Page 112 of I Dream of Dragons

“—beautiful. You were a pretty girl, now you’re the most beautiful woman.”

“Stop. Tell me. Tell me everything.”

Convince me. Convince me it’s you, that the news is good after all, that I may have been misled by the king but I wasn’t wrong that Mars is alive.

He has to be able read my face, the tangled emotions I need to sort out, because if this is Mars, my Mars… I need him to confirm this, to tell me everything. I want to pound my fistsagainst his chest because this joy, this relief is so sharp it feels like pain.

He bows over me. “I want?—”

“Athdara!” Guards are approaching, carrying their wounded companions. “We are going to report to the king. Your presence is requested.”

“No. You go.” He turns to scowl at them, but he pales, his face going an unhealthy gray, and now I see what he has already seen. “Arkin! Is that Arkin you’re carrying?”

“Yes, my lord Athdara, he was injured.”

“Fuck.” Jai spears his fingers through his messy hair. “I’m coming with you.”

“You should rest,” I protest, jumping to my feet, too. “And your arm…”

He gives a rueful grin, poking with his fingers the still bleeding wound I caused. The shadows scatter, then return, wrapping around his forearm. “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”

“How can I not?” I look at him and he looks at me, and so much passes between us, unspoken.

“Areyouinjured, Athdara?” one of the guards asks.

“No,” Jai says.

“Yes,” I say at the same time.

Jai gives me a faint smile. “I’m going with Arkin to the infirmary.”

“Then I’m coming with you.” I start after him and find my legs shaking. All that tension, the running, didn’t help.

“No. You’re exhausted.” He seems torn between following them and staying with me. “Fuck…”

“Don’t worry, Athdara. I will accompany her to her room,” a familiar voice says, and I find Tru standing there. “I’ll make sure she has a bath drawn and food to eat so she can rest.”

Jai’s brows jump, but he nods. “I appreciate that.” He turns to me, lifts a rough hand to cup my face. “Please, go with him and be safe. I will come find you as soon as I can.”

A tremor is starting in my bones, working its way up. “But I?—”

“Keep yourself safe. I can’t think when you’re in danger. Remember,makhair. You are the other half of me. The better half.”

The tremor reaches my face, my mouth. I feel bared, vulnerable, open wide for him. “Am I?”

“I loved a girl once,” he says, “with a mouth like a rose, hair like ebony, and eyes like the night. I thought she was dead and gone.”

My mouth trembles. “Jai.”

But he shoots me one last, faint smile and limps after the others.

Leaving me with Tru.

“Come with me, my lady,” Tru says, pressing a hand to my back, between my shoulder blades, and gently herding me toward the palace. “You need to rest.”

I let him guide me through the half-familiar passages, the maze of the palace, a haze over my thoughts.

“I loved a girl once with a mouth like a rose…”