Chapter Twenty-One
When I awoke the next morning, I had a moment of confusion because I didn’t know where I was. Looking around, I realized I was in the infirmary, and the previous night’s events came rushing back to me.
Including Zain’s promise that he would stay with me.
But he wasn’t here.
I only had a moment to wonder where he was before he walked through the door. “Basileia! You’re awake! And still alive after everyone in Sagaris has decided that you died.”
“Stories of my imminent demise have been greatly exaggerated.”
He laughed and sat in the chair next to the left side of my bed. I noticed that there were dark circles under his eyes, and the way his hair was mussed. I’d never seen him tired like this.
“Where did you go?” I asked.
“I stepped out to use the washroom.”
Him staying away for that whole day was still fresh in my mind. Was he lying now? He didn’t have a reason to lie to me. Shouldn’t I believe him?
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Better.” I lifted up my left arm to look at it. I brushed my fingers against my forearm. The skin was pink and new and so soft. But I had lost something important.
“Why do you look sad, my illora?”
“I had scars and tattoos here and they’re all gone.” Scars and tattoos that I had spent a lifetime accumulating. A written record on my skin of what I had accomplished, just gone.
“I have full confidence that you will have new ones soon,” he said in a teasing tone that did manage to cheer me up slightly.
Wanting to change the subject, I said, “I didn’t get the chance to congratulate you last night. I’m sorry that I couldn’t take you out to celebrate like you did for me.”
“Well, you were a little busy trying not to die.” He looked around as if making certain that we were alone. “Would this be the wrong time to tell you that you racing last night was the most stimulating thing I’ve ever seen?”
I must have misheard him. “Me being eaten by the ground was arousing?”
“No,” he said with a short laugh. “You persevering. Figuring out a way to keep going no matter what happened to you. You’re so strong and determined and I admire that so much about you. It’s nice to know that the beauty I see on the outside is matched by the inside.”
I averted my gaze but he didn’t let me escape. He put his fingers under my chin and lifted it so that I would look at him.
“Why does it make you uncomfortable when I say you’re beautiful? You have been with other men. They must have told you.”
This was humiliating to admit, but I could always blame the medicine the healers had given me. “I have been desired before, but not by anyone who thought I was beautiful. You’re the first.”
“To say that you’re beautiful? But you are.” He sounded so confused. “How has no one ever told you that before? Do Thracian men not have eyes?”
“They have eyes.”
“I’m sorry, I’m not sure I can believe that is true, given that it is an objective fact.” He studied me and his gaze felt intense, like he was touching me just by looking at me. I adjusted myself in the bed, wondering what he was thinking.
I didn’t have to wonder for long.
“It’s not just me saying that you’re beautiful. Any time I compliment you or say nice things to you, I can see that it makes you uncomfortable as well. Why is that?” he asked.
I gulped down the emotion clogging my throat. Perhaps it was the exhaustion or the brush with death, but I found myself telling him. “No one ever has. My family doesn’t believe in praise. They said it would make me soft.”
He looked furious for one brief second before his face relaxed and he said, “Have my compliments made you soft? Have they lessened your chances of winning?”
“No.” My heart beat erratically. His words hadn’t affected my physical strength or my determination to succeed.
But in a sense, his words had softened me. He made me see myself in a way that I never had before, and I liked how I saw myself and how he saw me. I didn’t have to be the woman my family had decided I should be. I didn’t have to lead the same way that they had. I could forge my own path.
I could be more than a weapon.
And now I was one step closer to acquiring the diviner stone to get the answers I needed.
“Why do you want to lead a people who don’t even recognize your worth?”
Another thick lump formed in my throat and I had to push it down again. “I feel like I’m supposed to lead. As if that is what I’m meant to do.”
“There are other ways to lead besides becoming the next chieftain of your clan.”
“I know,” I said.
Again he studied me, like he could read my secrets written across my face. “There’s something else that you’re not saying. Another reason you want it.”
I pressed my lips together, as if that might keep me from speaking.
It did not. “My mother told me that I was an accident. I shouldn’t even be here.
I wasn’t wanted by anyone. My father left and never returned and I have spent my whole life trying to make up for that.
To be enough. Enough to be noticed. Enough to be cared about. Enough to matter. Enough to be wanted.”
He took my left hand and held it. “My illora, you already are all those things. You are noticed. You are cared about. You matter. You are wanted.”
I had not cried since I was a small child but I found myself wanting to. I had to blink the tears back.
“That is why you want to lead,” he said. “You would never feel unwanted again. You would be the center of everything.”
His assessment surprised me—he was right and I hadn’t ever realized it. If I were chieftain, I would always belong.
If we kept speaking about this, I would lose control over my emotions and sob in front of him. “You haven’t told me what you would do with the diviner stone if you won.”
He knew what I was doing but he played along, shrugging. “I haven’t really thought about it. I suppose I’d probably ask it where I could find the world’s greatest treasure.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised, considering that all thieves love treasure,” I said.
His expression was solemn. “They do.”
“If you found the greatest treasure, would you retire?”
“I don’t know. I probably should think about it. I want to make plans for my future.”
Why did my heart lift with hope when he said that? Ignoring it, I said, “I’m sure it is important for you to sit down and make your plans because the gems of the world aren’t going to steal themselves.”
He laughed and said, “We should add that to the list of good things about you. You are funny.”
Zain was still holding my hand and I felt the warmth from his skin contrasted by the coldness of his rings. His thumb absentmindedly stroked my palm and I was getting little bumps on my arms every time he did that.
I was grateful when he spoke, giving me something else to concentrate on.
“As much as I would love to sit here and compliment you until you believe me, there is something I have to tell you. Something I don’t think you’re going to like.”
I couldn’t even imagine what he had to say.
“Someone attempted to murder you last night.”
It had been an accident. “I don’t think you can say what the horses and track did to me was attempted murder.”
He didn’t laugh and kept his serious expression. “The axle on your chariot had been sawed into and the harnesses attaching the horses had been cut into.”
I remembered seeing the falling-apart harnesses when I was trying to figure out what to do about my wheel coming off. “I’ve already won two of the events. The other competitors would be fools if they didn’t try to stop me.”
He blinked several times, looking as if he wasn’t sure how to respond. “I thought you’d be a bit more upset.”
“People have been trying to kill me my entire life. This is nothing new. I suppose I should be glad that whoever’s behind it isn’t very good at it.”
“The officials think the accident was probably supposed to have happened sooner.”
Why had the officials investigated? Without having to ask, I realized it was because Zain had asked them to. That warm, pulsating feeling returned to my chest. “Maybe it lasted so long because Invara wants me to win.”
“Then she should have kept your chariot intact until you were done.” He sounded personally offended.
“My grandmother would have said that tearing up half my body would give me character.”
“You have plenty of character, my illora. You don’t need to be injured to try and get more.”
“Any suspects?” I asked. Because it could have been anyone. The Lemnian, the Epirian, Erebus because I broke his foot, the Jacharian who had threatened me and told me to throw the tournament, sponsors and investors, someone angry that not only was a woman competing, but she was winning.
“Not at the moment. Maybe I should start killing the people on my list and then we’ll see if things improve.” He said it as if he were joking but his expression indicated he was not.
A healer with bright silver hair entered the room. “We need for Basileia to sleep so that the potions can continue to regenerate her skin.”
I glanced at my arm. It wasn’t done?
“I’m supposed to be training right now,” he said as he stood up. “I hate training.”
My mouth dropped. “You hate training? I don’t think I’ve ever used those words together in a sentence before.”
He grinned and pulled my hand up to his mouth, kissing the back of it, and then turned it to place a kiss on the skittish pulse in my wrist. My fingers curled in as he did so. “I can think of much better ways to spend my time than training.”
I didn’t have all my skin back yet and it felt like he’d just set fire to what still remained. I was burning everywhere.
Zain put my hand down gently. “I will see you later tonight, my illora.”
After he’d left, the healer turned to me with a conspiratorial smile. “That young man is quite devoted to you.”
“We are friends,” I said.
She inspected my left arm. “I don’t know many friends who would sit all night in an uncomfortable chair, waiting for you to wake up. We offered to relieve him but he wouldn’t hear of it.”
It was like she’d taken aim and fired an arrow directly into my chest. What was I supposed to do with that information?
The healer lifted the blanket to check my side and then my leg. “You are healing faster than we could have hoped. I don’t think there will be any problem with you competing tomorrow.”
She handed me a vial and I drank it.
I would have to win the last event. Especially since Zain had won the chariot race last night. He’d come in second in the footrace and made it to the quarterfinals of the pankration. I didn’t know how the Sagari would weigh each event or how points would be assigned.
As I drifted off to sleep, the irony was not lost on me that the main obstacle in my path to victory was the man who had stayed up all night watching over me.