Page 23 of A Court of Thralls and Thorns

I blinked, my vision sharpening as the haze lifted. The flames were gone. Only smoke remained, curling in slow tendrils toward the ceiling. My hands trembled as I pushed myself upright.

I should be burned. I should be wrecked.

Instead—I was whole.

The raw wounds had sealed, the scorched skin had knitted back together perfectly. Too perfectly.

A sick, cold weight curled in my stomach.

They saw.

Not just my failure. Not just my dragon’s rejection.

They saw me.

Saw my body heal itself. Saw the wounds vanish as if they had never existed.

Saw that I was something else entirely.

Zander stepped forward. His boots echoed against the stone. He crouched in front of me, too close, his voice low, edged with something unreadable.

“You’re healed.”

I swallowed hard as I sat up.

He didn’t say it like an observation. He said it like a revelation.

Because we both knew—this wasn’t the kind of healing a rider was supposed to have.

The chamber was still, the air thick with something I couldn’t name. A shift. A reckoning.

My secret was out.

I barely registered the moment my eyes started drooping, my body caught between exhaustion and pain. My body swayed, but before I could collapse, a firm grip caught my arm—steady, unyielding.

Zander.

He stepped closer, his broad frame blocking me from the rest of the prospects, shielding me like a barrier of leather and steel. His stance was unmovable, his posture effortless in its authority.

“Riven, take Ashe to the healers and return to your room,” he ordered, his voice low but edged with something unreadable.

Riven was at my side immediately, slipping an arm under mine to support me, but I barely felt her. My gaze remained locked on Zander’s back, the realization sinking like a pebble to the bottom of a lake.

He hadn’t outed me.

Only Riven and possibly Jax had seen what he had—the wounds that had closed too fast, the bruises that faded as quickly as they had formed. But Zander had seen too.

And yet, he hadn’t said a damn thing.

Had he... protected me? Why?

This was Zander Rayne. Prince. Heir to nothing but his own reputation. A man who had done nothing but look down on me since the moment I arrived.

So why protect my secret?

Riven helped me up and guided me away, before I stumbled. She muttered a curse under her breath and pulled my jacket around me, the fabric still warm.

I swallowed hard, silently thankful that Major Kaler had made us take them off before the trial. At least my torn, bloody shirt wouldn’t give anything away.