“You don’t get to do that.” I fist his cloak and pull him into me, his chest colliding with mine. “You don’t get to make me the villain when it was you who handed me the blade.” I shove him away. “No amount of magick will ever bring her back, Galen. Nothing will change Rose’s fate.” A flicker of hurt flashes across his face but I turn before I can think twice.
“Roman!” he shouts again and again but still, I don’t stop until his shouts fade to nothing, drowned out by the rising rain.
The innkeeper greets me with a scowl as I hurry inside. My boots squelch against the stone floor, my hands tingling from the damp cold. “I need someone to ready my horse.”
He looks up and recognition dons on him when he glances at the grizzly bear crest on my cloak.
“Of course,” he says hastily.
“I also need directions.” My cheeks heat but I push past my embarrassment. That I have been king for five years, have lived here my entire life, and know very little of my own country.
“Where to, Your Majesty?”
Taking a deep breath, I begin to wring out my cloak, letting the water pool on the floor at my feet. “To the Jade Guild.”
Thirty-Two
Elora
Slouching on the bed,I lean over to unlace my boots. My body is on fire after performing Sam’s Ceremony, but my mind is restless, caught on a loop.
The way she looked not at me, but just to my side. The way her eyes widened and welled with tears. The way she spoke my name, as if she were about to speak a truth I’m not certain I’m ready to hear.
Sighing, I cradle my head in my hands. For so many nights I’ve wished nothing more than to hear from my mother, and yet when the opportunity presented itself, I froze.
“Typical,” I mutter but before I can beat myself up further, my attention draws to the door as it opens with a high-pitched squeak.
Sorin pokes his head in. “Can I come in?”
Smiling, I kick off my boots. “You don’t need to ask, it’s your room too,” I remind him. I’ll admit being at the Jade Guild has been anything but easy. Comfortable, but getting readjusted after so long in Valebridge has been difficult.
He steps in all the way, closing the door behind him. “Right.” He joins me on the bed. “I keep forgetting that.”
Sorin brushes a soft kiss to my forehead before untying his boots as well.
“Those feeling any better?” I ask, noting the weariness lining his eyes and bruises lining his knuckles.
He sighs, but doesn’t answer as he pulls off his boots.
My eyes linger on the curve of his back, the muscles there more defined with his shirt pulled taut. His hand finds mine, as it always does and some piece of me begins to settle and soothe under his touch. His scent of pine and tobacco, intoxicating. So many nights I dreamt of him. So many nights, I wondered if I’d ever be close with him again. I kiss his red knuckles lightly, smiling at the absurdity of his and Jarek’s fight.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.” Sorin leans further back and takes his hand with him, putting just enough space between us to make me question why he’s here in the first place. Puzzled, I busy my hands with the hem of my shirt.
“What is it?” My defensive walls click into place before I can remind myself that this is Sorin and he is on my side. Always.
Sorin shrugs before spinning the ring on his finger round and round. He’s nervous. Why is he nervous? Slumping forward, he rests his elbows on the tops of his thighs, looking straight ahead and not at me.
My stomach drops, my gnawing anxiety beginning its feast.
“When we were at the Onyx Guild, I noticed something interesting. Something I hadn’t noticed before we were separated,” Sorin says, his knee beginning to bounce.
The anxiety spreads, turning my insides out and my outsides prickling. It feels like ages before Sorin turns to me, the weariness I noticed before in his eyes I realize now is actually anger.
“Ink, permanently marked upon your skin.”
Swallowing thickly, I say nothing.
“I think I would have seen the mark before, considering how little we typically wear in each other’s company.” He doesn’t smirk, doesn’t laugh as he usually ends most conversations.
