Chapter 21
Cotton fills my mouth, dry and grainy like the beaches of Delterran. Thin rays of light filter through a set of gauzy curtains, dancing in the breeze from an open window. My dagger rests on a nightstand I vaguely recognize.
I groan, gingerly running my fingers over the tender spot on my jaw where Kressa landed a blow.
My eyes shoot open.
Kressa.
I bolt upright and regret it immediately. Stitches strain at my thigh and upper arm, and my head goes light, the room spinning.
A hand rests on my shoulder.
“You’re okay.” Thea whispers, guiding me back to the mattress. “Lay down.”
My vision focuses on her face, pinched with concern. Yet her eyes narrow—a silent promise I’ll get a tongue lashing later. Behind her, the room is bare, save for an armoire beside the window.
I furrow my brows. “Where am I?” My voice comes out as a croak, and I search the recesses of my mind, struggling to piece together my memories.
She shushes me and glances over her shoulder. “You’re in the east wing, where all the other competitors are.”
“Is she okay?”
A huff. “Isolde is fine, she’s—”
“No, Kressa.”
The name hangs in the air, somersaults, but it’s too late to reel it back in.
“Oh,” she breathes, followed by a nod. “She’s in her room, resting like you.”
I hold my palms up, where the faint outline of Kressa’s name mars my left hand. I turn them over. These hands don’t belong to Harriet. They’re mine.
An ache pierces my sternum and I swallow, shifting my gaze to Thea. “How long have I been asleep?”
The thin nightgown on my body is clean and dry. Not coated with mud and sand, or soaked through with lake water and blood.
“Nearly an entire day. I brought up some clothes and hid them in the dresser.” She narrows her eyes at the stitches on my upper thigh. “What were you thinking when you ran into the lake? I thought you were dead when the kraken pulled you underwater. And when he escaped…”
Her voice trails off, and my cracked lips tilt. Escaped, not freed. “He got away?”
“Yes, and killed a handful of nobles in the process.”
I cough, clutching at my side. Thea helps me lift myself against the headboard and hands me a glass of water. I take a sip and swallow, my throat like sandpaper.
The doorknob rattles, and we freeze. The breath in my lungs halts, and my eyes dart around the room, but there’s nowhere to hide. If I bolted to the servant’s door, I’d faint. The stitches would tear.
The door swings open. Thea jumps from the bed and blocks the intruder’s view, but it’s too late.
She saw me.
“Briar?”
Kressa’s voice is strangled, throat likely as dry as mine. She walks in and scans the room, searching for someone she won’t find. My chest tightens at the slight limp on her right side, where I stabbed her.
“Where’s Harriet?” Her gaze lingers on the quilt in my lap and the nightgown bunched high around my hips. She blinks and looks away. “And why are you in her bed?”
I tug down the hem and fold my hands in my lap. She’d have far too many questions about her name carved into my palm. “I, um—”
“I brought Harriet to our room last night,” Thea interjects. “She wasn’t sleeping well on this bed, and Briar was kind enough to trade, so she stayed up here.”
Kressa furrows her brow. “And where is she now?”
“Still resting.”
She rubs the back of her neck and winces. “When she wakes, will you have her come meet me?”
My hackles raise, but Thea rests a comforting hand on my shin.
“I’d love to,” she says.
“And could I have a moment with Briar? Alone?”
Thea’s stance between us stiffens, but I grab her hand and squeeze. “It’s okay.”
Kressa’s gaze slides to me and settles on the pendant hanging around my neck. “I won’t harm her.”
My lips part. Something in the air shifts, growing taut. Thea sneaks a glance at me and gives a pointed look at my throat.
I grimace and rub at my neck until I realize it’s the hand with Kressa’s name on it. I shove it under the covers. “I’ll be fine.”
Thea exhales a long breath and fusses with the pillow behind my back, propping me up. “Fine.” Facing Kressa, she tilts her chin. “But I’ll be standing on the other side of that door. If you so much as raise your voice at her, I’ll flay you alive.”
I bite down on my grin. There she is. My fearsome first mate.
Kressa’s lips quirk. “Something tells me she’d do it herself.”
Thea nods, offering me a final look before she crosses the room. She gives Kressa a dramatic once over and slips through the door, pulling it shut behind her.
I slide the chain off my neck and hold it out. “Considering you survived, I believe you’ll be wanting this back.”
She strides toward me, stopping at the edge of my bed, and folds my palm closed. “It’s yours now.”
I suck in my bottom lip and set the necklace beside my dagger on the nightstand. Through the corner of my eye, I scan her. My stomach clenches as the image of her slumped, unmoving body flashes through my mind.
“Are you okay?” I whisper.
I hate the desperation in my voice, the need for her to validate she’s alive and breathing and didn’t die in arena. With my name on her list and being her target in The Gales, I shouldn’t want her to live.
And yet.
She shrugs. “I’ve been better.”
Between her proximity and the thin fabric separating her gaze from my skin, I feel naked. The pillowy mattress presses against my bare legs, and my breath snags. It’s too comfortable. Too vulnerable.
Ensuring my slip covers as much as possible, I throw the sheets from my lap and swing my legs over the side. My vision swims. I brace my hands on either side of the mattress and bow my head, taking deep breaths.
A pair of callused hands grip my shoulders, immersing me in hints of cedar and rain. “Slow down. Are you okay?”
Her voice sounds distant, but when I raise my head, she’s a breath away.
“I—I’m fine,” I lie, wounds pounding, head spinning. I blow out a breath and straighten. “Just moved too quick, that’s all.”
She releases my shoulders and extends a hand, the outline of Harriet’s name etched into it. Swallowing, I shake my head and push myself from the bed. I teeter for a moment, and Kressa grips my arm, steadying me.
“Pull it together,” she says, any sympathy leeched from her voice.
But her breath catches, and she leans closer, trailing a finger down the side of my face where she landed a blow. “Briar, who did this?” Her eyes darken, searching my face. “If Caelus laid a finger on you, I—”
“No.” I push her hand away. “You don’t get to blackmail me one moment and care for my safety the next. In fact, this agreement will only work if you keep your hands off me.”
The light in her eyes dims, and she shoves her hands into her pockets. “Understood.”
“Now,” I say. “What did you want to talk about?”
She sidesteps and lifts my dagger from the nightstand. I should reach for it, or snatch it from her hands, but the way she admires the hilt gives me pause.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she says.
Swirling, intricate lines decorate the gold handle, smoothed by time at sea. At one point, my name was etched into the metal, but years of wielding it have worn away the letters—fitting, considering the curse has erased my name from mouths all over the world.
She turns it over in her hands, and sunlight bounces off the blade. “I’m surprised you let Harriet borrow it. You must trust her.”
“I do.”
She lowers her eyes and drags her bottom lip through her teeth, setting my dagger down like it’s a piece of artwork. “If you see her, let her know I’d like a truce. An alliance. I’ll fight beside her until I have to fight against her.”
A knot loosens in my chest. “I’m sure she’ll appreciate that.”
Without looking at me, she asks, “Are you two friends?”
“Something like that.”
Tapping her fingers on the nightstand, she straightens and turns to the servant’s entrance.
“Caelus is hosting a dinner at the end of this week, followed by dancing and drinking, of course. We will take advantage of the distraction and search the dungeons for Elias. Until then, try to get information out of the king.”
I narrow my eyes. “I’m getting tired of being told to use my body to get information out of people.”
Frowning, she shakes her head. “That’s not at all what I meant. I would never ask you to do something like that, Briar. Your words are far more powerful.”
A thick silence stretches between us, hanging over our heads.
Her hands flex—the same ones that swung a sword at me and nearly plunged it into my heart. I swallow and twist the fabric of my nightgown.
A creak comes from the door, and Thea’s head pokes in, eyes wide. “Caelus has guards searching the grounds for you. He wants to meet in the garden.”
I grimace at my nightgown. “I’ll have to go back to the room and change.”
She slips in and scurries to the servant’s door, pausing halfway through the room. Glancing between Kressa and me, she lets out a low hum. “I’ll be waiting in the dark, scary, spider-filled hallway.”
Her hair swishes around her head as she gives Kressa one final, searing look, then disappears through the doorway.
Kressa lifts the chain from the nightstand. She slides it through her fingers, running a thumb over the pendant, and flicks her gaze to me. “May I?”
I swallow and nod.
She circles behind me, and her fingers dip beneath my hair. My breath hitches as her knuckles skim my nape, and with a soft tap of metal, she secures the pendant around my neck.
Dropping her hands, she nods and crosses to the bedroom door. She pauses, opening her mouth, but closes it and shakes her head.
“What?” I ask, my voice more breathless than I’d like.
That mask slides back on, and her eyes harden, lips pressing into a taut line. “Don’t disappoint me.”