Chapter 35 #5
“I’ll consider it.” Neither of us pretended that was a promise.
Then he was gone. Then he was gone. Emrin walked with me as far as the central stairs.
By then the rush from the fight had worn off enough that everything hurt properly.
The cut across my shoulder pulled beneath the healer’s bandage every time my arm swung.
My ribs had settled into a deep ache, and the side of my face throbbed in time with my pulse. “You should eat,” Emrin said.
“I will.”
“And sleep.”
“I did that last night. It didn’t help.” She looked at me. I sighed. “I’ll try.”
By the time we reached the stairs dividing toward the Cindervaults and Luminari, I was rubbing my palm again. Emrin noticed. “If Neseryn meant to expose you, she could have done it in Court Three.”
“That’s what bothers me.” Neseryn had never shown any reluctance to make my life miserable in public. I couldn’t decide what to make of the fact that she’d kept this to herself.
Emrin followed my gaze back toward the eastern courts. “You’re going to ask Kieran, aren’t you?”
There was no point denying it. “He knows Shadow. And he knows Neseryn.”
Emrin shifted the strap of her satchel higher. “I’m going back to Verdant. You should go clean up before you do anything else.”
I glanced down at myself. The healer had handled the worst of it, but blood still dried stiff along the collar of my training shirt and Court Three had left dust ground into my knees and palms. One look at my sleeve was enough to make me feel suddenly disgusting. “I definitely should.”
“And eat.”
“Yes, Emrin.”
She gave me the sort of look that suggested she had absolutely no faith in that answer. Then she left. I watched her disappear toward Verdant before turning toward Luminari.
The walk back took longer than usual. Not because the distance had changed.
My body had. Every step pulled at my ribs.
My shoulder ached beneath the fresh bandage, and the cut on my cheek had begun to sting now that the sweat was drying against it.
By the time I reached my room, I wanted a bath badly enough to forget, briefly, that I had spent most of the day avoiding being alone with my own thoughts.
Vareena wasn’t there.
I was grateful for the quiet. I stripped out of my training clothes carefully, peeling the fabric away from the dried blood at my shoulder without disturbing the bandage too much.
The mirror near the washstand was less forgiving than I hoped.
Neseryn had done a decent job of wrecking me.
The cut on my cheek was shallow but angry, with bruising already beginning around it.
My lower lip had swollen. Bruising spread along one side of my ribs in a mottled band where her elbow had landed.
I turned just enough to inspect my shoulder: “That bitch.”
The silence of the room was almost a relief.
I washed slowly, using warm water because anything hotter made the bruising throb.
Blood came away from my skin in thin pink trails.
Dirt followed. By the time I was finished, the basin water had gone cloudy and the ache in my muscles had faded to a dull, persistent throb.
I changed the bandage at my shoulder, then dressed in soft trousers and a loose shirt that didn’t drag across the cut. My hair was still damp when Vareena came in. She stopped in the doorway.
Her eyes went straight to my face. “What happened?”
“Neseryn.”
Vareena closed the door behind her and took in the rest of me. “Of course it was.”
I sat on the edge of my bed and began working a comb through the ends of my hair. “She and I have apparently decided normal disagreements aren’t enough.”
Vareena crossed the room, still studying the bruise near my cheek. “Did you at least get her back?”
I looked at her. She was completely serious. “Believe it or not, I’m not sure who looks worse.”
“I don’t think I have ever been so proud.” That made me laugh, though it hurt my ribs. Vareena set down the bundle she was carrying and started changing out of her Aurora robes. She didn’t ask for details immediately. I loved her for that.
The sun had already dropped lower outside the window, painting the far wall in the last dull gold of evening.
I kept combing my hair until there were no knots left.
Eventually, while I worked through the last damp tangles, I told her what had happened with Neseryn’s Shadow.
I skipped most of the fight and went straight to the part that had been bothering me since Court Three.
By the time I got to our hands touching, Vareena had stopped folding her robe. “And you’re sure she felt it too?”
“I saw her face. She definitely felt something.”
“What did she say about it?”
“Not nearly enough.”
That earned a small nod. “That sounds like her.”
My fingers curled loosely around the comb. “I’m going to ask Kieran.” Vareena looked up from her robe and said absolutely nothing, which somehow irritated me more. “Before you say anything, I’m asking him because he knows Neseryn and understands Shadow better than anyone else I can ask.”
The corner of her mouth moved. “I believe you.” I threw the damp towel at her. She caught it against her chest and laughed. It was stupid.
I needed stupid.
By the time the room settled again, darkness had filled the windows and the blue courtyard lamps had come alive below. I ate some soup Vareena had brought back from dinner, mostly because Emrin’s disappointed face had followed me all the way to Luminari.
I had expected a few quiet hours to make me change my mind about going to Kieran. They hadn’t. Some of it was Neseryn. I wanted an explanation, and Kieran was the obvious person to ask. That wasn’t all of it anymore.
Pretending otherwise felt childish.
He had kissed me and I had kissed him back, then done it again because once hadn’t been enough.
Since then I had learned my mother’s name, discovered I might be heir to a throne Elyndor no longer had, hurt Lidia, fought Neseryn hard enough to leave both of us bleeding, and somehow acquired one more magical question nobody had bothered to answer.
Through all of it, I kept thinking about Kieran. I didn’t particularly want to examine what that said about me. I reached for my cloak.
Vareena looked up from the book she had opened. Her eyes dropped to the cloak and then to me. “Don’t reopen your shoulder.”
“That sounds vaguely threatening.”
“It will become less vague if you come back bleeding again.” I tied the cloak so it wouldn’t rub against the dressing. Vareena watched me for another moment. “And Lyra?” I paused. “Lidia is angry. She isn’t gone.” The words found exactly the place they were meant to.
I looked down at the latch. “I know.” This time I almost believed it. Outside, the Sanctum had settled into the quieter rhythm that came after dinner. Voices drifted from open common rooms, but the outer corridors were nearly empty.
By the time I passed beyond the central grounds, most of the sound had faded behind me. The moon was bright enough that I barely needed the wardlights scattered along the older southern route. Beyond the maintained grounds, the path curved into the trees.
My shoulder ached beneath the cloak and the bruising along my ribs made the steeper parts unpleasant, but those were easy problems. I knew why they hurt. Everything else had become harder to name.
I had questions about Neseryn, and Kieran was the only person I trusted to know whether what happened in Court Three meant anything.
I should tell him about Lidia too. Maybe even about what the archives had done to my head since last night.
But somewhere along the path, I stopped pretending questions were the only reason I was going.
I wanted to see him. If all I needed was another Shadow wielder, I could have found Eiryx tomorrow.
I hadn’t. The memory of Kieran’s mouth came back before I reached the end of the path, followed by the pressure of his hand at my waist and the look he had given me after the first kiss.
Then I remembered that the second had been my idea.
That did nothing useful for my breathing. The trees thinned ahead. The ruined southern ring sat beneath the moon, broken walls silver at their edges and black beneath the old columns. For a moment I couldn’t see anyone.
Then one of the shadows along the far wall moved in a way moonlight couldn’t explain.
Kieran stepped from behind a column with a training blade in one hand, his sleeves rolled past his forearms. Shadow followed the slow movement of his free hand, controlled enough to look effortless.
I stopped just beyond the broken entrance.
Maybe my boot scraped stone. Maybe he sensed me.
Either way, Kieran turned. The Shadow vanished.
His gaze found mine and stayed there for barely a second before moving over the damage Neseryn had left behind: my swollen lip, the bruise along my cheek, the edge of the bandage visible beneath my shirt.
His hand lowered with the blade. I stepped into the ring. And this time, I hadn’t come to train.