I move farther into the room, scanning the worktable that’s littered with jars of tinctures, vials, bowls, etching sticks, and containers packed full of medicinal tools. Too many things that remind me of Essi.
The sooner this is done, the sooner I can leave.
With my heart lodged in the back of my throat, I move toward the chair, unpicking the buttons of my loose tunic. “I was kidding about the threesome,” I snip, releasing the final two while murdering the King with a glare. “There is no reality where I’d willingly fuck you.”
He doesn’t break my stare as he says, almost too soft for me to hear, “Turn around, Moonbeam. Take a seat in the chair so Bhea can get started.”
I grind my teeth so hard I’m surprised they don’t crumble, fingers clenched around the seams of my shirt. There is no point in either of them seeing my shredded skin.
None.
I’m so much stronger than these slashes on my back, the story they tell a rippling echo I don’t want to be heard by anyone. An echo I’d rather take to my grave than sit here all slumber while they digest it—keeping it alive in some form or another.
Behind me, I sense Bhea stepping into my atmosphere, her hands coming up to help me ease the tunic partway down, exposing my shoulders.
She gasps, pausing.
Moving around the side of me, her glossy-eyed gaze trails across the bared window of flesh from my neck to navel, tears puddling her lower lids.
Confused, I look at her robe, pinched in place by more gold or diamond buttons than I’ve ever seen on a single seam, my blood chilling at the sight of the one closest to her nape. A tiny dragon blowing a mushroom of flames.
This Runi doesn’t need dragonfire to ignite the trail of past runes, because she’s blessed with Dragonsight. She can see them with her own eyes.
Meaning she’s seeing …
Everything.
“What is it?” The King’s voice hacks through the room like the swing of a sword, and my heart skips a beat.
Another.
Bhea meets my stare, and I shake my head the slightest amount.
Please don’t.
Please don’t make me go back to that place—
“Nothing, Sire,” she whispers, blinking, dashing a tear from her cheek.
Relief floods through me like a gulp of icy water.
“The damage is more extensive than I was expecting. I will need to retrieve more supplies from the storage closet down the hall.”
With the King’s nod, Bhea eases from the room, closing the door behind herself—leaving the space less full, yet somehow brimming.
I clear my throat, fingers fisting my tunic, the silence between us tangible. A clay-like substance that could be molded into one of two things: a war horn or a waving white flag.
“This,” I rasp, jerking my chin at the table of tinctures, “you bringing a Runi in to help me, it changes nothing.”
“I’d be surprised if it did.” He pushes off the wall, moving toward me. “But for now, spend this time sharpening your blades. At least until Bhea has completed her task.”
“That’s a big ask.”
He reaches me, warm, calloused fingertips skimming across my knuckles, his gaze a quiet request.
Sighing, I loosen my grip, allowing that white flag to rise between us. A fragile, fluttering thing I intend to shred the moment I leave this room.
“Would you like me to cover you with a cloth before I take this off?”
My breath hitches.
All three Vaegor brothers originated from The Burn, where nudity is considered a comfort for some—far less sexualized than it is this far south—so I’m not too proud to appreciate his consideration of my culture.
For asking.
I open my mouth, close it. Finally, I shake my head.
“Tell me if you change your mind.”
With my nod, and not once breaking eye contact, he eases my tunic down my shoulders until it’s bunched around my wrists, the chill air nipping at my bareness while I study his lashes—so long and thick.
A pretty distraction.
He reaches around to gently tuck the drape of material around my hips so it’s not agitating my ragged flesh.
“You know this is pointless, right?”
“Not to me,” he rumbles, then takes my hands in his big, sturdy ones—his a tan complexion like the stone walls, mine the color of snow.
He leads me toward the chair, steadying me so I can lift my leg over it and settle on it backward before he lowers with me, giving me the dignity of not looking upon my damage. A mercy I appreciate in this small window of ceasefire.
I rest my chest against the heavily cushioned backrest, hands in my lap as he folds into a kneel.
A soft knock sounds on the door.
“Enter,” he murmurs while I hold his severe stare, like looking into the crumbled remnants of a fire that’s lost its flame.
The door swings open. Closes. I hear Bhea’s soft, shuffling steps, then sounds of her readying for the procedure.
The King barely blinks as she cleans some of the blood from my back with damp sweeps of a cloth, squeezing the ruddy excess into a bucket on the ground. He barely blinks as she paints my back in a bonding agent—the familiar sting sinking through layers of filleted flesh before she sketches out her paths with the flick of a delicate paintbrush.
“I’m still intent on killing you, if given the chance,” I warn past clenched teeth.
“Don’t forget to cut off my head,” he murmurs. “Or I’ll haunt you for eternity.”
“I don’t believe in that.”
Not one bit. I’ve cut off very few heads in comparison to my rather large body count, and I’m yet to see a single spirit claw at me from the shadows.
He lifts a brow. “Then what do you believe in?” he asks, his voice guttural.
“Revenge.”
All the warmth sputters from his eyes, like part of him just slipped away. “Revenge is the loneliest deity of them all, Moonbeam. Take it from someone who knows.”
I open my mouth to speak again, but Bhea cuts in. “If I’m to do this properly, it will take a while. And it will hurt. The cuts are deep. She will have to relive the pain while I mend the damage.”
I realize she’s not warning me, her eyes able to see what most others cannot.
She’s warning him.
“She can do it,” he rumbles, gaze challenging me to do just that.
With my nod, Bhea begins etching her runes, reversing the lifespan of my wounds one vile slash at a time. The King holds my stare as I’m stitched shut in over a hundred ways, though it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like I’m being ripped wider—my insides bared.
Examined.
Perhaps because I’m used to doing this without an audience besides the Runi fixing me new. Without somebody else timing their breaths to my own, as though reminding me to breathe.
Without somebody else tightening their grip on my hands every time I flinch, wiping the sweat from my brow, rubbing tracks across my blanched knuckles as if to calm my rioting heart.
It’s a humble moment of peace despite the pain lancing through me. A quiet moment destined to scream.
It doesn’t matter how much of my skin is smoothed or how deep he kneels at my feet. I’m still an assassin marked for execution come aurora rise, and he’s still a tyrant king.
Iwas working on Allume’s wing stretches this dae, singing her a soft, calming song while extending the fine bones as far as they could go—which is now almost a full extension. She was getting restless, swinging her head around and nudging my side, looking at me with those massive glittery eyes. Like she was trying to say something. She even threw a little flame toward the entrance, which is very unlike her.
I now realize she was challenging it.
Suddenly, she began tilling her wings so fast her gammy one clipped me in the head and threw me back toward Haedeon’s chair. I skidded across the ground and landed amongst a pile of ice boulders Mah’s Moonplume Náthae had recently brought in because we think she might be broody.
I hit my head. Hard.
When I opened my eyes again, Allume was gone, but I could see her through the entrance—fluttering across the sky, light shafting off her brilliant silver hide. Could see her long silken tail dusting the dim with each wonky waggle of her wings. Could see the plumes of aqua flames she kept throwing skyward, accompanied by squealing shrieks. Like a victory cry to the moons.
To her ancestors.
I scrambled up to check on Haedeon …