37. Lilias
Lilias
PRAYERS
What?
Even after the guard kicks his way into our room growling about how the kings want to see us, I don’t move. I can’t. I’m frozen in place, stuck on the floor, staring at Zarek with my mouth wide open.
I thought he was dying. When he collapsed in front of me, I almost screamed.
I saw a horse die once, when his heart gave out, and all I could think of was the way his beautiful dark legs kicked at the empty sky as his eyes rolled back in his head.
I couldn’t save that horse, even as I held his head in my lap and sobbed as foam bubbled out between his lips.
So I did the only thing I could imagine.
I prayed.
I grabbed Zarek and held him like I could personally stop his soul from leaving his body, and then I sang the songs Anura’s mother taught me when I was a child. I don’t even know what the words mean, not anymore, and the gods know I don’t exactly have the world’s loveliest singing voice.
But I did it anyway. And that dream-memory floated back to me, sunset painting the sky through the branches, Zarek’s face in the golden light, his voice singing prayers I didn’t recognize to gods I didn’t know. The memory that couldn’t have happened.
Except, apparently, it did. When he thought I was dying, and he came to the same desperate conclusion. He told me he sang the prayers he must have learned as a child, before he was forced to become a prince.
And then—he said that.
A rough hand closes around my arm. I’m still staring at Zarek as the guard hauls me to my feet.
“Excuse me—” I snap.
The guard drags me toward the door, and my voice fades. Right. We’re basically prisoners here in Ethiria. This large, heavily armed man is not going to respond well to my argument that my husband and I were in the middle of a discussion when he barged in. Or a conversation? Confession?
Love?
I turn and watch Zarek come to his feet. He looks very pale in the thin light of the early morning, but he moves with his usual elegance. He walks over the dark stain on the rug, the place where he had me kneel so he could take me from behind, and something twists deep inside my body.
Love.
Oh, gods.
I glance down the hallway; panic flutters in my chest. Zarek stands next to me, his face calm and unreadable.
I think about the mess of cloth in the deep cave that wasn’t a mine.
The folds I pushed aside looking for the key to the chains binding my husband to a chair. The white robes that weren’t laundry.
Panic pulses again, sharp and hot.
Malrik was ready to sacrifice my husband for some dark magic beneath the Dragon Mine. And then I remember Syvan looming in the darkness, his blade against Zarek’s chest. Fear and anger churn together, burning and bitter in the back of my throat.
Syvan’s laugh echoes through my skull. I remember the weight of his arm against my throat, the scent of his perfume choking me. The way Zarek screamed when Syvan threated to rape me.
“Come on,” the guard growls.
He grabs my arm again and drags me forward. Another guard rattles the door to Elrick’s room as Zarek and I walk past.
“Open the door,” he yells at the emptiness of the room Elrick shared with Anura.
And the world comes into perfect clarity.
For the first time since the Dragon Mine, I remember blood pouring out of Syvan’s lips, and I feel nothing at all. Syvan was going to kill my husband, the man who loves me.
I’m glad he’s dead.
I hold my head high as the guard leads us down the staircase and into a small reception room with a view of the mountains. The door closes, locking us inside. Through the windows, the sky is the color of old cloth, and weak light spills over the fields outside the palace.
Fields that are now filled with soldiers.
Pennants flap lazily in the breeze, the blue and scarlet of Vsenrog mixing with smoke rising from dozens of small fires.
Zarek stares through the window, his face a perfect mask.
I can almost believe I imagined him trembling in my arms, gasping for breath as I sang prayers above him.
He doesn’t show that to anyone, my mind whispers. It was like seeing him naked.
No, it was more than that.
Light begins to spill across the mountains, catching on the snow-covered peaks and turning them to gold. I stare at the field of soldiers and try to count them, but my eyes blur and the dark figures swim through the dawn.
The door behind us opens with a crash. I jump; Zarek’s hand drops to his dagger.
“Where the fuck is the prince?” the guard who hauled us from our room demands.
I swallow hard. Zarek crosses his arms over his chest.
“I haven’t seen Prince Laurance in days,” Zarek replies.
The guard growls. “Prince Elrick, you dipshit.”
“Elrick is staying just down the hall,” I offer.
“The prince of Marion was given a very nice room,” Zarek continues, in a haughty voice. “Far nicer than ours. I wonder what that says about your attitude toward Vsenrog.”
The guard looks like he’s about to spit on the floor. He curses under his breath, then turns toward the door.
“They don’t know shit,” he barks into the hallway.
The door slams shut behind him. My chest feels tight, and my hands twist at my waist as I stare out the window at the rows of soldiers. I wonder where Elrick is, how far they made it, and how fast they can travel. I wonder how long the king of Ethiria is going to keep us waiting.
I wonder if all of this would have turned out differently if I hadn’t threatened Prince Laurance with my stupid dagger.
And then the door is opened again, this time by a servant who bows low when he faces the hallway.
And King Malrik of Vsenrog steps into the room.