Chapter 41 #3
The lamp connects with a crunch, flames spilling across the creature's body. It writhes, its keening rising to an unbearable pitch. The flames catch, feeding on whatever makes up its translucent flesh.
Zeriel is on it before I’ve drawn another breath.
His blade drives clean through the center mass, pinning it to the floor.
The thing convulses, tentacles lashing wildly, but he doesn’t flinch.
The fire spreads, eating into it until its thrashing slows…
then stills. What’s left slumps into a smoldering puddle, the air thick with the stench of scorched chemicals.
I stand there shaking, shoulder and fingers throbbing where its tentacles touched me, blistered skin already tightening.
“What in all hells was that?” The words scrape out of me.
Zeriel crouches, keeping his hands clear of the remains. His eyes narrow, the set of his mouth hard. “A construct,” he says finally. “Magical, something taken and altered for a purpose.”
“What?”
“What else?” he asks, the words terse. “I believe it’s dark alchemy. The kind that’s rare even in the empire’s black markets.” His gaze locks on mine, steady, unyielding. “I’d wager Blaise. And I don’t wager lightly.”
The name chills me, even with the burn still eating at my skin. “You’re saying Blaise sent this?”
“I doubt anyone else would dare.” His voice is ice.
The answer sinks into me, heavy and cold, settling low in my stomach.
Blaise—his smile all sharp edges, his gaze like a knife pressed to the skin—wouldn’t hesitate.
I’ve seen enough in him to know that. And if this thing really came from his hand, then it wasn’t just meant to kill me. It was meant to make a point.
When Zeriel’s gaze flicks to me again, there’s nothing cold about it now—just a dangerous heat, aimed outward, not at me.
He rises and closes the distance between us in two strides.
“Let me see.” His fingers brush my clothing aside, careful, deliberate, revealing the blistered punctures beneath.
I feel a thrum of his inner energy brushing against me at the contact, but it’s far weaker than before.
Barely perceptible. Maybe because he hasn’t used his magic for hours?
“These need treatment,” he says, firm. “If we don’t act, it’ll worsen.”
I nod and gesture toward the ensuite bathroom.
Pain flares as I move, and he steadies me with an arm, guiding me there while snatching up a bedsheet.
The sheet tears in his grip like paper, and he uses the strip to clean away the blackened edges of the wounds before fishing out a tin of salve from his pack.
I stand by the basin as he approaches me, and up close, I catch the heat of him, the quiet focus in his face.
There’s nothing careless in the way he works—each touch measured, every movement chosen to minimize pain and damage.
Which, I realize, is perhaps the first time I’ve truly appreciated anything about him.
“Your arm,” I murmur, spotting the angry welt where the thing latched on.
“Superficial,” he dismisses without looking up. “I’ll deal with it in a bit.”
When he finishes, his gaze cuts back to the scorched ruin on the floor. “We’ll clean that tomorrow. And you don’t stay there tonight.”
I let out a breath. Of course he’s back to issuing orders. At least I don’t mind in this instance. “Where, then?” I mutter.
“My room,” he says flatly. “I’ll secure the windows. And I don’t sleep deeply.”
I glance at the third spare bedroom, but to be honest, I doubt I’d get a wink of sleep on my own after this.
“Fine,” I murmur. “It’s not like we haven’t shared space before. Thrilling arrangement though it is.”
He shuts the window in my room with a sharp snap, then strides into the corridor, eyes flicking side to side like we’re marching into an ambush instead of just moving a few doors down.
His quarters are as bare as I expected. A window with bars. A cabinet. A desk shoved against one wall. And… one double bed. Like in my room. I’m not sure why I thought it might be different.
I hesitate. We’ve ridden the same saddle, shared a room and even that terrifyingly narrow dance platform. But we’ve never shared a bed. The thought lands with a thud in my gut.
Zeriel acts as though he doesn’t notice my hesitation.
He moves to the bedside cabinet, stripping off his shirt in one fluid motion.
The eerie blue-green light from the window catches on the raised, silvered ridges of his wing scars, each one an echo of what he’s lost. He works with the same efficiency he’d shown with my wounds, cleaning the angry burn on his forearm, his movements economical and precise.
There’s no wasted motion, no flicker of pain on his face as he applies the salve.
I watch the play of shadow and light across his shoulders, the quiet competence of his hands, and feel a strange, unwelcome warmth spread through my chest. He is a weapon, yes, forged in violence and honed by loss.
But in moments like these, when the armor is stripped away, I see the man beneath it, carrying his own quiet inventory of pain.
He finishes, tossing the used cloth aside before turning to the bed. He doesn’t speak, just pulls back the covers on the side nearest the wall, a silent, pragmatic gesture that is neither invitation nor demand. It is simply a statement of fact. This is where you will sleep.
I swallow, the sound somehow loud in the stillness, and move to the empty side of the bed. My limbs feel heavy, clumsy, as I slip under the covers, aware of how thin my night clothes feel. The sheets are cool against my skin, smelling faintly of soap and wood.
The mattress dips under my weight, and then again, more deeply, as Zeriel shifts beside me. Even without touching, I can sense him, the quiet heat of his body reaching across the narrow gap.
I glance sideways and see he lies on his back, staring at the ceiling, a blade resting on his stomach. A silent, unmoving guardian.
I shift to lie on my side, cautiously. My shoulder brushes his arm—just the whisper of skin against skin—but it jolts through me like a spark.
The mattress seems to shrink beneath us.
He goes utterly still, his breathing so measured it's as if he's counting each inhale.
One-two-three. The blade rises and falls with his chest, catching moonlight along its edge.
I swear I can hear the metallic whisper of it against his palm, the scrape of calloused skin against steel as he adjusts his grip.
My body betrays me with a sudden twitch that ripples down my spine. The mattress barely shifts, but in this silence, it might as well be an earthquake. His throat clicks softly: a swallow.
Time stretches, seconds into minutes, minutes into an hour. I try to distract my mind, but it’s useless. I keep returning to him—the weight of his gaze on the ceiling, the iron grip he keeps on himself, on the blade, on the night.