Chapter 14
D amp cedar and the scent of ash trapped inside stone filled my lungs.
Then, the bitter herbs my mother had once hung above every window because she believed they kept moths from the blankets.
For one breath, I waited for the familiar clink of water striking metal.
No drop came.
Tendrils of heat stirred along my palm.
The starburst glowed faintly, light stretching toward the window. I followed it, already knowing who I would find there.
Xandros sat along the sill with one shoulder braced against the glass.
Moonlight silvered his pale hair and traced the sharp lines of his face, leaving only the far side of him in shadow.
Fresh linen wrapped his hand and forearm.
The ends of his hair were still damp from the rain, or bath, and a clean tunic lay smooth across his chest.
My breath caught against the ache in my ribs.
It was unfair for someone to be so beautiful.
His eyes opened, his gaze locking on mine before I could look away.
I tried to swallow, but the movement stuck in my throat.
Xandros stepped forward and lifted the cup from the nightstand. His free hand slid behind my neck before I could brace myself, warm fingers settling beneath the weight of my hair.
The rim touched my lower lip.
I should have taken it from him. My hand shifted against the blanket, then stopped when pain pulled through my shoulder.
He tipped the cup slowly.
Water cooled the cracks in my lips before spilling over my tongue. I swallowed too quickly, and the movement caught in my throat. Xandros drew the cup back while his thumb steadied beneath my jaw.
“Slowly.”
The low word brushed across my skin.
I took another careful drink. His hand remained behind my neck, holding my head with none of the uncertainty I felt. He knew how far to tilt the cup and when to pull it away before the water overwhelmed me.
He had done this before.
Heat stirred in my palm. I became painfully aware of my loosened hair, the sweat dried against my skin, and the weakness pinning every limb to the mattress. Xandros stood close enough that the clean scent of him filled each breath, while I could not even hold my own cup.
The vulnerability of it should have made me pull away.
Instead, my eyes closed as he brought the water to my mouth again.
When I had swallowed enough to ease the rawness in my throat, his hand slipped from beneath my hair. The loss of his warmth left the back of my neck cold against the pillow.
I opened my eyes. “How long?”
“Three days.” He placed the cup back on the nightstand with a soft click.
The answer tightened every muscle in my body. I pushed up onto one elbow.
The prince crossed his arms. He leaned forward, arching a dark eyebrow as he spoke. “Before you do something foolish, little Wildflower, you should know that you have already asked me that twice.”
I wanted to argue with him, but my arm trembled beneath my weight.
A window washed in moonlight appeared behind my eyes. Xandros' silhouette had stood against it while fever burned through my skin. Pale fingers had steadied a cup against my mouth, tipping it carefully whenever my teeth struck the rim.
Another memory followed.
Rain against my face. My cheek pressed to his shoulder. One arm beneath my knees and another across my back as the forest shifted above us.
He had carried me here.
I lowered myself onto the mattress before my arm gave out.
Bramble stirred beside my hip and stretched one paw across his face like he had seen enough horrors from this world and couldn’t bear to witness any more.
All things considered, hiding from the world seemed reasonable.
My gaze returned to Xandros. “Where is everyone?”
He nodded toward the wall. “Sleeping in the next room. Ivy threatened several inventive forms of violence when I suggested she rest.”
“That sounds like her.”
He swallowed, his throat bobbing with the movement. “She also instructed me to wake her if you tried to leave the bed again.”
My fingers tightened around the blanket. “Did she?”
His mouth twitched at one corner. “Repeatedly.”
The expression disappeared before I could decide whether it had been a smile.
“Any word from the Grove?”
Xandros' attention settled fully on me. “Caelan received word yesterday. Rhian and Torren are alive, and Nessa believes they are both stable.”
Air loosened inside my chest, though the ache remained.
“You asked that before too,” he continued. “Caelan answered you himself.”
I searched for the memory and found only fragments of a dark cloak in the doorway and Caelan’s voice pressing through the haze in my mind.
Alive.
Stable.
My body had believed him even when my mind could not hold the words.
I looked toward the shutters. Night pressed through the narrow gaps between them.
“We need to get back.”
Xandros nodded. “We will.” There was something in his tone that sounded like an eventually was coming next.
“We’ve already lost three days because of me.” I tried to sit up again, and pain sliced through my temples.
He gave me a warning look.
“Days that you spent bleeding and burning with fever.” The corner of his lips twitched again. “As well as attempting to give orders to anyone brave enough to enter the room.”
Heat climbed my face beneath the remnants of the fever. “Did they listen?”
A quiet breath left him. “They did not.”
He reached for the chair at the foot of the bed and pulled it closer. Its legs scraped softly across the floor before he sat, near enough that his knees brushed the edge of the mattress.
My mark prickled when he reached for the cup beside the bed again. He filled it from a pitcher, and this time, he hesitated before bringing it to my mouth, as if waiting to see what I wanted to do.
I lifted my hand.
The cup shook the moment my fingers closed around it. Water climbed the rim and spilled cold across my knuckles.
Xandros caught it before the rest could soak the blankets. His hand closed over mine, warmth surrounding my trembling fingers. But he didn’t take the cup away. His grip tightened only enough to steady mine, and together, we lifted it to my mouth.
When I had swallowed enough to ease more of the rawness in my throat, he lowered it to the nightstand. Then his fingers returned to mine.
His thumb passed over my wet knuckles, wiping away the water that had spilled there. My star heated beneath the touch.
Pressure gathered behind my breastbone.
He had been injured at the road. He had carried me through the forest and remained awake while fever broke the following days into pieces I could barely remember.
Yet every fragment I had managed to hold carried some trace of him.
His silhouette against the moonlit window.
His fingers steadying the cup. Silver eyes opening whenever I stirred.
“You stayed.”
The words escaped before I could pull them back.
His fingers stilled at the edge of his knee.
For one breath, neither of us moved. His gaze searched mine before shifting toward the open doorway.
“Well, Perrin here isn’t a great admirer of self-guided tours.”
Perrin stood beyond the threshold with both hands resting over the pommel of his sword. He looked away when I noticed him. His presence explained why Xandros remained beneath this roof.
It did not explain the cup held gently to my lips, or the silver eyes waiting each time the fever released me.
“That does not explain why you stayed beside me.”
Xandros held my gaze.
“No.” The fingers resting against his knee flexed once. “It does not.”
Silence settled between us. I waited for him to fill it, then wondered whether he intended to leave the question unanswered.
“I couldn’t leave without knowing you would wake.”
Xandros stared down at his hands. His thumb moved slowly along the golden lines crossing his opposite palm.
“Since the rupture, I could always feel you.” His thumb paused against his palm. “No matter how faint the thread became, I knew you were there.”
The star gave a weak pulse inside my palm.
His fingers curled inward. “Then the road closed, and there was nothing.”
He lifted his eyes to mine. “I needed to know that the silence meant you were beyond my reach and not…” His jaw shifted. “Gone.”
The weak tingles in my palm spread into my wrist.
“You stayed.”
His gaze held mine.
“Until I could feel you again.”
The starburst flared beneath my skin.
His fingers flexed as though he had felt it too.
The space between us seemed to narrow around the chair, the bed, and his knees resting against the mattress. I searched for something to say that would make the moment smaller, but every answer caught behind the pressure in my throat.
Neither of us moved.
Eventually, my arm began to shake beneath my weight.
Xandros looked up and moved before I could hide it. One hand settled behind my shoulder while the other gathered the pillows closer. Warmth spread through me as he lowered me against them.
A protest pressed against the back of my teeth. I swallowed it.
My body yielded to his touch and then to the mattress. Exhaustion settled over my limbs, pressing me deeper into the bed until my eyes slipped closed.
“And now?” The words barely made it past my lips.
I did not know whether I meant now that I was awake or what would happen when sleep took me again.
His answer came before I could decide.
“I’ll still be here.”
The words followed me into the dark.
When I woke again, sunlight had replaced the moonlight at the window.
For a moment, I stayed where I was and listened to the quiet crackle of the fire. My body still ached everywhere the road had taken hold of me, but the heavy heat beneath my skin had eased. Sweat no longer dampened my hairline, and when I swallowed, my throat felt dry instead of raw.
The chair beside the bed was empty.
My gaze moved toward the window before I could stop it.
Xandros stood there with one shoulder against the frame, watching something beyond the glass. The linen around his hand had been changed, though a narrow stain had already begun to show through near his palm.
The starburst warmed beneath my blanket.
He turned.