Chapter Thirty-Two Lavender Sheets
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
LAVENDER SHEETS
This is me,” Reya said, fiddling with her brass keys when they reached her wisteria-covered flat.
They’d stayed out until the early morning, hopping taverns in the West End with Omira and Thance.
Caelan’s touches had been brief but habitual: a hand on her lower back to lead her through a doorway, a lock of hair brushed off her shoulder, the knock of his knee against hers beneath the table.
She’d intended to walk home alone, and had said as much, but decided not to feign ignorance when Caelan had followed at a distance to make sure she got home okay. The last time he’d left her to walk home alone, he’d reminded her, Omira had to carry her to her bed. Point taken.
Tonight, they’d played cards with a silk trader from Delthia.
Reya had made quick work of bartering for a spot on the vessel’s manifest for its next sailing in a week’s time.
The trader always made a stop in Port Talluah before sailing to Evalis, so she could pick up Ash on the way.
She had seven days to close out her business in Edris.
The Alethians had secured passage of their own, only they were leaving the following evening. The other members of the Order intended to meet them across the Heart Sea, Thance had explained.
“Are you actually going to go back to the inn with them or are you just going to perch on the rooftop all night?” Reya asked. It wouldn’t be the first time.
“I haven’t decided,” he answered immediately, and she laughed.
“I picked this place for the view, you know,” she said, aware that what she was about to offer was probably not a good idea. “It’s a good view.”
Caelan went the kind of still that usually promised violence, but she knew that wasn’t the case this time. “Are you inviting me into your lair, thief?”
“I am.”
His eyes were a deep, burnished gold. “If you don’t want me to stay, I can get a room. Thance didn’t clean me out that thoroughly.”
Reya snorted a laugh. They’d spent over an hour in her favorite gambling hall. “Omira and Thance were lucky to find a room at all during the festival. Besides, it’s a waste of coin when I have a perfectly good chaise.”
She waited for him to nod, and then she was climbing the stone steps with him behind her, keenly aware of the weight of his gaze on her back.
Once she bypassed her lock system, Reya quickly moved about the room, lighting candles and tidying.
She didn’t know what it was about having Caelan in her home that made her so self-conscious, but suddenly she felt like she would rather face down a Dread Wolf than have him uncover any more of her truths.
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
“It’s small but it’s mine.” Caelan took in the room with that insightful stare of his. “Not what you expected?”
“Not at all.” Caelan gestured to the books. “Except those. No surprise there.”
She opened the window, revealing the sprawling starlit view of Rudrock Bay. He came up behind her, so close she could feel the rumble of his voice. “Not bad, thief.”
Scooting out of reach before she did anything foolish, she propped her sword against the armoire, tossed her cloak over a chair, and began unlacing her boots.
“The cooling box is empty, but there’s lots to drink and fresh blankets in the wardrobe if you get cold…
which, of course, you won’t, because you never get cold, but it’s right over there.
And there’s a bathing room through the closet.
Do you want to wash up? I think I will.”
Looking amused by her rambling, he glanced at the chaise in the corner. “Do you really think I’m going to fit on that?”
She followed his gaze and grimaced. “Oh. You can take the bed then. I’ll fit on the chaise. I fall asleep in it all the time when I’m up late reading.”
“I’m not taking your bed. I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“That’s ridiculous.” She swallowed. “We’ll both fit in the bed, then. But I kick, so fair warning.”
Like a coward, she didn’t meet his gaze, didn’t want to know what he was thinking. It would be their first time in an actual bed together, having only ever slept near each other in hammocks and on the ground.
Desperate for something to do, she swept into the kitchen and put on a pot of water for tea, watching from her periphery as he removed his weapons and loosened the strings of his black tunic. Definitely staying, then.
Reya shook herself. You have enough self-control to sleep one night in this flat with him and keep your hands to yourself.
Humming a sea shanty she’d picked up on the Acadia, Reya scooped the tea leaves into the infuser while Caelan examined her books, occasionally picking up a title and flipping through the first few pages.
“What are you going to do with all these when you leave?”
She shrugged. “I’ll pack my favorites and donate the rest for someone else to enjoy. I’ve read most of them, but there are a few piles in that corner I never seem to get to.”
Caelan ran a hand along the wardrobe, the gilded frames, the clothes in her closet. “I’d forgotten what it’s like to have something so… permanent.”
Her heart twisted, and she handed him a steaming mug before easing back against her mountain of pillows, crossing her legs and offering what she had for weeks when she saw that look in his eyes—a piece of herself in exchange for the same. “Scar for a scar?”
He sat on the end of the bed before taking a tentative sip and offering a begrudgingly satisfied sound. She should not have liked the sight of him relaxing on her sheets that much.
Caelan made a good show of looking himself over. Finally, he rolled up his sleeve, and she leaned in to get a closer look at the scar on his forearm—two small, parallel white circles.
“I got this in the Rakana Desert. I’d been sent with a contingent of fighters to protect the diplomats visiting Idrias.
I woke to take watch and found a black snake coiled up next to me on my bedroll.
I panicked, moved too fast, and it bit me right here.
It took me more than a day to recover, even after they healed me.
I was young and mortified. The other soldiers had to throw me over the side of a horse because I was too heavy to carry. ”
Reya laughed. “I bet you never heard the end of that one.”
“It was all they talked about for a solid decade.”
She hummed a laugh into her mug, then tucked her hair behind her left ear, leaning in to show him the small sliver that was missing from her lobe. “Hand-to-hand dagger training. I was dodging too slow.”
All the humor faded from Caelan’s face. “How old were you?”
Reya rolled up her sleeves so he could see the thin white scars on her wrists and forearms. “Thirteen. Lennox said if I didn’t train with real daggers, I would always be afraid of them.
He was right. Once you’ve been cut a few times, a dagger flying at your head doesn’t seem so scary.
After I spent a year earning these, I never shied away from a knife fight. ”
Caelan looked down at his tea.
“What?” Reya asked, afraid she had somehow disgusted him.
“Even Sages don’t train like that until they reach maturity. I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
She shrugged, unashamed despite her warming cheeks. In fact, she felt rather proud of what she’d endured. “Things happened how they had to. Barbaric or not, that training saved my life. I might never have met you if I hadn’t become what I am. And I wouldn’t trade this.”
Caelan swallowed hard, seeming to take a moment to collect himself. Then he showed her a long slice across his palm. “Lost a bet.”
“That’s all I get?”
“I’ll tell you one day. Maybe.” He added the last with a begrudging wink, and she smiled, even as she rolled her eyes.
Caelan’s gaze heated as Reya tugged the loose sleeve of her blouse off the curve of her shoulder, exposing her arm and pointing to the triangle-shaped brand on the inside of her bicep.
“I got this in the forge with my father. We were refining the tip of a sword when it snapped off and landed here. It was the first time I’d ever hurt myself in the smithy, and I was afraid he would make me leave.
But he just sat me down and poured cool water on it.
When I calmed down, he told me every great blacksmith had scars and that I should bear this one with honor.
” She beamed at the memory, even as the familiar grief loomed over her.
“What will you name your smithy?”
She fiddled with a strand of her hair. “Alder Hollow Forge. That was the name of our family home.”
Caelan nodded. “I like it.”
Her throat was dry, and her voice sounded like a whisper. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
She blinked. “When the war is done, what comes after?”
Caelan looked utterly speechless, but she knew he was only thinking. “I never thought I’d get an after.”
Her eyes burned, and she whispered, “What if you did?” His eyes were simmering, and it took everything she had not to look away from the heat there. “There’s more to life than the next fight. There has to be.” There is no part of you that is not worthy of the rest. “Maybe—maybe we can find it.”
“What are you asking?” His voice was low, guttural, and his eyes followed the answering dip of her throat.
“Everyone is entitled to a retirement. And after all the stories you’ve told me, I think you’ve earned yours…”
“Reya.”
She chugged the rest of her tea and wrung her hands.
“If you don’t have an after, you can share mine.
Whatever happens, just live. Don’t go into war with nothing to lose, go with everything to lose.
Come find me when it’s done. I’ll wait. Whatever happens tomorrow, live for the after, and let that vengeance be enough. ”
He didn’t move. Reya tapped her fingers on the empty mug, waiting for him to say something. Caelan looked almost like she’d slapped him. The silence lasted long enough that she started to panic.
“Or not,” she backtracked. “I didn’t mean, like, come and move in with me. You could live… in the vicinity—”