Chapter 17
M y lips were still swollen when Xandros carried the box into the room.
Heat pulsed through the lower one where his mouth had caught mine, and my skin still carried the pressure of his hands along my waist. He set the pale wooden box on the table with enough care that the movement drew my attention away from everything my body had been trying to hold onto.
Bramble lifted his head from the chair beside the hearth.
Xandros stared down at the pale wood as though whatever waited inside had personally offended him.
I rubbed my thumb over the edge of my lower lip. “Well?”
His silver eyes slid toward me. The constellations along his throat had dimmed, though a few stubborn points of gold remained bright above his collar.
Xandros lifted the lid.
Midnight fabric spilled over his hands, dark enough that the firelight disappeared into the folds. Silver stitching followed the narrow waist before branching upward across the bodice in patterns I couldn’t quite make out.
Xandros drew the rest free and laid it across the table.
The neckline dipped far lower than anything I owned, held in place by narrow straps that left my shoulders and arms completely bare. When he turned the upper half over, I found almost no back at all. The fabric plunged between the shoulder blades and did not begin again until just above the waist.
His mouth flattened.
I touched the dress between two fingers. The fabric was softer than anything I owned.
Everything I wore in the Deepwood was meant to cover and protect, but this gown was designed to do exactly the opposite.
“He wants you on display.”
I swallowed once and nodded. “So it would appear.”
My leggings were still streaked with Asterra’s pale dust, and dried blood marked the leather above my healing thigh. One sleeve had torn at the cuff. Bramble had added several small claw marks along the shoulder while scrambling over me on the road.
Xandros followed my glance downward, his fists clenching around the fabric. “You can wear your own clothes.”
“My clothes aren’t going to change what your brother sees when he looks at me.”
Xandros stepped a little closer. “That is precisely what concerns me.”
His hand closed over mine.
Warmth pushed into my fingers, and the gold beneath my palm answered. His eyes dropped to the light gathering between our hands, his thumb going still against my skin.
“Wildflower,” he breathed.
The word barely carried between us, rough enough to pull my attention back to the lingering heat in my lips.
“I followed you through the Veil knowing he wanted something from me.” I squeezed his hand once before pulling free. “A dress isn’t going to frighten me now.”
His gaze lifted to mine.
I nodded toward the midnight fabric spread across the table. “Besides, a sword and leathers aren’t the only kind of armor worth wearing.”
Something shifted in his expression.
“How long do I have before the evening bell?”
Xandros glanced toward a silver clock on the mantle. “Not long. About twenty minutes.”
Twenty minutes to scrub the road from my skin and prepare to sit across a table from the male who had ordered Xandros to secure me like something that belonged to his crown.
I picked up the dress. “Plenty of time.”
His mouth tightened as I turned toward the adjoining room.
Tepid water waited in a silver basin beneath the mirror. I worked quickly, washing dust from my face and arms until the water clouded gray, then scrubbed beneath my nails and carefully cleaned the skin around my thigh.
Asterra’s soap smelled faintly of crushed night flowers and warm amber, close enough to Xandros' scent that my hands slowed against my skin.
I rinsed quickly, then reached for my braid.
My hair was still faintly damp from washing it that morning, and the strands clung together as I worked them loose.
Dark waves spilled over my shoulders, curling where the braid had held them tight.
I combed through the worst of the tangles with my fingers and smoothed them down my back.
Then I stepped into the midnight dress and pulled it into place.
It had clearly been made for someone narrower than me.
The fabric pulled tight across my ribs and breasts, lowering the neckline farther than I suspected it was meant to go.
Thin straps rested over my shoulders, leaving my arms and most of my back bare, while the skirt fell a little longer than I would have chosen.
I stared at myself for a moment.
Apparently the Moon King had decided close enough was good enough.
Or perhaps that had been the point. To dress me like one of them while making it obvious I wasn’t.
The first evening bell sounded beyond the windows, its deep note rolling through the palace walls.
I drew a steady breath and opened the adjoining door.
Night air curled around my bare shoulders while firelight flickered across the walls. Bramble had curled himself into a tight ball on the chair near the hearth, his nose tucked beneath his tail.
He usually noticed the instant I entered a room. This time, only one ear moved.
The faint thread of our bond pressed back when I reached for him, muted and tired enough that my chest tightened.
I crossed to the chair and ran two fingers between his ears. Bramble lifted his head just far enough to press into my touch, then curled tighter beside the fire.
The faint spark of our bond stirred against me.
He had crossed a road between worlds, spent most of the day in a place where the Mother Tree felt impossibly far away, and barely rested since.
Of course he was tired.
I scratched beneath his chin. “Keep the chair warm for me.”
His eyes slipped closed.
I left my fingers in his fur for another breath. “I’ll come back.”
A floorboard shifted behind me.
I turned.
Xandros stopped near the table, his hand resting on the garment box.
He had changed while I dressed. A fitted black coat replaced his travel-worn clothes, its high collar framing the constellations along his throat. A narrow gold chain crossed one shoulder and fastened beneath a small celestial crest.
I swallowed. In the short time I had known him, I had seen several versions of him, but somehow, this was the most dangerous one yet.
His moonlit gaze found my face.
Then stopped.
For several heartbeats, he simply looked at me.
His attention caught on my loose hair before moving over the vines exposed along my arms. Something eased around his eyes.
Then his gaze dropped to the neckline.
His chest rose slowly.
The fire crackled behind me, and heat crept higher beneath my skin as his eyes lingered before returning to mine.
I lifted one brow. “That bad?”
Xandros rubbed his thumb once across the pale scars on his opposite knuckles.
“Quite the opposite.” His voice came lower than before.
His gaze slipped down again, following the silver stitching along my waist before reaching the boots beneath the hem.
One corner of his mouth finally lifted.
“You made some improvements.”
I glanced down at them, and the small dagger resting between the leather and my calf. “Well, I wasn’t about to surrender everything.”
“No.” His attention returned to my face. “I wouldn’t want you to.”
The starburst in my right palm gave one faint pulse.
The next bell sounded through the palace. Its vibration followed me into the corridor where the crown guards were already waiting for us.
Two moved ahead while the others fell in behind us, their boots striking the pale stone in a measured rhythm.
Cold air moved over my bare shoulders, and I resisted the urge to shiver.
I had told Xandros a dress wasn’t going to frighten me, but that had been easier to say with a sword within reach.
Without its weight against my hip, every step felt wrong. My hand kept wanting to drift toward an empty sheath while the Wild that usually rested just beneath my skin answered only faintly.
My pulse quickened, and I curled my fingers.
Xandros' knuckles brushed the back of my hand.
Warmth caught against my skin for half a step before our stride pulled us apart. Then his fingers touched mine again.
I released a breath.
The smell of cold stone and damp wood filled the corridor, threading with the amber still clinging to my skin from the soap.
The guards never glanced back as they led us farther into the palace, and every turn carried me deeper into a place where I knew neither the halls nor the people waiting at the end of them.
Xandros' hand brushed mine again.
This time, I let my fingers rest against his.
The dining chamber sat two levels below his rooms, beyond a pair of gleaming silver doors guarded by six armed Moon Fae.
Warm light spilled across polished stone and a table long enough to seat twenty, though only three places had been set. No servants moved between them. No guards shifted against the walls. Even the soft scrape of our footsteps seemed too loud beneath the high, arched ceiling.
The Moon King sat at the head of the table with one hand resting beside his untouched glass, his posture loose and perfectly still. Nothing about the room resembled a throne chamber, yet every step toward him felt like an approach to one.
My stride shortened before I caught it.
Silver eyes locked onto mine.
Xandros' eyes.
The resemblance was even more unnerving the closer we came. The same sharp lines shaped his face, the same pale coloring; the same unmistakable blood carried in the features around his eyes and cheekbones.
His gaze moved over me without changing.
He had chosen the dress, yet there was no appreciation in the way he looked at it on me. His attention passed over the exposed skin, the vines along my arms, the shape of my body, as if each detail meant something only in relation to whatever he had already decided I could give him.
Then his gaze reached my right hand.
My fingers curled around the starlight before I could stop them.
Something sharpened in his eyes, and there was the faintest twitch of his lips.
He had been waiting to see that.
Xandros stopped beside me, and the Moon King extended one hand across the arm of his chair.