Chapter 32
“You shouldn’t be here,” Veronica snarls. “Do you know how hard it was to hide Kressa when you dragged her here this morning?”
A healer walks by, her low heels clicking over the stone as she crosses the infirmary. She catches the look on Veronica’s face and lowers her head, pushing through the nearest exit. The door swings shut, and the clock above it reads five minutes to eleven.
I tug my cloak around the canvas sack I lifted from the laundry room. “I had no other choice. The hallways were swarming with guards after the trial ended. They would have never allowed a healer through.”
She narrows her eyes. “As if you were in any state to be helping her.”
At her words, the recently healed wounds spanning my body ache.
“Please, just let me see her.”
My voice comes out more desperate than I’d like. I had no intention of stopping to check on Kressa on my way to retrieve the selkie tails, but her power tugged me here and wouldn’t relent.
Veronica sucks in her cheek and scans the rows of hospital beds, each cot veiled by a thick curtain. “Fine. But keep your voice down. I have other patients too, you know.”
The dagger is a weight against my thigh. “I know.”
“She’s in the last one on the left.”
I nod. “Thank you.”
She gives me one final glare. “I’ll be in the supply room preparing bandages for the next thirty minutes.”
My lip quirks. “Thirty minutes.”
With that, she huffs and turns on her heel, disappearing through a doorway. My stomach clenches, and I stride down the center of the rows of beds, all of them full, yet only one occupied by a competitor—Kressa. One other survived the second trial, but the state he’s in, I do not know.
Only nine—out of fifty—remain.
Dim lanterns line the wall and cast an incandescent glow over the long, narrow room. My cloak billows around my ankles, and with each step I take, the figment of her power pulls me closer.
A moth to a flame.
My hand reaches for the curtain, but pauses midair. Maybe I shouldn’t be here. I should let her rest until morning, when I can berate her with questions. I drop my hand and step back.
“Briar?”
Her voice isn’t more than a whisper, but it sparks something in my chest—something new and steadier than the ground beneath my feet.
I part the curtains. “How did you know it was me?”
A pillow lies under her head, her body covered with a thin white sheet. Fading purple bruises jog along her temple and down her cheekbone. I cringe at the one I inflicted.
But she’s alive. Breathing.
“I don’t know.” She shrugs. “I sensed you.”
The vulnerability in her voice takes me off guard, and I slip into the narrow space between the side of her bed and the curtain. “Are you okay?”
“What’s that?” Her lips tilt into a weak grin, honey eyes sparkling in the dark. “It sounds like you’re worried about me.”
“Well, now that I know you’re alive, I need you to start talking.”
She lifts onto her forearms and props herself against the low headboard.
The sheet pools at her waist and exposes every curve and dip of muscle along her arms. White gauze is taped to her side, covering the wound that nearly killed her.
And in the center of her chest, over her heart, barely hidden by the fabric around her breasts—
A dimple appears in her cheek. “What do we need to talk about, love?”
Heat climbs up my neck, and I glance away from her chest. Her uninvited power purrs between my ribs, but I swallow it down. “You have power.”
A scoff. “No, I don’t.”
“It wasn’t a question,” I snarl.
I settle onto the mattress and trace the spot over her heart where my power dipped into her. A deep, cerulean light blooms beneath her skin.
Unbuttoning my cloak, I let it fall to the bed beside the laundry sack. Beneath my tunic and under my skin, a deep emerald green light glows.
I remove my hand from her, and the glow flickers out. “Now stop lying, and tell me the truth.”
Her face pales. “Then let’s start with you.”
I bite my lip. Selective truths it is. “I felt ill, so I missed the trial. Harriet passed by me when she carried you here, and I—I thought you were dead. I grabbed your hand, and this”—I tap my chest—“passed from you into me.”
She rubs a hand over her heart. “And this one?”
Saved your life.
I clasp my hands in my lap and stare at the space over her shoulder. “From me.”
“You have power?” Her head tilts. “From the Sea Court? Or Caelus?”
“Sea Court.”
“I assume Caelus doesn’t know about this?”
“Would I be alive if he did?”
Something in her face shifts, then softens. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t be. The same way I wouldn’t be.”
She leans over and pulls a shirt from the nightstand, throwing it over her head. A warmth pools in my stomach at the way her fingers skim her waist as she pulls the hem down.
I swallow and look away. “And yours came from the Earth Court?”
She nods, and my stomach twists. I want to ask her who gifted it to her. A lesser noble? King Golan, or Prince Barren, before they were killed?
But if I asked, so would she. And I’d rather not add another strand to my carefully spun web of lies.
“Is it strong?” I say.
She shakes her head. “Nothing noteworthy. Nothing compared to Elias’s.”
I nod, slowly. Not directly from a royal, then.
Her gaze meets mine. “What about yours?”
“Almost nonexistent.”
It’s not a lie, but she stares, scanning every facet of my face.
Her fingertips tease the curve of my knee. “I think you saved my life.”
“What?”
“I think I was dead, or close, at least. I remember seeing your face at one point during the trial. Like it was a dream.”
I clamp my lips together.
“But maybe that was when your power came into me. I was dead, and I think it brought me back to life.”
“That’s not possible,” I say, my voice stone. It shouldn’t be, at least.
She gives me an unreadable look. “Maybe it’s not.” Leaning closer, she reaches her hand to my face and rubs her knuckles over my jaw. “You lied.”
I furrow my brows, unable to lean away from her touch. “What are you talking about?”
“About the kiss. You said you felt nothing.”
“I didn’t.”
She threads her fingers through my hair at the base of my neck. “A lie then, and a lie now. The truth this time. Please. What did you feel when our lips came together?”
The green light at my chest flares, and I shake my head. “I don’t remember.”
“Perhaps you need to be reminded.”
She pulls me close, and my chest flares brighter, lighting her face in an emerald glow. I swallow and angle my body toward her, lifting a leg halfway onto the bed. Her other hand wraps around my waist, our mouths nothing but a breath apart.
My heart rattles in my chest, pulse skittering in my veins. Her power, and mine, urge me closer. Her gaze dips to my mouth, and her pupils widen, a soft smile crossing her lips.
“I’ll ask one more time,” she whispers. “What did you feel?”
I glance to her mouth, watching the way her lips work around each syllable. I bite down on my cheek.
No, I’m not some sort of experiment. And she’s nothing but an excuse to stay away from Caelus—a means to stay alive in The Gales. If I knew our power would exchange, I never would have saved her.
And Isolde. After the trial, I tried to track her down, but with no luck. I can’t do this to her.
I push against Kressa’s chest and bolt from the mattress, her sudden absence like a slap. “I felt the ocean, okay? The salty air, the churning waves—that’s what I felt when we kissed.”
She tilts her head. “Interesting.”
I sling the laundry sack over my shoulder and replace my cloak, buttoning it around my neck. “And what did you feel?”
“I never lied to you. I felt flames licking up my skin, burning from the inside out.”
“Well, I’m glad that’s settled. Have a good night.”
I part the curtain and air from the infirmary rushes in, cooling my face.
She throws her legs over the side of her bed and winces, pressing a hand to her waist. “Where are you going?”
“Back to my room,” I lie. “Alone.”
Her eyes darken, and a smile spreads over her lips. “You’re going back to your room with a massive laundry bag?”
I glance at the bag peeking out of my cloak. “Yes. Goodbye.”
The clock ticks above the doorway, and I step through the curtain, but she grabs my hand. As if charged, her touch buzzes up my arm and into my chest, jolting my power. I rip from her grasp and run my palm down the front of my cloak.
She stands. “Harriet told you about the selkies, didn’t she? That their tails are somewhere in the castle.”
“She did. And if I want to return their tails, I need to go now.”
She looks over my shoulder, and a line forms between her brows. “She isn’t going to help you?”
I shake my head.
She yanks a sweater hanging off the headboard and slides her arms through it. “Then I’m coming with you.”
“No, you’re not. I don’t need a chaperone.”
“Trust me, Briar. I’m well aware of that.”
“And they killed those competitors for leaving the castle. They won’t hesitate if they catch you.”
She lowers to the mattress and tugs on a pair of boots, fingers making quick work of the laces. She sighs, and through lowered lashes, looks up at me. “I killed two of those selkies.”
My breath shudders at the memory of blood dripping from Tertia’s mouth. “I heard.”
A shadow crosses her face. “I didn’t want to hurt them.
But one had Harriet pinned down, and I knew if she died, you wouldn’t get that ship.
I know they aren’t usually like that—that they were prisoners just like my brother.
This is the least I can do.” She blows out a long breath. “Please, Briar, let me help.”
That hard stare I’ve become so accustomed to softens, and warmth spreads over my chest, whirling with her power embedded in my heart.
“Fine.”