Page 34 of A Crown of Tears and Treason (The Curse of Silver Secrets and Cruel Shadows #1)

Chapter

Thirty-Four

EVIE

I couldn’t stop touching my lips.

Three days had crawled past since I’d had the first kiss of my life. I didn’t understand how time could pass so slowly and fast at the same time.

Between lessons with Adara, Allie, and Leesa, and daily runs with Zorin in the tranquil grove hidden outside the wall, I fell into bed at night exhausted and proud.

But I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned and cursed my way through the hours. Counting my ribs didn’t help. Whatever concoctions Goose delighted my palate with didn’t so much as induce a nap.

When my mind mercifully shut off, I was plagued by visions of a great big light turning to shadows, blood gushing from cliffs straight into a fire that threatened to consume me.

I woke up more exhausted, with a strange longing sensation that I ignored as much as I could.

I had an inkling where it came from.

Three days and Zandyr and I hadn’t breathed the same air, looked into each other’s eyes, or traded so much as one death joke.

I tried to pretend I wasn’t bothered and focused on more important issues than a simple kiss.

Like the constant threat of the advisors. Guards still stood outside my house day and night, and they seemed to have gotten meaner in the past few weeks.

“Your Grace,” Leesa’s voice lulled me back to the lesson as I stared out the window at the guards flanking my road. There were five more today than a week ago. “The wedding is in a few weeks.”

“I know the ritual.” I flicked my chin at the golden chalice and the rope on top of the table, not diverting my gaze from the guard’s helmets. Had they gotten sharper?

Why would Banu and Valuta bother with me? I hadn’t come here with a vendetta against them, Protectorate or not. As for whatever scraps of power I’d managed to gather since my arrival, they were of no threat to them. That they knew of, at least. Adara and I had gotten adept at staging fights I never won in my courtyard, while we had our real training in the secluded grove.

Perhaps it was a preemptive measure. A Protectorate queen on the Blood Brotherhood throne could become a threat. If they had sworn to protect this Clan and truly believed in the cause, they might turn fanatic. Desperate enough to kill.

Yet I couldn’t escape the feeling that I was missing something. An important detail, floating just at the outskirts of my mind.

The advisors had talked about how many children I could have. Perhaps they were afraid the next heir to the throne would prioritize the Protectorate’s well-being over the Blood Brotherhood’s.

Or maybe they truly thought I was weak. Unfit for the crown.

Many possibilities, no answers. I couldn’t risk Zandyr dying to tell me.

I had to figure it out. Soon. Before Banu and Valuta managed to actually murder me. If they would try again. The only threat so far that could be connected to them had been the razorback.

That I knew of.

“We need to rehearse and get it right,” Leesa went on. “The entire Capital will be watching you. Every breath, every flutter of your eyelids, every word.”

I tore my gaze away from the guards and grinned at her. “Not daunting at all.”

“Sorry.” She cleared her voice. “All I meant to say was this is important.”

“I know.” I picked up the chalice in the correct position, right palm gripping its bejeweled stem, no fingers touching the cup or the base; a royal hold, for the steady hands meant to lead the Clan. “That’s why I’ve been practicing.”

Leesa sighed in relief. “You will amaze them all.”

I would have settled for not embarrassing myself. I still had trouble in crowds. So many small movements, scents, noises. Unkind whispers and unbelieving stares. They overwhelmed me.

Hours later, I had a headache from reciting the Blood Brotherhood vows thirty-three times and a twitch in my thigh from successfully dodging Adara’s blow. I sipped another cup of Goose’s special resting tea and looked out the veranda.

The guards were still there. Silent and menacing. Goose would have to distract them tomorrow while I and Adara snuck out. While we were gone, Leesa would practice her dancing in my room, close enough to the thick drapes that the guards knew someone was inside.

I downed the tea and walked up the stairs.

The breeze that flowed through the windows soothed my aching muscles. The flimsy nightgown I had on was a thin little piece of white fabric that I no longer had trouble filling out. In fact, it was getting tight around the hips. Goose really was an excellent cook. I wrapped my robe tighter around me, reveling in the way it billowed behind me.

Maybe the Blood Brotherhood wardrobe wasn’t–

I opened the bedroom door and froze. Zandyr sat on my windowsill, one knee bent, his other leg draped over the edge. The moonlight haloed around him, making him look like the shadow from my dreams.

He rose with feline grace and the illusion broke just in time for me to get over my shock.

“What in Xamor’s name are you doing in my room?” I asked.

“Fair’s fair, menace. You came into my bedroom.” The words dripped from his lips like honey.

He was as gorgeous as ever, but there were dark circles underneath his ice eyes, and his cheekbones stood out more.

He looked just as I felt–exhausted.

“Because I needed answers,” I said. Partially true. I’d felt an overwhelming need to see him alive and breathing.

“I need an answer, too.” He strolled through my room, examining each little trinket and wall painting. His gaze didn’t so much as venture my way. “How have your last few days been?”

I crossed my arms in front of my chest. My cheeks shouldn’t have heated up so fast–or at all.

Three days. We kissed and then he vanished for three days. “Busy. Yours?”

“Constant discussions about the skirmish at our borders. Recovering from the ritual. But I expected that. What I hadn’t anticipated–” He clenched his jaw and finally looked at me. “–was not being able to sleep.”

I sighed. “I haven’t been able to either.”

“That is unfortunate.” He stepped closer. “I was hoping it was a painful side effect of finally receiving my magic. Since when?”

“Since…” My muscles seized as I realized the last time I’d felt rested was when we’d slept in the same bed. “Damn.”

His face tightened. “My thoughts exactly.”

Traitorous, unreasonable body. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Does anything when it comes to us?”

Us . And no, it didn’t. Then realization dawned. “You came here because you want us to sleep in the same bed?”

He gave me a rigid smile, as if in pain to be asking. “If you’ll have me.”

Having Zandyr within reach had ended badly last time. Well, perhaps not badly, but certainly madly. Kissing had not been part of the plan. Liking it even less so.

“And if I say no?” I asked.

“Then I will go out the same way I came in and trouble you no more. There must be some remedy hidden in the Archives somewhere. I am a patient man. Tired, but patient.”

He might have been, but I wasn’t. In the wild, exhaustion meant fewer, more painful days, and Phoenix Peak was more dangerous than a forest.

“What if there is no treatment?” Remedies were for wounds and aching teeth. We needed a cure for whatever was making my heart beat faster anytime I saw him.

“Then we will look dreadful at our wedding,” he said with a straight face, even as laughter danced in his voice. “Possibly faint.”

I huffed a laugh and twisted my fingers together, as if I could braid a solution out of thin air. The simple fix was staring straight at me with his ice eyes, clad in his fearsome armor.

He sighed. “If I don’t rest properly, I can’t fight properly. And I need all my senses on high alert right now. The Senate of Sages is being particularly stubborn nowadays.”

Which meant the advisors were probably up to something. I needed my strength as well. We were playing a dangerous game here.

I licked my lips to agree. It was the logical solution, based on survival.

“I haven’t seen you in the last three days,” I said instead. “You didn’t visit.”

Gods, the floor might as well swallow me up now and save me the embarrassment of my own words.

“Me?” His brows rose. “I didn’t see you on the training grounds, in my study in the House of Scribes, or coming to visit my tower again. Have you suddenly mastered invisibility and I simply did not notice?”

“How was I supposed to know where you were? You know where to find me.”

“You told me we shouldn’t have kissed.” His tone was calm, but there was an unnamed emotion coating his words. Disappointment?

I had said that, hadn’t I? “I also told you I liked it.”

“Plenty of people like the mistakes they make.”

“Wait…you thought it was a mistake?” My heart cracked the tiniest bit.

“You obviously did.”

I tilted my chin up. “I did not. Kissing you just…made things more complicated.” Like wanting to see him and feel him all the damn time. “That doesn’t mean I regret it.”

It was truly complicated, navigating these feelings I couldn’t even comprehend myself.

A corner of his lips ticked up. It might have been my imagination, but his shoulders relaxed. “Very well, then. If we decide to sleep in the same bed, we might be seeing each other every night, and we won’t have this issue again.”

If only it would be that simple.

“What if…what if we try it for just one night?” I began, doubting every word. I didn’t know what was worse–having Zandyr in my bed or not. “If it doesn’t work, we can pretend it never happened.”

Like we’d pretended until now that his lips had been on mine, sucking my tongue into his mouth. I cleared my throat, strangling that thought.

“Thank you, formidable Daughter of the Protectorate.” He gave a low mock bow, but I heard his small sigh of relief.

“I should’ve asked you to kneel,” I mumbled.

His eyes slashed my way; there was a wicked glimmer in them now. “You like the idea of me kneeling in front of you? Noted.”

“No!” I raised my open palms. This was already turning out to be a bad idea. I felt so clumsy and uncoordinated, as if a single word or hand gesture would somehow ruin…what, exactly? “Let’s just get into bed.”

He straightened back up, quick fingers untying the armor laces at his throat.

I gulped. “What–what are you doing?”

“Undressing for bed.”

My throat turned all kinds of parched as the image of his chorded chest sparked in my mind.

His fingers stilled. “I could leave the armor on…”

And risk turning and hitting one of those blood vials? “No, you’re right. We want to be comfortable.”

Not to be outdone, I took off my robe, too, throwing it onto the nearest chair. When I dared look up, Zandyr stood there in a black tunic that put his entire clavicle on display. Then my eyes found his.

They had gone dark, the pupils eating away at the blue again, as his gaze trailed hungrily over me.

Right, I had the flimsy nightshirt on. I couldn’t deny that some small, insignificant part of me was flattered by that stare . That deep, ravenous stare. Nobody had ever looked at me like that before.

With desire.

I swallowed deeply at the same time he did. Time stopped as we stared at each other, the air around us crackling with words neither of us said.

Zandyr recovered first. He closed his eyes and shook his head. When he opened them back up, the craving had been leashed.

“Shall we?” He extended his palm toward the bed, as if inviting me to dance at some great ball.

This was going to be a long night.