CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Verena
THE LAST THING I WANTED TO DO was to sit at some long-lavish table and play guest for a nest of dragons who’d probably rather char me for supper than pass me bread.
Yet sleep had stolen nearly five hours from me, and when I woke, the first thing I saw was a gown waiting in the armoire—two pieces, the color of twilight, fine fabric that whispered luxury even from a distance.
Beside it was a note. Ronan’s handwriting was neater than I expected. It was regal and royal and fit for a king.
Join us for dinner when you are ready.
You may decline, in which case I will meet you
by the firebath for dessert.
Just us.
— Yours, R.
Mine.
My throat caught on the word, even as my heart betrayed me with a ridiculous, stretching smile. I bit my lip to cage it, but the flutter only bloomed wider.
Gods, what in the hel was a firebath?
I carried the gown to the full-length mirror, watching my reflection when a knock rasped against the door, a soft, low voice mumbling from behind it. Panic flared. Do I answer? Pretend to be sleeping?
Heat flowed into my bare feet from the stone floor as I crept across it, leaning in as I neared the door, listening for the knock again—
—and smashed my knee straight into a side table. A vase toppled and shattered, porcelain scattering across the floor in a crash that could have woken half the damned palace.
Fuck. So much for pretending.
“Ms. Vale?” The voice was small, mousy. A timid thing that barely crept through. “I’m here to help you prepare for dinner.”
He’d sent me a maid?
I wasn’t sure if I should be insulted or flattered. Did he think I was incapable of dressing myself, or was this some Ryuuan courtesy reserved for honored guests?
My eyes dropped to the tunic clinging to me, tattered, sweat-stained, dirt ground into every seam. The filth beneath my nails, though glamoured, still taunted me. Maybe I needed help after all.
“Ms. Vale?” The voice wavered, and guilt pinched me for leaving her waiting out there while I stood in the wreckage of porcelain shards.
“Yes, um…just a moment!”
I shoved my muddy boots beneath the bed with my heel, restacked the abandoned books on the mantle with too-quick hands, then darted toward the door. Halfway there I froze.
Pants. When the fates did I take off my pants?
A frantic scan of the chamber revealed them draped over a chair by the balcony doors, as if I’d shed them in a haze without remembering. I snatched them, tugging them on while the hue of night teased through the arch, painting the room everything in the same deep blue he’d chosen for me.
It hung waiting, luxurious and severe, in that deep shade that turned my skin luminous. My chest pulled tight. Had he looked at me, really looked, and guessed what color would catch against me like starfall on oil? Or was it a coincidence?
It was just fabric, just a gown. And yet my pulse betrayed me, because it wasn’t just either. Not when Ronan had imagined me in it.
A breeze curled in from the balcony, licking up my bare legs. Oh right, pants.
“Just come in!” I shouted, wrestling with the stubborn leather. My heel caught, my toes flailing, the dried mud stiff in the weave.
The door cracked open and a woman peeked inside. Her hair was pinned back neatly, streaked with a fading shade of violet, purple that once might have been brighter, now muted by time. Warm, brown eyes shot toward me, widening when she found me half hopping, pants snarled around my knees.
I froze, grinned.
She cleared her throat delicately, lowering her stare. “My lady.”
Mm, no. I didn’t like that title. “No—" I dropped the fight with the pants, letting them puddle uselessly around my ankles. “You don’t have to call me that.”
Her lashes fluttered as she nodded, though her eyes still didn’t quite meet mine. Silent, she moved across the chamber until the door to the washroom clicked open. The sound of rushing water filtered out, the air shifting with it into lavender and lemon.
My lungs expanded, pulling the scent deep. It tugged at something buried in me, the taste of my childhood summers, afternoons when citrus clung to my fingers and made the whole world feel a little kinder.
Drawn by the pull of it, my feet followed, and I squealed when I drifted through the doorway. The washroom opened into a sanctuary of stone and steam, and in the middle of it was a tub.
No, not a tub. A pool. Nearly ten feet wide, filled to its shimmering brim with sliced lemons. Their bright flesh glowed beneath the water, and atop them floated mounds of iridescent bubbles, lavender sprigs bobbing lazily in the froth.
“You’re—” The word stuck to my tongue, disbelief and curiosity twined tight.
“Yes,” she said gently, as if bracing. “A nature wielder.”
Her head dipped in a bow just as mine snapped toward her, the suddenness of my stare sending her a step back, shoulders tightening like she expected reprimand.
“I thought only dragons were permitted inside these walls?”
My voice was sharper than I meant, but history had taught me well. Ryuu rarely opened its borders. Its palace even less. You were either born here or bred here. Or unwelcome. That was the law.
She tugged nervously at her sleeve, fingers moving over the embroidered vine at her wrist. “My family and I are originally from Nyctom.” A shadow crossed her face. “Prince Ronan welcomed us into his borders after the kingdom fell.”
I stilled. That was not the Ronan the world spoke of. Even the falsities I’d heard hadn’t painted him so. The heir of Ryuu, breaker of souls, terror of battlefields, granting sanctuary to outsiders?
Her anxiety hung fragile in the air, as if she regretted spilling the truth at all. I caught it, tucked it away, and offered her the softest smile I could manage. Not the Viper’s grin, not the sharp curl of fangs. Just a promise—her secret, if it was one, was safe.
Steam curled up from the bath, sweet with lavender, tangy with lemon. I slid my fingers through it, watching bubbles collapse under my touch, the oil off it already clinging to my skin.
“That’s a wonderful gift to carry,” I murmured, glancing back at her. “A nature wielder. I have a friend back home who’s one too. A brilliant one. He’s very proud.”
Rook’s laugh snuck up in the corner of my mind, Duke’s steady presence close behind. A lump swelled in my throat. I missed them. I felt their absence like a punishment. Were they safe? Did they wonder the same of me? Or had the chaos I’d left behind already swallowed them whole?
A pleased little smirk danced across her lips, gone in an instant, like she hadn’t meant to let it slip. “Please, Ms. Vale, I am to help you prepare for dinner. If, that is, you wish to go.”
“I don’t need your help,” I blurted, too fast.
The words cut, and I saw it immediately in the way her face fell, lips pressing thin.
“I didn’t mean it like—” My eyes moved helplessly to the tub, my voice fading softer. “I just meant...it’s awkward, isn’t it?”
“If you would be more comfortable, I can step out until you are finished bathing. Then I will return to fix your hair and help you dress.”
I nodded quickly. “That would be wonderful. Thank you.”
She inclined her head, graceful in the way only someone used to making themselves small could be.
As she turned to leave, my hand lifted, stopping her. “Wait, you didn’t tell me your name.”
Bending low at the waist, she nodded and said, “Sylen, my lady.”
I pressed a hand to my chest, bowing to her in return. “Verena.”
The motion startled her. She backed away a step, eyes widening slow, something like horror releasing behind them. “I know who you are,” she breathed. “How…I…I can’t believe you’re here.”
I swallowed. Of course she already knew. The curse was a stain everyone saw long before they saw me.
I lowered my chin. “Thank you again.”
My thoughts wandered recklessly down the bond as Sylen closed the door behind her. I sent Ronan an image—me, sinking into the bath, steam curling like his smoke around my bare skin.
It slammed into a wall, his end of the tether sealed tight. I exhaled through my teeth, the rejection a cold echo in the pit of my chest.
The water burned at first, like stepping into a flame meant to purify, and my lungs caged a gasp as my skin prickled.
Slowly, the burn melted and the water cradled.
I sank deeper, until only my face broke the surface.
It felt indecent, almost, to allow this much softness after everything. It felt stolen.
The bond pulsed dimly and I prodded it again, a curious touch, thinking maybe the image I’d sent had finally reached him.
Nothing. My chest tightened, a dark thrum rising, angrier than I meant it to be.
I slid lower, submerging until the water muffled everything. The drip, the hush, even my own pulse.
The world vanished, except for the faint hiss that lived in me. The Viper’s hum. Always there.
For one long breath, I pretended the hiss was waves. Pretended I was just a girl in a bath, and not a curse dressed up in someone else’s skin.
The sapphire fabric slid like water over my skin, so soft it could only have been woven from something rarer than silk.
Sylen had murmured its truth in passing, spidergloss. Ronan’s spidergloss.
Locked away in vaults, untouched for years. Until today. Until me.
Which meant, in the last six hours, he had commanded someone to craft this, to measure and cut and shape it to me with precision, as though he already knew every curve, every inch of my body.
My fingers traced the drape of it, following its path down my frame. The top wrapped across me in a way that felt both scandalous and strategic—my right shoulder bared, exposed to the air, while the left side curved higher, veiling where the head of the viper mark lay in secret.
It ended cropped, too cropped. No matter how many times I tugged at it, the fabric only climbed higher, a stubborn tease. The swell of my breasts pressed against the weave, the hollow of my hips revealed like an invitation I hadn’t given.