Chapter Sixteen
Later, after a knock comes at the door to let us know we’re getting close to Faros, we finally pull ourselves from the bed to get dressed.
As I pull on the clothes he brought me—tan Selaran trousers made of a soft linen, a white tunic that actually belongs to Quinn, and my mother’s ring that I dropped to lead him to me—he picks up the nightgown Seth gave me from the floor, his fingers brushing the yellowing lace. “This is…”
“The sexiest thing you’ve ever seen?”
He laughs. “More like a glimpse into the future.”
I smile at him. He’s picturing a future together where I’m old enough to wear something like this, and he’s there with me.
I want that so badly I can barely breathe.
He leans down and whispers in my ear. “I like it.”
“I’ll bring it out on special occasions.”
He wraps his arms around my stomach, tickling me as I try to squirm out of his strong grasp. “You are such a smartass.”
“Takes one to know one.”
He laughs, his finger tapping my nose playfully. “True enough.”
The boat staggers to a halt on the shore as we make our way back on deck. I spot Prima sitting with Larus on a bench near the bow. She’s smiling at him, braiding her black hair as she talks to him at length about something.
My heart swells with love for my Guardian, and I’m haunted by the guilt of trying to kill him.
“He told me,” Ronan whispers, sensing my distress. “He was proud of you for fighting him.”
As I watch Prima, I’m reminded of the feeling of her fear in my body. It was so strange, so different from Ronan’s feelings. “Ronan, yesterday before the fight. I think I felt her. Her terror.”
Ronan’s head snaps to mine. “What? Directly? Not filtered through my perception of it?”
“No.” But now that he mentions it, I have never felt his perception of anyone else through his feelings. Only my own. “At least, I don’t think so. I couldn’t feel her as strongly as I typically feel you, even though I could tell what she was feeling was strong.”
“And now?”
I shake my head. “Nothing. No one but you.”
Ronan regards me, his eyes puzzled and somewhat troubled. “I wasn’t sure if this was worth mentioning to you, but last night, when we were in bed, I could see better than I usually can.”
“You’re right,” I realize. It was pitch dark in the cabin, but it didn’t stop Ronan from being able to tell where I was.
I thought he’d just been operating on feel, like he does from time to time.
“And when you and Taran came to the camp on Kira, I felt something odd when the shadow split. Like I was channeling you, I think. Your love. Your fear.” I reach into my pocket for the scrap of paper I took from Seth’s desk, but I had no pockets when I took it. Taran must still have it.
“Shadowbound,” says Seth.
I nearly jump out of my skin. “Asshole! Eavesdropping asshole. Why would you sneak up on me like that?”
“What did you just say?” asks Ronan. “What was that word?”
“Shadowbound,” repeats Seth. “Of course. Bound, as in bound together. As in two.”
Ronan’s look is alarming. He’s heard this word before. “Zara said that to me. She told me we were shadowbound, and that’s why our magic affected each other. But she didn’t explain it.” He turns to Seth, seeing him in a whole new light. “Do you know what it means?”
“Extraordinary power. That’s all I know. I didn’t realize it meant two people until this moment. But why you two?” He shakes his head in exasperation. “I had a palimpsest with the word on it, but I’m afraid I burned it on our way out. Oh, well. I’m not sure what you need extraordinary power for.”
Ronan completely ignores my brother’s repeated insults. “A palimpsest?”
“A book that was overwritten,” I say. “I saved the scrap, Seth. Taran has it.”
The three of us all turn to where Taran is helping Octavia with the sail. He looks up, his face blanching when he sees us all staring.
“Like a frightened rabbit,” says Seth, his voice teasing but not without affection.
I watch the way his body tenses as Taran approaches. Godsdammit, Ronan is right. They’re definitely attracted to each other.
I was so worried about Seth hurting us, I missed it entirely.
“Taran, do you have that bit of paper I gave you? The weird old scrap of it?”
Taran reaches into his pockets and pulls out the stack of Seth’s orders, dropping a few sheets to the ground as Seth hisses his disapproval.
“Look at this mess. Did you have to crease them like this? They could be useful!” Seth angrily smooths the papers, snatching one out of Taran’s hand as he tries to help.
Taran raises his eyebrows, and though I can’t sense it, I can imagine him shaming himself for being attracted to this man, of all the people in the damned world.
“There it is,” I say, reaching into the pile for the thick scrap. “I know it doesn’t look like much. Seth says you have to reveal the writing with some kind of special elixir.”
“Let me try,” says Ronan, touching the paper with light from his fingertips.
“Holy shit,” says Seth, snatching the palimpsest from Ronan and then handing it back when he realizes he needs Ronan’s magic to see it. The faintest outline of letters appears on the page where Ronan’s light touches it. “I can read it. Well, most of it.”
_described by High Priestess of Vahlo Lady Postuma of House Juni as ‘shadowbound,’ a unique form of sacrilege occurring only in certain shadow-born in which the sacred __ of the Codex is torn asunder, granting extraordinary powers. A __________
________________________ regardless of royal ties. See also Queen Julia I
“You see?” Seth points at the paper excitedly.
“Nothing about pairs in there. But the royal ties—that’s where the bound part comes in.
The royals aren’t shadow-born. They haven’t been for centuries, not even by marriage.
‘Shadowbound’ must mean that a shadow-born and light-born are bound together.
” He bounces his eyebrows up and down, entirely too pleased by his own cleverness.
“Sacrilege?” I say.
“Well, of course a priestess would say that. Anything that isn’t in their bloody Codex is sacrilege,” says Seth. “But extraordinary powers. That’s you two. It has to be.”
Ronan and I look at each other uneasily. I do think Seth is likely right about this, especially if Zara told Ronan the same thing. But even if it were true, what would it mean for us?
And what does it matter right now, anyway? Unless Ronan seeing a little better in the dark could somehow stop an army of tens of thousands, it isn’t likely to do us much good.
“Do you have the rest of this book?” Ronan asks. Apparently, he cares about this more than I do. And so does Seth.
For once, the two of them seem to agree on something.
I find it unsettling.
“It’s gone. Likely burned by his kind to barbecue babies, or whatever it is that they do.
” Seth looks at Taran with remembered loathing.
He may be attracted to Taran, but it’s going to take him a long time not to hate him for what has happened between our people.
Hell, knowing Seth, that loathing might be part of the appeal.
“What are all of you doing over there? Doesn’t anyone want to make it back to the palace?” whispers Octavia loudly enough we can hear her across the deck.
She has brought the Pegasus ashore in a protected inlet beneath a low cliff on the southern bank of the Mara.
The city of Faros looms behind us to the east, just a short walk from where we’ve landed.
Ronan explains that while the Pegasus was able to leave Faros during the night unmolested, we won’t be able to return to the city the same way.
Dawn is approaching, putting us at risk of notice by Nithyrian forces, and Ronan couldn’t take the risk of allowing the wrong Nithyrian vessel to cross the boom into the city’s waters.
So, with most of the besieging army staged on the northern shore, we’ll be proceeding on foot, shedding our Nithyrian gear and passing as Selaran refugees returning to the city.
“I told Adria to secure these shores,” mutters Seth as he fights off Larus’s attempt to help him change into a Selaran linen shirt. “She’s always discounted the importance of cutting off supply lines.”
“The southern lands are heavily patrolled,” Taran counters. “I don’t blame her for wanting to keep her forces concentrated on our weaker points. It’s not like we’re able to move enough through these smuggling routes to make a difference.”
Seth’s eyes flare in offense. “You’re about to move one of Nithyria’s top generals through a smuggling route. I’d say that’s going to make quite a difference.”
“Are you going to cooperate with us? Or do I need to restrain you?” asks Larus, holding out the linen shirt and eyeing a coiled rope of the Pegasus’s rigging on the deck.
“What you need to do is listen to me. What’s the point of disguising me when I can travel freely through my own people?”
“But not into Faros,” I say. “We’re as likely to encounter a Selaran patrol out there as a Nithyrian one.”
Seth glares. “We are nowhere near as likely to encounter a Selaran patrol. And if we do, he can just flash his stupid face at them, and they’ll obey,” he says, looking at Ronan.
“He has a point,” says Taran.
“Good. I’m glad one of you has some sense. I’ll tie him up first,” says Seth, and Taran has to turn away as his pale cheeks flush scarlet.
“I am not letting you tie me up again,” I say.
“Or any of them.” Seth may have treated me better the past few days than I had expected, but I’m not foolish enough to trust him completely.
“I’m not certain we should keep him conscious at all.
What if he spots one of the Nithyrian patrols and orders them to attack us and free him? They’ll follow his commands.”