I turn back to Ishla. “Ishla, I didn’t know. If you two were…are…a thing, he never told me, but, I promise, nothing has ev—”
A laugh bursts from her lips, loud and explosive, shaking her entire frame. She laughs so hard she doubles over. Tears pool in her eyes as I stand there, stunned and frozen.
It takes a moment for her to regain her composure, wiping at her dampened cheeks as she straightens.
“Oh goodness, I needed that.” She continues to pat her cheeks dry with her apron. “Serafina, you misunderstand,” she says, shaking her head with disbelief still etched across her face. “I am not in love with Ryjax.” Her tone is gentler now. “My partner would be quite displeased if that were the case. She’s quite the jealous little thing.” She chuckles to herself. But now I’m even more confused by her reaction. “I was just…surprised to see youtouchhim.”
“I don’t under—”
“Serafina,” she says, her voice now hushed. I move closer to her. “No onetouches the prince. Ever. He doesn’t like it.”
I blink, her words sinking in slowly. “He doesn’t like…being touched?”
She nods, watching me carefully as I replay in mind all of the times I’ve touched him over the last few weeks.
The brush of my fingers against his wrist when he first brought me to this room.
The way I clung to his shoulders when he held me in the garden.
The quiet, unspoken comfort of his thumb in my hand as we fell asleep.
And just last night, his hands were on my waist, teaching me how to stand when holding a sword.
But there was also that moment when I watched that blond woman run her finger across his naked chest, but then he…grabbed her.
Hestoppedher.
When he’s never stopped me.
“But…why?” Heat floods my cheeks as I meet her gaze.
She gives me that look. The one she’s given me several times now.
“I’d have to ask him,” I say, rolling my eyes, and she nods, a knowing smile tugging at her lips.
Chapter 22
Serafina
“How can I create the shield but still allow you entry?” I ask Nyxa.
We’ve been practicing building my mental walls all morning. Neither of us have mentioned the topic from the other day. About what happened to her family.
“Close your eyes and picture me.”There’s a smile in her voice, and it settles in me like sunlight breaking through a storm.
I missed her. It took nearly two whole days before she crept back into my mind again.
I chuckle at her request. “But I have no idea what you look like.”
“It does not matter. You just have to think of what Irepresent to you.”
What she represents to me. Hope, maybe? Strength? Now that I know her voice—have heard it so consistently in my mind time and time again—I can remember vividly hearing it the night Norin and the other men attacked me.
She told me to fight.
She made mewantto fight, only by that point, it was too late.
“I like that I make you feel that way,”she hums.“So, what looks like hope and strength?”
