Page 21 of Unraveled (A Kingdom of Beasts and Ruins #1)
Knock, Knock .
A rhythmic tapping pierces through the deep layers of my dreamless mind. Distant, yet close. I stir reluctantly, chasing the remnants of sleep and the warmth that seeps from my covers, beckoning me back into slumber.
Someone speaks from the other side of the door. I don’t care who’s here, all I want is to sleep just a little longer.
“Go away!” I mumble into the down feathers of my pillow. The cool silk of the cover is soft against my cheeks.
The knocking continues, and I blink my eyes open. My vision clears to the soft light that spills through the window. I sit on my bed, rubbing the sleep from my face, when my eyes meet a dark shape of galaxies resting at my feet.
Naheli lifts her head, blinking her four yellow eyes before a massive grin splits her face and she pants her good morning.
“What—?” Sleep roughens my voice, and I don’t know why the spirit is here, nor can I ask when whoever is outside my room has little patience.
I grunt loudly and scoot off my bed. Could this be Morgana?
I hope whoever it is hears my displeasure, so next time they’ll leave the food on the floor and leave me be.
My tiredness evaporates when I yank the door open, because I don’t see a maid, nor my new gowns.
Instead, outside my chambers, the king himself leans against the doorframe.
He straightens to his full height, casting a shadow over me as his gold eyes travel from the tips of my bare toes to the top of my bedhead.
His perusal is slow, like a caress that trails over my poorly covered body through my sleep gown.
The mortifying thought breaks through, and my face goes up in flames as I take a step back and attempt to cover myself behind the door.
“I thought you were Morgana,” I say, and cross my arms over my chest to hide whatever remains visible of my breasts through the sheer layers of my chemise.
“Who?” Ash blinks a dazed expression off his face, then he turns away abruptly, hiding his blushing cheeks as he focuses somewhere outside my room. He clears his throat. “Get dressed, Monster, we have somewhere to be.”
“What— Where? I would much prefer going back to sleep now. I was up all night and all day yesterday.”
“We’re training, so get into something you can move around in that’s not...what you’re wearing now.”
I step away from the door, gripping the handle and moving to close it. Ash’s hand shoots up and blocks it before I’m successful at shutting him outside.
He’s looking past my shoulder at the wolf still resting on the bed. “Naheli, you traitorous mutt.”
The spirit’s ears shift around, but she doesn’t even lift her head from the mattress. Just snorts loudly.
I grin, glancing back at Ash, unable to hide my triumph. “Are you jealous, Ash, king of beasts?”
“Mia.” His eyes pin me down with an intensity I’m not prepared to face. “You have no idea.”
Something else quickly replaces the heat of embarrassment I felt before. My mouth goes dry, and I forget what I was about to say or do. My name spilling from his lips sounds like something I’m not supposed to hear, forbidden, and my poor twisted heart has no defense against it.
“Get dressed. I’m not a patient man.” And with that, he closes the door and leaves me inside this sweltering room.
No one has ever offered to train me in magic before. I shake off my shock and dress as quickly as I can before I rush out of the room. If Ash wrote that grimoire... I can barely hold in my excitement about what I may learn today.
“You’re training me?” Incredulity that seeps into my tone as I catch up to him.
“Seems like the logical next step, since you’re going to help me with my.
.. situation.” He looks pointedly into the courtyard through the large windows to my left.
The three sculptures I spotted earlier drift across the dilapidated space.
Lunargyres that look much like Nera. Their hissing vibrates almost as loud as our footsteps.
“I didn’t think those were—?” I begin, rubbing my hands over the gooseflesh that lifted on my arms. I shift away from the windows and closer to Ash. Like the mass of his body might protect me from being seen.
“They blend rather beautifully with the stone outside.” Ash stops at an impressive set of doors, and gold swirls of power wrap around each of his fingers before the lock clicks. The two panels swing open in unison, revealing only gaping darkness in the room ahead.
“The one that attacked me before wasn’t made of rock.” It looked like a bald mole, much like Alaris in the kitchen.
“The high fae transition to stone, while low fae change to a more animalistic lunargyre.” He pauses, gesturing for me to enter the room. “The sculptures blend with the garden. It makes them deadlier.”
His words don’t match the true devastation in his expression. I feel sick thinking about it, remembering the dead beast the scientist dragged out of the machine. I haven’t thought about it in a while, but the image seldom leaves me.
“And about the training, it’s an insurance policy on my part, to keep you from dying. Especially since you seem to enjoy danger.”
I could have told him I didn’t, but that would be a fat lie. Proven by the actions that brought me to this very moment. Or by the fact that I’m truly considering stepping into that dark room, where beasts could be hiding. “What if I use my newly gained skills to escape you?”
“Then you’d better run fast, Monster, because I like the chase.” He disappears in the darkness.
As soon as I step inside, I can’t see anything around us except for tall columns that catch the dim gray light from the hall. Ash steps around me, rolling his sleeves up over his forearms, revealing his pale gold skin and the contrasting peppering of small feathers on his forearm.
He looks different from the night I met him. Now he looks a lot more like I imagine the fae did once upon a time. The plumes are a reminder: A curse still lingers inside him, around us all.
I force my attention away from the newly revealed skin of his arms, and from the memories of how he looked last night when I stitched him up.
“I trust you’re feeling well enough to train me?” Are we practicing my fencing skills, or does he intend to test my handle on magic? I guess it’s safe to assume it might be the latter.
“Why? are you worried about me?” His eyes dance with humor.
“No,” I say. “Are we supposed to train in the dark?”
“Yes. The lunargyres lurk in the dark corners of the castle. It seems wise for me to teach you how to read the small shifts of energy that might help you figure out where they are.”
I nod, glancing around as my eyes adjust to the lack of light. There are pockets where the sun spills from small skylights in the ceiling to catch on surfaces around the room. A table here. A pillar holding a vase there.
“As you now know, many of our lunargyres appear to be sculptures. It’s important for you to read the way magic shifts around you. It might help you stay alive.”
“Aw.” I smile at him as I throw his own words back. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you worried about me.”
“To my own misfortune...” Judging by the slight pinch between his brows, he’s as displeased by the revelation as I am by my concern for him. “But make no mistake, I have the animalistic need to protect what belongs to me.”
I open my mouth to tell him I don’t belong to anyone but myself, but he strolls away, waving a hand over his shoulder as if to dismiss my future comeback. “I’m going to disappear into the shadows now. Your job is to find and stop me before I get you.”
“And what do I get if I do?”
He laughs, like I asked the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard. Perhaps he doesn’t remember that I saved him yesterday.
“Your incentive should be getting to survive. To walk out in the halls without one of us having to keep you safe. If you don’t stop me today, we will meet here every morning until you can.”
“So, if I find you, I’ll be able to explore the castle on my own?”
“Yes. Most of the lunargyres in the halls aren’t feral yet, but it’s best to be careful.”
“And outside, in the courtyard?”
“Don’t go there unless one of us is with you.”
“In that case, I’m ready. Are you going to give me a training dowel?”
“Where’s the fun in that?” He lifts a brow as he finishes rolling up his sleeves and cracks his neck to either side.
“How else am I going to stop you?”
“I’m sure you’ll come up with something,” he says right as he disappears between two columns. The shadows of the room swallow him whole, and I’m left alone. Only the sound of my heavy breathing remains.
There is no way I can detect him in this vast room without my amulet. Back in the library, the forbidden grimoires spoke to me when I touched them. Same with the roses. I guess I could walk through this open area trying to feel my way around, but I doubt that’s what Ash is looking for.
My heart drums in my ears, and blood rushes into my head. Panic coats the back of my tongue, tasting bitter and wrong. I take a tentative step forward, not knowing where to look.
“Start moving around, Monster. There is nothing worse than being a sitting duck when a predator is on the hunt.” His voice comes from everywhere and nowhere at once.
I try to find him, to discern the shape of something familiar, like a wing or strands of hair, that might let me know where he is.
But I can’t tell how deep the room is or where the nearest wall might be.
How low the ceiling is from where I stand.
Only that there is a deafening silence that remains in his apparent absence.
I take another step forward. The click of a heel echoes mine.
I turn, following the sound, unsure if it’s him approaching or if it’s the sound of my own steps going around and around, intensified by a spell.