Chapter 41
She reminds me of you, sister. She has the same fierce independence and need to protect others. But I still don’t know if I can trust her. But why should I? She certainly can’t trust me.
—Letter from Kiyan to his family, unsent
Kiyan
Yaseema was still sleeping when I woke up the next morning. I didn’t even remember falling asleep with her, but that explained my dreams and the soft smell of lemons and spilled ink haunting me through the night.
I sat up, staring down at her, unfamiliar with the level of trust that came with sleeping with someone without keeping one eye open, and now I’d done it with her twice.
I raked a hand through my hair, remembering the first time I’d woken up with her, with our limbs tangled in each other. Holding her in my arms that felt right. Like the only sane thing in the insanity I found myself living in.
There was something about her that drew me to her, like the way she was so passionate about what she wanted, about what she learned, until she became so focused on it, she was consumed.
It felt like that to kiss her—like I was the textbook she wanted to consume, read ravenously, acquiring all the information she could.
I snorted. I never thought comparing myself to a textbook would be so arousing.
But I couldn’t think of a time when I had slept with someone else without a knife under my pillow and felt complete safety.
In the palace, my skin had felt on fire just being there without my family, working in service of a man who’d killed my father and slaughtered my Court.
I could barely remember when I’d allowed myself to be vulnerable, not when my life involved walking on a knife’s edge at every moment.
I glanced down at her, lying on her side, curled against me like an unfurling flower.
She looked softer when sleeping, and I lifted a hand to trace her brow, my finger featherlight across her face.
She looked . . . less studious.
The small frown line between her brows that seemed permanently there was smoothed away and she seemed at ease. Not as if she were evaluating everything about her surroundings, looking for anything hidden, secret, unseen.
Her gold spectacles sat on the table where I’d placed them, and I thought of what happened between us the night before, when I’d taken them off her face, and kissed her like I’d wanted to so many times.
I’d almost done it when I’d first confronted her, when I’d taken her wild storm curls in my hand and cut them for her.
I’d almost pressed her down into the bed at the caravanserai in the morning when she’d looked up at me with large, fathomless eyes, her legs threaded between mine.
I’d nearly allowed myself to know if her lips tasted of lemon too.
And now I knew. And the urge to do it again had not left. I wanted to keep tasting them, I wanted to drown in her.
What had I been thinking?
It was bad enough that we had this thing between us, this constant pull to her, as if she were the life magic I derived all my power from.
But now I’d given in to temptation, and it was much, much worse.
I knew what she tasted like now. I knew the sounds she made in the back of her throat when I kissed her. The feel of her in my hands as she straddled me.
Kissing her wasn’t wise, but I wanted to do it all over again.
I pressed my hands to my eyes and groaned softly, trying not to wake her, despite everything in me wishing her eyes would flutter open so I could touch her lips again. This was bad. I couldn’t afford a distraction like this.
I couldn’t afford to care about something else.
Not when I had nothing left to give anyone.
A shout outside her tent drew my attention. The soldiers were likely beginning preparations to leave for the palace.
It was early enough that I could slip away now, and the soldiers wouldn’t see me. The last thing I wanted was to give Reza something else to use against me, as I remembered his words from the night before.
You’ve grown so close to the human girl, I assumed you’d need a more base punishment.
He already suspected I liked her, was drawn to her. I wondered how obvious I had been.
As far as he knew, I had nothing I cared about, and nothing he could take from me. I looked down at Yaseema, who had begun to snore softly.
Nothing he could take.
That had to remain true. Even with her.
I leaned over her one last time, my skin drawn to hers like she was warmth and sun and earth, and I pressed a kiss to her hair.
I could almost hear Tal’s voice in my head. You’ve grown sentimental, brother.
But it was as if my body craved sentimental. Craved her.
My footsteps were soft as I walked toward the entrance to her tent, but as I lifted the flap to exit, something caught my gaze.
Her brown skirt was slung over a chair in the corner of the tent. She’d thrown one of her white blouses over the top of it, but it had slid off, and the skirt bulged oddly at one side.
I glanced over at Yaseema, but she still slept, clutching the covers to her chest as if they were an anchor.
My skin tingled with awareness, the deep certainty that I needed to look inside her skirt.
She saved you. She trusts you.
I stared at her clothes, the twisted way the fabric bunched.
She wouldn’t.
I picked her skirt up, the pale brown canvas like butter in my hands.
I could smell her on it, parchment and ink and lemons.
The soldiers were gathering outside, the clang of their sabers and mutters about the rebels reaching my ears.
Without further thought, I slid my hand inside the pocket of her skirt.
It was empty.
I pulled the lining of the pocket out, revealing nothing. But the skirt was heavy, much heavier than I would suspect from the fabric. Frowning, I turned the entire skirt inside out.
There.
There was a hidden lining.
I felt along the lining, finding the edges of a seam and slipping my fingers into a hidden pocket.
I nearly dropped the skirt. My heart leapt to my throat, a roar sounding in my ears.
Queen Azari’s crown glinted up at me from the secret pocket in her clothes.
The crown we all thought the rebels had taken when they’d stolen Yaseema’s bag.
The magical object he’d tortured me as punishment for losing.
She’d had it all along.
No wonder she’d healed me; she’d been the reason I had been tortured in the first place.
The guilt that had plagued me at going through her things evaporated. She knew she had the crown and said nothing.
Which meant she had no intention of producing it.
She was going to steal it.
I reached in to pull it out from her skirt, but at the last moment stopped myself. She didn’t know I knew she had it, and Reza thought we’d lost it to the rebels.
It might be a good idea to keep it where it was.
She made an incoherent sound from the bed, and I placed her skirt back over the chair where she’d had it, careful to make it look undisturbed, draping the same blouse over the top.
I knew she was keeping something from me, that there was something she wasn’t telling me.
I just didn’t expect that she’d be able to fool me so thoroughly.
Never again.