Page 12

I glanced between the grass and the crowd and the cluster of musicians coaxing such lively music from drums and fiddles and pipes as I approached, no more than a shy, hesitant doe.
Once, those same sounds had shaken me awake, had made me dance and dance. I supposed they were now little more than weapons in my arsenal as I stopped before Tamlin, lowered my lashes, and asked softly, “Will you dance with me?”
Relief, happiness, and a slight edge of concern. “Yes,” he breathed. “Yes, of course.”
So I let him lead me into the swift dance, spinning and tilting me, people gathering to cheer and clap. Dance after dance after dance, until sweat was running down my back as I worked to keep up, keep that smile on my face, to remember to laugh when my hands were within strangling distance of his throat.
The music eventually shifted into something slower, and Tamlin eased us into the melody. When others had found their own partners more interesting to watch, he murmured, “This morning … Are you all right?”
My head snapped up. “Yes. I—I don’t know what that was, but yes. Is Ianthe … mad?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t see it coming—I don’t think she handles surprises very well.”
“I should apologize.”
His eyes flashed. “What for? Perhaps it was a blessing. Magic still surprises me. If she’s angry, it’s her problem.”
I made a show of considering, then nodded. Pressed closer, loathing every place where our bodies touched. I didn’t know how Rhys had endured it—endured Amarantha. For five decades.
“You look beautiful today,” Tamlin said.
“Thank you.” I made myself peer up into his face. “Lucien—Lucien told me that you didn’t complete the Rite at Calanmai. That you refused.”
And you let Ianthe take him into that cave instead.
His throat bobbed. “I couldn’t stomach it.”
And yet you could stomach making a deal with Hybern, as if I were a stolen item to be returned. “Maybe this morning was not just a blessing for me,” I offered.
A stroke of his hand down my back was his only reply.
That was all we said for the next three dances, until hunger dragged me toward the tables where dinner had now been laid out. I let him fill a plate for me, let him serve me himself as we found a spot under a twisted old oak and watched the dancing and the music.
I nearly asked if it was worth it—if giving up this sort of peace was worth it, in order to have me back. For Hybern would come here, use these lands. And there would be no more singing and dancing. Not once they arrived.
But I kept quiet as the sunlight faded and night finally fell.
The stars winked into existence, dim and small above the blazing fires.
I watched them through the long hours of celebrating, and could have sworn that they kept me company, my silent and stalwart friends.
CHAPTER
I crawled back to the manor two hours after midnight, too exhausted to last until dawn.
Especially when I noted the way Tamlin looked at me, remembering that dawn last year when he’d led me away and kissed me as the sun rose.
I asked Lucien to escort me, and he’d been more than happy to do so, given that his own status as a mated male made him uninterested in any sort of female company these days. And given that Ianthe had been trying to corner him all day to ask about what had happened at the ceremony.
I changed into my nightgown, a small, lacy thing I’d once worn for Tamlin’s enjoyment and now was glad to don thanks to the day’s sweat still clinging to my skin, and flopped into bed.
For nearly half an hour, I kicked at the sheets, tossing and turning, thrashing.
The Attor. The Weaver. My sisters being thrown into the Cauldron. All of them twined and eddied around me. I let them.
Most of the others were still celebrating when I yelped, a sharp, short cry that had me bouncing from the bed.
My heart thundered along my veins, my bones, as I cracked open the door, sweating and haggard, and padded across the hall.
Lucien answered on the second knock.
“I heard you—what’s wrong.” He scanned me, russet eye wide as he noted my disheveled hair, my sweaty nightgown.
I swallowed, a silent question on my face, and he nodded, retreating into the room to let me inside. Bare from the waist up, he’d managed to haul on a pair of pants before opening the door, and hastily buttoned them as I strode past.
His room had been bedecked in Autumn Court colors—the only tribute to his home he’d ever let show—and I surveyed the night-dark space, the rumpled bedsheets. He perched on the rolled arm of a large chair before the blackened fire, watching me wring my hands in the center of the crimson carpet.
“I dream about it,” I rasped. “Under the Mountain. And when I wake up, I can’t remember where I am.” I lifted my now-unmarred left arm before me. “I can’t remember when I am.”
Truth—and half a lie. I still dreamed of those horrible days, but no longer did they consume me. No longer did I run to the bathroom in the middle of the night to hurl my guts up.
“What did you dream of tonight?” he asked quietly.
I dragged my eyes to his, haunted and bleak. “She had me spiked to the wall. Like Clare Beddor. And the Attor was—”
I shuddered, running my hands over my face.
Lucien rose, stalking to me. The ripple of fear and pain at my own words masked my scent enough, masked my own power as my dark snares picked up a slight vibration in the house.
Lucien paused half a foot from me. He didn’t so much as object as I threw my arms around his neck, burying my face against his warm, bare chest. It was seawater from Tarquin’s own gift that slipped from my eyes, down my face, and onto his golden skin.
Lucien loosed a heavy sigh and slid an arm around my waist, the other threading through my hair to cradle my head. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I’m sorry.”
He held me, stroking soothing lines down my back, and I calmed my weeping, those seawater tears drying up like wet sand in the sun.
I lifted my head from his sculpted chest at last, my fingers digging into the hard muscles of his shoulders as I peered into his concerned face. I took deep, heaving breaths, my brows knotting and mouth parting as I—
“What’s going on.”
Lucien whipped his head toward the door.