Chapter Fourteen
Serpent Skin
I was acres away from my own body as I lay there in the bed and smiled at the murderer who owned half of my soul.
My cheeks ached. Inside, my Flame had gone silent, chased into the dark by a fear so all-consuming that it had numbed me from the inside – but that fear was also clarifying.
My mind was sharp with it; sharp as a needle, stitching the smallest details together.
His parents, skinned alive in a unique cruelty reserved for those who could shift from one human skin to the next.
His childhood as a ward of the King’s state.
He hadn’t just escaped from those dungeons; he’d grown up there.
And somehow, he’d found his way onto the King’s forces only to join a hunt centered around him – hiding in plain sight.
Frantically I stitched, and piece by piece the tapestry came together, threadbare and moth-eaten but whole enough for me to understand that I had no idea who had been sharing my bed these past few weeks.
And all the while Caelan packed up his few scattered belongings and spoke of all the things we would do when he returned.
How he would work to help me pull The Mage and Rose back together.
The quiet meals we’d share in the kitchen, and the new bed he’d build to fit us both more comfortably.
Not five minutes ago, these little promises of love and companionship would have had me glowing from the inside out, but now, I could not bear for one moment to think of what we might do.
I could think only of all that he had done.
Tanner.
Johnny McAlpine.
Oh gods, Roy.
The bed dipped when Caelan sat to pull on his boots, and with the way my stomach roiled it may as well have been the lurch of a ship.
I wanted to turn on my side, coil against the sudden wave of nausea, but I could not trust myself to move.
Not when my insides were rearranging themselves through sheer force of will.
My heart was calcifying. My ribs were practically creaking with the tension of caging my reactive, unpredictable magic.
He’ll be gone soon.
I told myself I could run the moment he walked out.
Run out the back door and cut past him at the next farm over, call for help.
Call the Kingsmen back somehow. I told myself that even if he was moving unbearably slowly, he was still leaving – and if it seemed he was delaying the inevitable, it was surely in my head.
The Kingsmen were gone. He’d eluded capture. What possible reason could he have –
Movement at the window caught my eye, and I sat up at once, frozen limbs suddenly fluid as the edge of a tall shadow slipped over the ground and disappeared from sight. The bed shifted again, and I turned with my heart hammering to find Caelan on his feet, frowning out the window.
Our eyes met. His brow smoothed too quickly.
“Nick must be finishing up his final checks.”
Nick.
I smiled; a genuine one, relief melting the tension in my face.
I was not alone.
Help was near.
Caelan smiled briefly back, then crossed to where his sword and scabbard hung and strapped them both to his side, skipping his Captain’s armour altogether. Was it my imagination or was he moving faster now, no longer dawdling? He reached for his cloak next, and I knew that my time was fleeting.
Go. Go now.
I feigned a stretch.
“Gods, I’m hungry.”
I set my feet on the cold floor.
“D’you have time for a bit of supper before you leave?”
My knees were trembling as I eased to standing.
It took me just a half beat too long to force my muscles into action, to take that first terrifying step in the suddenly vast distance to the door.
“Rosie.”
Caelan’s voice was flat, yet somehow commanding enough that my steps faltered without my say-so.
I glanced over my shoulder, but my smile was too forced – too obvious of an afterthought.
When our eyes met there was no denying what we both knew.
The very air between us had grown thin, buzzing with the same dull static that filled my ears and overwhelmed my every sense.
“Rosie,” he said again. It was a whisper, a warning, a plea.
I bolted.
I had never moved so fast in my life, but Caelan struck like the Serpent he was and we both slammed into the closed door in the same instant.
“Don’t go out there,” he growled. “Listen to me.”
I had done nothing but listen, and now I could only run.
I yanked at the door handle and when Caelan pried me away, I twisted my wrist in his grip and clapped my hand around his forearm, calling my Flame to burn my skin beneath his palm – but it resisted even as it burst forth, refusing to do anything more than lick at his wrists.
Help me, I screamed into the roiling inferno within, but I was met with a wall of defiance.
“You can’t hurt me, Rosie. You know you can’t, and you know why.”
Like fuck I couldn’t.
I called my Flame again, to my own palms this time, and lunged for the doorhandle once more.
“Rosie, don’t –”
Caelan’s grasp landed over mine again, and I pulled my hand out from beneath his in a flash. He jolted back, yelping as the glowing metal bit into his palm, and in that split second, I wrenched the door open and ran.
I dodged around the desk outside my door, then spun on an impulse and thrust a burst of fire from my hand.
My Flame might refuse to hurt him directly but he wasn’t fucking fireproof.
My fire hit its target, the lantern on the tabletop bursting in angry orange light before I knocked it off the table with one almighty swipe.
It smashed at Caelan’s feet just as he emerged from my room, and I willed the fire to flare, catching the ends of his cloak and sending him stumbling back with a string of curses.
I dove across the room for the tavern door, snatching the key from the inside lock as I went. I half-turned as I fell through it to see Caelan still stamping out his burning cloak beneath his boots.
Our eyes met for a split second and I didn’t think his had ever been so violently green, the sharpest I’d ever seen them.
I didn’t have time to read that look; I’d never been able to read him anyway, not really.
Now I knew why. I slammed the door shut and scrabbled to stab the key through the lock, my breath coming in shallow, trembling pants.
The lock slid home barely a moment before the handle gave a violent rattle and I jumped back.
“Rosie!”
I took another step back, still staring at the door like I could see through it to Caelan on the other side.
“Rosie, open the door.”
The whole door shuddered in its frame, and I flinched, chest heaving so hard I wasn’t entirely sure if I was gasping or sobbing.
“Rosie, please listen to me. Please open the door.”
“I can’t.”
Sobbing.
A handle rattled, but this time it wasn’t Caelan’s furious attempts on the inner door. I spun, clapping a hand over my mouth to trap a small scream as the front door shuddered beneath another unseen fist.
“Hello?” came a vaguely familiar male voice.
Heady, disbelieving hope tugged me forward.
“Nick?”
“Is that you, Miss Rosaleen? Let me in.”
“Rosie,” Caelan yelled. “Don’t open that door – don’t you fucking open that door, do you hear me? Let me out–”
I jumped when he pounded on the inner door again, his solid splintering thuds drowning out his own voice so I could just barely make out his words.
“–Not Nick! Do you hear me?”
He sounded almost desperate, and that was enough to shred the last of my hesitation.
He was desperate – desperate because he was cornered; because he hadn’t yet escaped the Kingsmen, hadn’t outrun his crimes.
Resolve snapped back into place and I ran for the front door to a chorus of Caelan’s fervent protests, twisted the lock as he screamed at me, and flung open the door.
“Nick,” I sobbed. “Thank the gods–”
The words were choked off by my sharp inhale. My eyes were clouded with tears, but where I’d expected to see Nick’s boyish face was just a solid bronze chest. I let my gaze drift slowly up – and found an all-too-familiar face sneering back at me.
Not Nick, Caelan had screamed, was still screaming.
And yet my mind could not make sense of the sight before me.
“Fischer?”
He grinned an unpleasant grin.
“Evening.”