Chapter 11
All night Kyor wrings pleasure after pleasure from my body, but he refuses to slide into me, to take his pleasure from my flesh, murmuring that the night is all about me. It feels like he’s got something to prove, but I’m too exhausted to even begin to figure out what that is.
When the fire goes out for a second time, Kyor tries to use his powers to relight it, but it’s not exactly his forte. Normally, when he sets things alight, it’s with a great bolt of lightning.
‘Maybe I should get Ruben in here?’ I suggest teasingly, only for him to blast an entire log in two. I laugh aloud. It’s less than subtle, but it works.
More than once, when I’m coated in sweat and my breath is heaving from the waves of ecstasy, I try to make him talk.
Talk about the Morathkian defectors. About his father’s supposed actions here in Isthyr.
Hell, even about me and how knowing my true heritage will affect the future for us, but each time he silences me with his lips, and not by using them to speak.
At a certain point, I give up, greedily accepting the closeness of his body.
Of his touch. Being like that, giving control entirely to him, reminds me how much I want to gift him my heart, too.
Because he has so much of it already. So much of me already.
Everything apart from that tiny sliver tied up in secrets, which I need to keep safe. Even from him.
And if an illusion of control is something he needs in this moment too, then it’s what I want to give him. We will talk, but when he’s ready.
Pinpricks of starlight are fading from the sky when we finally fall into an exhausted sleep, and it feels like I have only just closed my eyes when there’s a knock at the door.
‘Princess Rose,’ a deep voice resonates through the wood. ‘It is time for me to train you.’
Kyor sits bolt upright. ‘Fuck no. He has not just come to our room.’
‘Kyor!’
He moves to leap out of the bed, but I grab him by the shoulder, only to immediately regret my action. Thankfully, he doesn’t wince in pain, which I can only assume means that it’s finally healing properly.
‘Kyor, love, I need to do this. Magnus said Stefan is their best trainer. He wouldn’t have agreed to it if he thought I was at any risk. You have to see that.’
Kyor’s jaw works, but he doesn’t respond, not at first. But when he starts to, it’s with a quirk of his lips.
‘It’s your first day here,’ he says. ‘Why not spend it in bed? Train later. Elska says it’s barely dawn. You know, I was thinking of some other ways I’d like to use my tongue last night, but we didn’t get to them.’
As mouthwatering as his suggestion is, I didn’t travel all this way, leave Kay and William, and lose Stide so that I could lie in bed fucking Kyor. We could have done that in Wrohelm.
Then again, maybe we couldn’t have. Not with his father’s influence.
The thought of Korvane Knavin, of the bind he’s placed on Kyor and the secrets between us, is enough to stifle any stirring urges, although it doesn’t stop my eyes from scanning across his body.
‘How’s your shoulder this morning?’
‘Getting there,’ he responds.
My eyes fall on the glass tincture bottle beside the bed. It’s less than half full, but I can’t exactly remember how much was in it when I first made it. I doubt it was completely full, but with how little you’re meant to take at a time, the supply should be enough to last six moons, if not longer.
‘Did you take some Robbard’s again this morning?’
‘Don’t worry, just a drop,’ he replies. ‘The last thing I need here is a loose tongue. Unless, you know, I’m using it to work on you.’ He winks salaciously.
He’s trying to distract me, but I refuse to let it work. Taking the Robbard’s in small doses is definitely better, but it depends on how often he’s taking it.
‘That stuff is—’
‘I know it’s addictive,’ he cuts me off, sitting up and turning his back to me as he begins to grab his clothes for the day. ‘I’m just taking enough to take the edge off. That’s all.’
‘Well, maybe you really need to focus on healing the shoulder. I’m sure a bit of careful training would help loosen things up. Maybe you could find somewhere to do a little sparring while I’m with Stefan.’
Kyor freezes for a moment, then whirls around, his brow pinched. ‘What are you talking about? I’m coming with you.’
‘You are?’
‘You think I’m going to leave you alone with a deadly Issen fighter from whom you’ve just stripped the throne? Not a fucking chance. You’ll be vulnerable while you’re training. If that prick so much as throws a snowflake in your direction, I’ll burn him from the inside out.’
‘I haven’t stripped the throne from anyone,’ I remind him with exasperation.
‘I don’t want it. I wouldn’t know what to do with it.
That’s not why I went through the Veil, and there’s no chance I’m doing the other parts of the Rite.
’ As I gesture, the patterns on my skin catch my eye.
I’m not sure if it’s my imagination, but the lines look a little less pure black now than they did last night.
Then again, maybe it’s just the daylight shifting things.
They pulse again, uncomfortable tingles rising in my hands.
I clear my throat and focus on my pacing prince. I’m not going to say no to having Kyor with me at training – at least that way I’ll know he’s safe and not being ambushed by Ranveeg or Brida.
‘Fine, you can come. But you watch, that’s all. You don’t interfere.’
‘As if I would.’ He grins cockily. We both know he would.
After I pull on my clothes, I open the door to find Stefan leaning against the wall, his sleeves rolled up, exposing well-muscled forearms. Whorls and lines flash against his skin, gleaming brightly.
They are certainly beautiful, not to mention mesmerising.
I imagine one could spend an entire lifetime tracing them, never to find a beginning or end.
I realise, a beat too late, that I’m staring.
‘Princess Rose,’ he says, a slight smile flickering on his face as he greets me, but the smile hardens as he spots Kyor lurking in my shadow. ‘Prince Kyor? I didn’t realise the palace was short on rooms.’
Kyor’s nostrils flare. ‘This place could have a thousand bedrooms and I’d still be sharing Rose’s,’ he replies, pointedly slipping his arms around me.
‘And the princess doesn’t mind being stifled in such a manner?’
‘Stifled…’ Kyor steps towards him, only to turn back and look at me. ‘Actually, you were pretty stifled last night, weren’t you? Especially when I—’
I glare at him. I do not now, nor will I ever, need anyone to know our private details.
‘Training,’ I say, cutting him off. ‘We were training.’ All three of us know I’m lying, but for the sake of social niceties, Stefan lets it go. I’m grateful for that.
Kyor has a jealous streak a mile wide, and combined with his paranoia about Stefan wanting to get rid of me, it’s a miracle the Issen is still standing after turning up at our room.
But I believed Magnus when he said Stefan was the best option to help me.
And that, in turn, helps William. I need to learn everything Issen in the shortest time possible, and I’m eager to begin.
I face Stefan. ‘And now we need to start training.’
‘Yes.’ Stefan’s eyes linger on the prince a fraction longer before they return to me. ‘My turn to train you.’
Kyor lets out a low growl at his deliberately riling turn of phrase.
‘Shall we?’ Stefan says with a mildness that only serves to highlight Kyor’s own rising temper.
‘If it’s okay with you, Stefan, I’d really like to check on my friends before we leave.’
Stefan nods. ‘Of course. Though I’m not sure how many you’ll find here. The Sanning went with your other female friend to the library. They left at first light, and I believe Toren chaperoned them. And the others are with the healers, visiting your friend there. But do feel free to check.’
If he’d told me that Caz had gone to the battle yard or to the kitchens or anywhere else in the city, I might have wanted proof.
But the library? I know how excited she is about that, and I don’t doubt she’ll have headed there the first chance she got.
And she would surely have taken Thessa with her, trying to keep the Sanning’s mind busy and to help ease the pain of Stide’s absence.
All the same, I decide to check on Benny and Ruben.
Leaving Kyor and Stefan in the corridor, I knock on the door of the room Caz had planned to share with Loch and Benny. When there’s no answer, I push it open.
Empty. Which means Benny is likely at the healers’ with Loch, just as Stefan said, unless…
It’s out of both curiosity and the need to know where my friends are before I leave for training that I move to Ruben’s door and knock once, firmly.
‘Coming,’ he calls before his footsteps pad towards the door. ‘Let me guess, you’ve finally come to admit you have feelings for me,’ he says as he swings the door open. ‘Well, you should know I’m—’ He cuts himself short, skin visibly warming. ‘Rose. I—’
‘Were you expecting someone else?’ I grin.
‘Erm … no…’ His mouth hangs open slightly as redness colours all the way to the top of his ears. ‘It’s just … well, I thought—’
‘It’s fine,’ I say, letting my smile drop. ‘I just wanted to find out where Benny is before I head off for training. Any ideas?’
Ruben swallows lightly, running his hand through his chestnut hair before he speaks.
‘Yeah. I left him with Loch at the healers’ a couple of hours ago. Said I’d get some kip, then grab him breakfast so we can swap and he can get a few proper hours of sleep.’
‘Thank you, Ruben. I’m sure he appreciates it.’
He shrugs. ‘That’s what friends do for one another, isn’t it?’
‘Mmhmm.’ I don’t ask whether that’s what he and Benny are. We both know it isn’t.
‘How are you doing?’ Ruben says instead. ‘Yesterday was a lot. You must be all over the place. You need anything? It might help to talk about it?’