Page 6 of Thunder's Reckoning

I touched the painted bars, cool under my fingertips, and let myself imagine, just for one breath, the sound of a door opening from the inside.

***

THE DAY SEEMEDlonger than usual.

By late evening, the house had settled into one of its heavy silences, the kind where you start listening for something to break it. I’d put Zara to bed, took a shower and now stood looking out the window into the inner courtyard, and I’d let myself pause there.

Malik was outside with one of the younger guards — tall, muscled, too quick with his smile. He said something that made Malik’s mouth twitch into the smallest grin, the kind that came and went before a boy remembered who might be watching. Iwatched too long. I wasn’t thinking about the guard, only Malik. But it didn’t matter.

The air behind me shifted before I heard him.

“Interesting view?” Gabrial’s voice was mild. Mild was never good.

I turned slowly. “Malik’s in the courtyard,” I said, keeping it soft.

“I saw.” He stepped closer, his eyes moving past me to the glass. “And the young man with him. Did you enjoy what you saw?”

My throat tightened. “He was speaking to Malik.”

“Mm.” He moved until he was beside me, close enough that his shoulder brushed mine. “Do you think I don’t notice where your eyes go? Who you give your attention to?”

“I wasn’t—”

“Liar.” His voice didn’t rise. It didn’t need to. “Even if your heart felt nothing, even if your thoughts stayed pure, you gave him something that belongs to me.”

My pulse kicked against my ribs. “I’m sorry.”

He smiled faintly, like the words amused him. “You will be.”

He took my chin between his fingers, tilting my face until my neck ached. “Clothes off.”

I hesitated — barely — but it was enough. His hand tightened until my jaw hurt.

“Now.”

The sash at my waist slipped loose under my fingers. The robe slid from my shoulders, pooling at my feet. The air in the room getting colder, each breath lifting gooseflesh along my arms.

“Kneel.”

I sank to the stone, the hardness biting through my knees. He moved around me like he was inspecting a prize, then stepped to the mantel and returned with the heavy brasscandlestick — tall, ornate, the Flame’s emblem carved into its base.

“Arms up.”

I raised them.

He set the candlestick in my palms. The weight dragged at my shoulders instantly.

“You will hold it,” he said, “while you think about where your eyes wandered today. And you will hold it until I’m satisfied you understand they are mine to direct.”

The minutes stretched into something endless. The muscles in my arms trembled, my hands slick on the cold metal. The candle’s heat licked my face; wax dripped in slow, deliberate drops, close enough to sting when it splattered.

Whenever my elbows dipped, his palm pressed to the small of my back, steadying me, not gently, but like a man holding something in place until it learned not to move.

When he finally lifted the candlestick away, my arms fell useless at my sides. He crouched in front of me, close enough that I felt his breath against my cheek.

“You see no one else, Sable,” he murmured. “Not the guards. Not the man who delivers the packages. No one. Your eyes belong to me. Your thoughts belong to me. Or I will make you beg for this candle back.”

He stood, leaving me on my knees with my skin still prickling from the wax, my shoulders aching, and my heart thudding so hard it hurt.