my bloodstream as panic set in. Ariana had warned me not to drink the wine, but in my confused state, I’d thought they were merely giving me something to ease the pain.
I’d slept against him. And he’d let me. My mind spun, and a dull headache pressed against my temples. Cas had carried me here. Carried my limp, inebriated body to a place I could sleep off whatever I’d just drank.
“Aren’t you weaker in the sunlight?”
His mouth pressed to a hard line. “I am. But it makes you stronger.”
I blinked at him, trying to make sense of his words, of why my heart was beating so fast. I couldn’t let myself feel this way around him. “And the burns?” I asked, examining my leg, which was a deep red, tinged with yellow in places.
Cas rubbed the back of his neck and stared at the ground between us. “The burns have only begun to heal. They won’t fully heal for weeks, and that’s only if you can get all the poison out of your bloodstream.” He glanced up at me. “I healed what I could, but you require magic I don’t have. I’m not an expert healer. When we leave here, I will take you to the infirmary, where you will rest until your wounds heal.”
Trying to look casual, I lifted my chin. “Where is here?”
He smiled, and for a moment, I forgot that I had been burned by poisonous magical flames. “See that house over there?”
I squinted in the direction he indicated.
A massive stone house sat in the distance. Two barns stood in the wide fields on either side of us.
“That is the home of your friend.”
A choked laugh spewed from my mouth. “Talia? She’s alive?”
He nodded. “And happy, if one can believe the reports that have arrived from the recent goings on in the Sun Court. I can’t take you past the boundaries of the estate, as her husband’s magic prevents my court from trespassing, but I thought you might want to see where she lives. She married a very powerful high fae, my equal and my court’s ancient enemy.”
Covering my mouth as both joy and sadness bombarded me, I tried to stand, accepting Cas’s help as he hurried to steady me. When I glanced down at his hands, I gasped.
“Your hands.”
Snaking black lines covered his forearms.
“Cas,” I whispered, a sinking feeling in my stomach. My eyes flicked toward Talia’s house once more, a massive estate of flowers and horses and sunlight—a beautiful place that was better than even the best of my imaginings. But my attention quickly traveled back to Cas, to his arms, his face. The skin around his eyes was tight. His muscles looked taut, and the veins on his arms stood at attention. “You’re in pain,” I said, feeling rather stupid for my pronouncement. It seemed utterly preposterous that a fae with as much power and influence as he had would sit in the sunlight with a mortal while he was in so much pain. “Shouldn’t you go inside?”
For a moment, he didn’t answer, but the muscles in his jaw flexed several times. The skin on his face was turning pale. Then a doorway appeared out of nowhere, nothing more than a dim rectangle in the otherwise bright scene. He stumbled toward it, and I moved with him.
“I need…”
His words were cut off, and all of his muscles went limp. As his heavy body teetered, I couldn’t move fast enough to extricate myself from him. Together, we crashed sideways through the door.