33. Chapter 33
33
Zara
M y head reeled, but not from dizziness as I stood frozen beside Cas’s bed.
Had he just kissed me?
At least he wasn’t watching me for my reaction. But to be safe, I spun in a circle in case he opened his eyes again. My hands instinctively traveled up to my chest, and I rested my chin on my knuckles, remembering the past few hours as best I could.
Because I’d certainly missed something.
Casimiro, heir of the Shadow Court, couldn’t possibly have been in his right mind when he… I fanned out the fingers on my left hand and stared at the place his lips had touched.
When I’d been administering his medicine, I hadn’t thought about how my hands were all over him. Or at least, I hadn’t thought he’d notice. I was merely treating a patient. It’s what any nurse would do.
But, stars above, he’d noticed. He’d sensed my hesitation to let go and read it in my eyes. How could I have let him get to me? A fae was definitely on the list of wrong guys to fall for, and the prince of shadows—an immortal who despised humans—was at the top of the list.
In my head, I watched that list burn.
I stepped through the doorway that led to his study and back to the halls that would take me to the infirmary where my burns could be treated and I could finally rest again. I’d promised myself that love would solve my problems, not create more, and he was definitely more. Perhaps my overzealous heart would calm down after a good sleep.
I glanced back at his quietly breathing form before stepping out of his bedroom. Half of me wanted to run back and check those black lines to see if they’d receded farther. I nearly did. But then I was closing the heavy door to his study behind me and slipping quietly down the cold stone hall.
Samuel was in the infirmary when I got there. Half his body was bandaged, but he was alive. The nurse explained that Samuel had rolled to shield Eudoria from the flames. The elderly woman, Ivy, and Tomas had all survived. Apparently, the dragons had taken flight about the time I’d passed out, leaving us alone and angering the fae.
The mortal nurse, a man named Nadoo with skin as smooth and dark as the palace walls, explained that dragon fire burns could not be healed fully with fae magic. The wounds could be closed up with a spell, but the infection and the remaining burn scars had to be treated the old-fashioned way. With mortal medicine and time.
I’d slept for the majority of the first two days, but after that, time passed slowly. The pain was manageable, but I’d never felt so tired in my life. Staying awake to help Cas had seemed easy at the time—after all, he’d needed me to. But it had taxed me more than I’d realized.
I was not allowed to leave until Nadoo was certain the infection was gone. But three days in the otherwise empty, pristine room set aside for sick and wounded servants felt like six months.
Finally alert when Nadoo came to doctor my wounds, I watched as a second nurse changed the bandages on Samuel’s arms. “Why didn’t they let him die?” I asked as Nadoo dabbed a thick cream onto my burns.
He shrugged. “The heir commanded that the survivors be treated. The king won’t like it. He’ll be in a rage when he returns.” The man shivered and replaced the lid on the cream. “The heir will go the way of the rest of them.”
My heart turned over in my chest. “Go? Is the heir leaving when the king returns?”
The man pursed his lips. “Leaving? No, my dear, he will not survive his father’s return. No heir ever does.”
“Wha—?” All the breath rushed from my lungs, and I clutched my sheets in tight fists. “What do you mean?”
He clicked his tongue, clearly annoyed at my concern for the prince of this court. “The king kills them all as soon as he returns. Everyone knows it.” He leaned forward, oblivious to my quickening breaths. “The coup is this court’s best bet for ousting that eternal madman. If they can kill both heirs and a handful of the mortals tied to him, breaking several of his bargains at once, they might have a chance.” He lifted both eyebrows dramatically. “But in three thousand years, no one’s ever done it.”
I remained in a seated position, staring blankly at the far wall of the infirmary long after Nadoo left and the lights dimmed.
My palms peeled stickily away from my sheets when I finally released them and rose from my bed to relieve myself in the washroom.
I’d learned more in the two minutes I’d spoken to Nadoo than I had the entirety of my stay in this palace. Death awaited Cas, as it had every one of his siblings. My chest ached to think how many brothers and sisters he might have lost in his long life. No wonder he’d lived with such anger—such hate.
He only had Alba now. Their closeness suddenly made more sense.
For hours, I couldn’t shake the memory of his chest beneath my face as I’d slept in that sunlit field. He wasn’t the man I’d once thought him. And he would die as soon as his father returned.
All I could see as I tried to sleep were the black lines snaking toward Casimiro’s chest. He will not survive . No heir ever has . The words etched into my mind like the carvings on the stone walls of Nightsong.
As I lay there, tucked into a small ball in my creaky infirmary bed, I whispered his name into the dark.
I said little the following day as Nadoo roused me to tend my wounds and administer my medicine.
Nadoo said nothing of what was happening outside the infirmary, but he narrowed his gaze every time he made eye contact, like he was trying to read my mind. Other than a woman coming in to be bandaged from a fall on the icy steps outside, no other humans came to the infirmary for treatment.
On the fourth day of my stay, Ivy came to visit. She rushed to my side and wrapped me in a violent hug.
“Samuel?” she asked, peering over at him as tears budded in her eyes.
“I think he will recover,” I whispered, my stomach tightening with uncertainty.
She nodded firmly and wiped her eyes. “You—the other night. The trial just ended . I knew you’d been burned, and then someone yelled that the trial was over. I think it was Felipe. The heir wasn’t there, only his sister. None of us knew if you were okay. The fae hustled us all back inside. I didn’t even find out about Samuel until he didn’t show up at the next meal.” She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth and took several deep breaths. “He never said much, but…”
I patted her arm, nodding. “They’re treating him.”
Her head shook in tiny movements. “It makes no sense. Why try to kill us then try to heal us?”
My throat tightened, and I swallowed. “The trial was supposed to be easy. Then it wasn’t.”
Ivy touched my arm, her pink cheeks pulling up in a faint smile. “But you survived.” She looked down at my hands. “Oh, Zara. I’m so sorry.”
I showed her the burn on my leg, and she cringed, then tried to cover it up by saying it didn’t look that bad. She told me the court was restless, that many were angry Samuel hadn’t been left to die. Others, she explained, were happy with the change. Apparently, not all the fae here hated humans; they were simply less vocal about it until Casimiro had made the first move, commanding Samuel’s treatment.
Ivy stood to leave, the bed rising as her weight lifted. “The tension is rising,” she admitted. “I’m nervous. I’m afraid we’ll…there’s talk of another trial. To right the wrong of having a trial where no one died.” She wrung her hands.
“Cas won’t let that happen,” I said confidently.
She quirked her brows and eyed me sideways. “Cas?”
My ears burned, and I looked away. But how could I explain it? And what was there to explain? That he’d shown me Talia’s house? That he’d slept in the sunshine with me simply to make me feel better? That he’d kissed my fingers and left an ache inside me that I couldn’t shake?
Tilting her head, Ivy said, “To tell you the truth, I haven’t seen the heir in a few days. He’s probably off collecting more mortals to kill.”
To suppress the uneasy feeling rising inside me, I changed the subject. “How is Ariana?”
“She’s fine. Feels terrible about what happened, but she’s fully recovered. You should probably rest.”
“I’m tired of resting.”
“At least here they can’t make you a centerpiece.” Her expression fell.
“Have they—?”
She nodded faintly. “All of us.” A shudder rocked her shoulders. “But some fae refused to eat at the tables where we…where they made us stand. Others are mad. They’re hungry for blood, Zara. Stay here as long as you can.”
The following evening, Nadoo checked my wounds and my temperature and declared I was free to go. He seemed nervous, rushing between my bed and Samuel’s, cursing as he tried to uncork a medicine bottle.
When I left the washroom a few minutes later, Nadoo looked up at me. Sweat clung to his brow. “It’s chaos up there.”
I hesitated in the doorway, recalling Ivy’s words. Casimiro’s actions were throwing the court into a tumult, and if angry dragons were terrifying, angry immortal fae with dark, twisted minds were equally as dangerous.
I wore a fresh white tunic—the only humans who normally received aid from the infirmary were the servants—and barely received a single glance as I made my way up several flights of stairs. Every servant I passed was in a hurry, and by the time I ascended to the more populated levels, my feet moved almost at a jog.
It wasn’t until I neared the dining cavern that I sensed how the energy in the Shadow Court had shifted. Shouts sounded from behind the closed doors of the cavern, and several people, white-clad servants and glittering fae alike, hurried across the wide foyer and through the tall double doors. While the entrance was open, I glimpsed the chaos Nadoo had hinted at. Magic sparked in the air, and the low growl of hounds undergirded the courtiers’ shouting.
Turning away from the dining cavern, I hurried across the wide space to the grand stair that branched up and down. I needed to hide, to remain scarce until this tension subsided. Two levels down was the library. If I took a moment to grab a book before shutting myself in my room, I wouldn’t get as bored.
My moment of hesitation cost me.
The doors to the cavern burst open, and a flood of faces poured out.
“There she is! Grab her!”
I only made it up five steps before a shadowy figure swirled around me, halting my escape. Erik’s wide shoulders and square jaw were barely recognizable in this form, but his voice was the same.
“We’ve got a fun little game prepared for you, mortal. And you won’t survive this one.”