Chapter 50
Chapter Fifty
Thyra
Bright morning sunlight shines behind my eyelids, a promise of a new day, so why do I feel so…
Cold?
Before I’ve even opened my eyes, a breath of sound warns me I’m not alone.
I jolt into a sitting position on the chaise lounge, my muscles obeying me instantly, the blanket gripped in my hands.
Stellen sits on a chair in the far corner of the room.
On the nearby table, a fresh roll of bread rests on a plate with a little pot of butter beside it.
“Breakfast,” he says.
I glance at the door. It’s closed. This is the first time in days that he’s stepped inside. The first time since I asked him if he wanted to inspect my body.
I relax but gesture to the hallway. “Bathing room.”
If I had a silver coin for every time I’ve spoken that phrase to him…
When I return, still dressed in my night clothes but with a robe wrapped around me, I find he hasn’t moved, although his head is slightly tilted.
Always listening. Constantly alert. And, despite never bathing, as far as I’m aware, as clean-looking and fresh-smelling as ever.
The question leaves my mouth before I can censor myself. “When do you bathe?”
One corner of his mouth twitches up, the half-smile he gives me when I’ve amused him without meaning to. “I don’t need to.”
I hum in the back of my throat, unconvinced. “Everyone needs to bathe.”
His eyebrows rise. “I don’t sweat and I need only stand in a snowstorm and shake off the ice to get clean. Any dirt comes off with it.”
I’m not sure I believe him. “Was it always that way?”
His response is slower this time. “There was a time when standing in a snowstorm all night would have killed me just as surely as it would kill anyone else.”
Quietly, I pull out my chair and reach for the bread, lifting it to my nose and inhaling. “Whoever makes this bread is very talented.”
“That would be Juniper.”
I wasn’t expecting an answer, but now that I have one…
Keeping my focus on my food, breaking the roll and buttering it, I choose my question more carefully this time.
“Is she the one who spoke with you last night?”
Stellen stiffens.
I guess he’s wondering how much I heard. I’m not about to play any sort of game with him. “I heard your voices, not your words. She sounded…terrified and then sad.”
The tension leaves his shoulders. “She was. Both.”
Breaking off the first piece of bread, I chew quietly, giving Stellen the chance to say more. Or not.
He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his head bowed. “I’m taking you out of the city today.”
I swallow quickly. “Where to?”
“The Sacred Stone Temple to the east of the city. All of the ancient scrolls are housed there. I don’t have any books like the Chronicle; I only have a few scrolls written and illustrated by the Ferocie Scribes. But they might be useful to you, along with the other scrolls.”
He pauses, as if weighing his speech. “I also have maps showing our world as it was before the curse. They might help with locating the items you need.”
More intense than my happiness at accessing the knowledge I sorely need is my concern that he used the forbidden word: help.
The elation I felt vanishes as I meet his ever-ethereal eyes.
He never slips up when he speaks. Which means…
He’s warning me.
For some reason, visiting this temple…or maybe reading these scrolls…will bring me pain.
“Do you still wish to go?” His question falls into a new silence between us.
I consider my response carefully as I continue eating, not wasting a single crumb or even the smallest smear of butter.
Without answering him, I push back my chair and step toward the wall near the hallway.
I’ve passed this spot many times for days, but it was only last night that I noticed the imperfection extending across the icy-blue roses at a spot a little above my eye height.
I press my fingertips to the wall. “Will you tell me about this?”
Stellen has stiffened. He stares at the spot on the wall above my fingertips. “You said you wouldn’t ask.”
The faint bloodstain suddenly feels far darker than it did before.
Other than requesting help, there was only one thing I promised Stellen I wouldn’t ask about: how his family died.
When he first brought me here, he’d hesitated outside the front door—a door whose cracks are filled with resin that looks like falling tears.
His mother and sister lived here.
Now it’s clear to me they died here.
With this knowledge comes a greater understanding of why Stellen sleeps outside. He may have framed his actions as a way to avoid crossing a boundary with me, but I doubt he would have chosen to come here at all if it hadn’t been for me.
Even on that first day, his movement through this space was forced. His tension high. At the time, I thought it was because I insisted on controlling my armor, but now I consider his behavior in a different light.
He came to this place because of me. He must have reasoned that I’d be warm here and easily protected.
He’s still here, guarding this space, because of me.
A torture I unknowingly inflicted on him.
The False Queen’s promise echoes back at me: you will rip and tear at their hearts.
At my own heart too. One of the few things my father would tell me about my mother was that she could conjure the most beautiful white roses. Every rose carving and every painted petal reminds me of her.
I lift my hand from the wall.
“Take me to the temple,” I say. “I’ll be ready in a few minutes. I’ll meet you outside.”
I hurry toward the bathing room, where I’ve stored my training suits and the other garments the staff brought me. I haven’t spent more than a few moments in any of the bedrooms. It didn’t feel right to linger in them, and I’m glad I didn’t.
But now I hesitate, casting a glance at the wall ahead of me, behind which my Lethian armor hides.
If I’m leaving the city walls, even though I’m certain I’ll come back, I don’t want to leave my armor behind.
Aware of the quiet opening and closing of the front door as Stellen steps outside, I head to the wall, compress the lock, and reach my armor within seconds.
The silver threads hum as I approach, resonating with a faint melody that makes my heart squeeze.
Quickly stripping naked, I reach for the threads, an apology on my lips. “I’m sorry—”
Whoomph!
The material wraps around me so fast that I teeter wildly on the spot, my arms extended as I try to keep my balance.
Oh, I missed these threads.
Slowly, I wrap my arms around myself, feeling the material settling against my skin like a hug.
I groan with relief as every strand settles back into place, covering my legs, my torso, my left arm, my right shoulder, fitting to me far better even than any training suit.
Closing my eyes, I whisper, “I missed you, too.”
It will be nearly impossible to take the armor off again.
As if the threads sense my thoughts, they shiver around me, tightening against my skin before several of them extend up into my hair, grazing the back of my head.
I lift my hand to them, plucking them gently away from my head where they would be visible.
“I need you to hide.” Running my hand around the high neckline, I tug the wayward silver tendrils back down, humming a sultry note as I coax them out of my hair.
I pull them even farther down, encouraging the material to form a lower, wider neckline.
Continuing to hum softly, I draw the left sleeve halfway up my forearm, where there’s no chance it will show beneath the cuff of a training suit.
As always, the right arm of the Lethian suit doesn’t extend down across the blood bind.
Finally, I tug at the threads trying to cover my feet, nudging them back above my ankles.
Satisfied that every part of the armor will now sit neatly beneath the training suit I’ll need to wear over the top, I give a long sigh. “Thank you.”
The threads shiver again, and I check that they haven’t extended out of place, but they continue to obey the limits I’ve placed on them.
Heading back to the bathing room, I quickly braid my hair down the left side of my head where the long braid falls across my shoulder and down my side.
I pull on the training suit, checking every part of it to make doubly sure I haven’t miscalculated where my armor sits.
Last of all, I reach for my Alak-Teahan cloak.
I’ve barely needed it the last few days.
My body has quickly acclimated to the icy temperatures, but I continue to take the cloak with me in a satchel, in case a snowstorm strikes unexpectedly.
The satchel has long straps that allow me to fasten it around Nara’s torso, and she doesn’t seem to mind carrying it.
After hoisting the satchel over my shoulder, I don’t stop to look back, heading to the front door and closing it firmly behind me.
Stellen waits for me beside Nara.
The white wolf greets me with a soft growl.
Stellen gives me a onceover. There’s no doubt he knows I’m wearing the Lethian armor beneath my training suit.
“You don’t need my approval,” he says, “but you made a good choice.”
I thought he might object, but he gestures to Nara without another word.
I strap the satchel to her back, where it sits neatly across her left shoulder, high enough that it doesn’t impede my legs, and then I alight gently, so much smoother than the first day I threw myself onto her back.
Maybe I should question how fast my body has responded to training, but I don’t want to break the confidence I’m building.
Stellen settles in behind me and within minutes, we pass through the palace gate and into the second circle.
“Lilis is checking the troops in the north,” Stellen says, which explains why she isn’t shadowing us. “She’ll be busy tomorrow too. Your training will resume the day after.”
The soldiers we pass stop what they’re doing and bow low before returning to their tasks.
Soon enough, we approach the second gate, this one leading into the city. The guards on this wall stand to attention, their hands on the levers that will lift the portcullis.
After drawing Nara to a stop, Stellen raises his right arm. “I’ll signal the city now. My frost power won’t touch you.”
I catch his forearm, dangerously close to experiencing a shot of ice. “What if you don’t?”
His brow furrows. “Don’t what?”
“What if you don’t signal them?”
He stares at me, his arm remaining elevated, although his fingers curl inward.
I tip my head back to see him. “What will happen?”
His forehead puckers. “I don’t know.”
“Then why not try it?” Gently, I arch my eyebrows at him, but I lift my hand from his arm because the choice has to be his. “Your people are trained to hide themselves away. Do you know for certain they do that out of fear? Or are they simply obeying the rules?”
If he comes back with a firm reply, then I won’t push it, but his hesitation gives me the opening to push. “Why not give them a chance?”
He starts to shake his head. “It’s a risk—”
“Is it, though?” I challenge him. “What have I been training for, if not to handle the unexpected?”
His lips form a worried line. “Iker has spies in the city. Brunkil could too. I overhear a lot, but I can’t hear everything.”
He’s right to be concerned. I don’t know what Iker’s spies are capable of. I thought only of Stellen’s people and the fact that one of his staff was so determined to speak with him last night that she overcame her fear of him. Whatever she wanted to say, it must have been very important to her.
I choose my words carefully. “If I wasn’t with you, and you thought it was time to test your people’s reactions to you, would you do it?”
“If you weren’t with me?” He takes a moment, then the corner of his mouth twitches upward. “But you are.”
I compress my smile. “But if I wasn’t?”
“I would do what I wanted.”
“Well, then,” I say, facing forward again. “If there are risks, I’m resolved to deal with them.”
He lowers his hand without releasing his power and by the time his arm wraps around my waist again, there is not a single glistening snowflake on his fingertips.
Up on the wall, a stir ripples through the guards.
It’s clear they’re uncertain if Stellen has changed his mind about going out when one of them calls down, “Lord, should we open the gate?”
Stellen gives a firm nod.
It seems that’s all the guards need because they rush to obey.
A moment later, the portcullis opens.
For the first time in a week, I’m about to leave the inner two circles and enter a city bustling with fae.
At my ear, Stellen whispers, “Let’s see where your resolve takes us.”