Page 44 of Stormvein (The Veinbound Trilogy #2)

Chapter Twenty

ELLIE

Kindness is a weapon, if timed correctly.

Wisdom of the Wandering Sages

The door closes behind Varam with a soft click that somehow echoes through the room, and I’m alone with Sacha once more in the quarters I never thought I’d ever see him inside again.

After days of flight, and fear, and Sacha’s life balanced on the edge, the silence feels like stepping into another world.

The quiet peels back the layers of adrenaline that have been keeping me moving, and suddenly every nerve ending screams for attention, leaving me hollow and shaky.

My legs give out, and I sink into one of the chairs near the table.

Now we’re alone, and there’s nothing to do but wait, guilt rushes in.

The faces of the people who gathered in the main cavern when we arrived.

The genuine worry in their eyes when they saw what they thought was their dying leader.

The reverence, the grief, the desperate hope.

All of it directed at a lie we’re telling them.

Most of these people would die for Sacha.

Some probably have family members who already have.

The ones who went with us to rescue him know the truth, but everyone else believes the deception.

We’re lying to them because we have to, because there’s a traitor among them, because it’s the only way to protect them.

But that doesn’t make the guilt any easier to bear.

I run a hand through my hair, grimacing when my fingers catch in matted knots, pulling against my scalp. My skin feels gritty, my clothes are stiff with dried sweat and mountain dirt.

“I think I’d kill for a bath.” The words tumble out, desperate and shaky. I need something normal, something ordinary. Something that has nothing to do with magic, or power, or lies. “I can’t stand another minute of this.”

Sacha glances up from the maps he’s been studying, his eyes scanning me from head to toe in a way that makes me acutely aware of my disheveled state. There’s something almost possessive in the look, or I’ve finally lost my mind.

“I think wholesale murder might be an overreaction, but there are always people awake. Ask one of the guards outside the door to bring you hot water and a bathtub. No one will question it.”

“It won’t look odd? Me bathing while you’re supposedly dying?”

“They’ll expect you to need water to wash my wounds. They won’t question your desire to get clean as well.”

I look at him for a second longer, but his attention has already returned to the maps spread out across the table.

“You will need to be out of sight when they come. You can’t be walking around studying maps if you’re meant to be dying.”

He nods once—the same economical gesture that reminds me of the man I first met in the tower, where every movement served a purpose.

But there’s something slightly different now.

The restraint has turned into something harder, colder.

It’s as though the torture stripped away any remaining pretense, leaving only the essential core of him …

and that core is diamond hard and razor-sharp.

Yet when his eyes meet mine again, there’s something else there, something that makes my skin warm under his gaze.

I force myself to stand, to push through the trembling in my legs. Sacha gives me another long, unreadable look, then retreats into his bedchamber and closes the door.

I wait for a few seconds more, then open the door wide enough to poke my head through.

One of the guards straightens at my appearance.

He isn’t one of those who traveled with us, and must have relieved the men I knew to allow them to rest. I try to appear appropriately exhausted and worried, which isn’t all that difficult, while I make my request. The fighter nods, fear and sympathy warring for dominance in his eyes.

His reaction proves that everyone in Stonehaven believes I’ve been spending days desperately trying to keep their leader alive … which isn’t really a lie.

“Right away, Varel et’Arvath. Is there anything I can do to help?”

I ignore the title, and shake my head. “Just the water for now, thank you.”

When I close the door and turn, Sacha is back in the room and looking at me.

“What?”

One corner of his mouth tips up. “You wear the title well.”

My cheeks heat up. “They won’t stop. I’ve asked them. They’ve done it ever since we returned after …” I shake my head. “What are you doing?”

He’s rolling up the maps and placing them back on one of the shelves. “They’ll bring more than water. Food, supplies, and fresh bandages for the treatment they think you’re providing. The last thing they need to see is what appears to be you poring over maps.”

I lean against the wall beside the door and watch him. “What’s the plan here? Just wait until someone suspicious tries to visit you?”

“The traitor will reveal themselves. We have to show patience. It might not be to me. It could be to Varam or Mira, or any of the people who were with us.”

“And then what?”

His eyes meet mine. “Justice.”

The single word sends a chill slithering down my spine.

The silver light responds immediately, brightening the area around me.

There’s something about the way he says it.

There’s no anger or heat to the word, but a cold certainty that makes me think of winter storms and lightning that strikes without warning.

His gaze drops to my arms, where the light flows in erratic patterns. “Your control is still inconsistent.”

“You said it responds to my emotions, and right now I’m not exactly calm.” I gesture around the room. “We’re lying to everyone . People who trust you, who would die for you. And we’re doing it because one of them has betrayed you. How am I supposed to be calm about any of this?”

He studies me for a moment longer, eyes softening.

“It’s become easy to forget you haven’t lived through this.

You no longer look like the same creature who arrived in the tower.

” His hand reaches out, fingers stroking along my jaw, then drops away when someone knocks at the door.

“That will be your water.” He walks to the door leading into his bedchamber, then turns, lips tilting into that half smile that makes my stomach flip.

“Try to appear suitably distraught by my upcoming death.”

The light tone doesn’t stop the sharp stab of pain that goes through me when his words bring back how badly he was hurt.

For a heartbeat, I’m back at River Crossing, watching as Authority soldiers surround him.

The moment when I thought he was gone forever.

These memories haven’t faded. They’re beneath the surface, waiting to ambush me when I least expect it.

By the time I pull my mind back, he’s gone, the door closing quietly behind him.

There’s another knock at the door. Shaking my head, trying to recenter myself, I pull it open.

The delivery proves Sacha’s prediction correct.

Several women enter carrying steaming buckets that soon fill a copper tub placed in my bedchamber.

Other women bring extra bandages, healing supplies, even food—bread, dried meat, fruit, and two pitchers.

One contains fresh water, the other has steam rising from it and the familiar scent of the herbal drink that reminds me of tea.

“The kitchen sent these,” says a woman with close-cropped gray hair, setting down a covered basket. “You must be starving.” She glances toward Sacha’s closed door, and her voice drops to a whisper. “How is he, really?”

I think about how he was when we first found him, and it adds the wobble to my voice that I need. The memory of him almost dying in my arms is still too vivid for it not to affect me. “Fighting to stay alive.”

She gives my arm a gentle squeeze. “If anyone can survive what they did to him, it’s the Vareth’el.

He came back from the dead, after all. You must be his luck-bringer.

Twice you have brought him back to us. I have confidence he will come through this.

” Her faith would be touching if I didn’t know it was based on a deception.

“If you need anything, send someone. Day or night.”

“Thank you.”

When everyone has left, I stand in the center of the room.

The kindness of these people I’m actively lying to sits like a stone in my stomach.

The woman’s gentle touch, her faith that I’ve somehow saved Sacha twice, the way she looked at me like I was something precious …

it makes the charade feel worse, more personal.

It shouldn’t matter that there’s a solid reason behind our lies. It still makes me question everything about who I’m becoming in this world. In Chicago, I wouldn’t have been capable of this level of deception. Here, it seems I’m learning to lie quicker than I’m learning to call storms.

Sacha returning from his room, interrupts my spiral of guilt.

“Go and make use of the water before it cools.” He opens the basket and takes out a still-warm roll, steam curling up from the top of it. Setting it on a plate, he adds cheese and a rolled-up meat that resembles sliced ham. “Or would you prefer to eat first?”

“You should do the same.” I point to the extra water that has been left against the wall next to the door leading to his room. “I couldn’t ask for two bathtubs. It would have raised questions.”

I retreat to my chamber, making sure the door is firmly closed behind me.

The tub isn’t large, but the steaming water looks like salvation after days of minimal access to water to clean with.

I strip out of my filthy clothes, screwing my nose up at the smell, and drop them to the floor.

A month ago, I’d have been embarrassed by how bad they are, now I’m just relieved to get out of them.

I sink into the water with a sigh that comes from somewhere deep inside my soul.