My eyes fly open as I gasp, air rushing into me like I’ve been stuck underwater and have finally broken the surface. My vision is blurry, odd shapes and colors melding together and swirling.
“Nox,” I rasp out, but it’s hardly a noise as the weight of the world around us begins to suffocate me. Layers upon layers slam into me, and the last thing I hear before darkness once again takes over is Nox calling out my name.
My eyes flutter open, the room I remembered to be lit with sun now draped in night. I immediately wiggle my fingers and find that they are much easier to move, free of any prickling sensation. It’s painful to swallow, my throat raw and scratchy. Turning my head slowly, I look to my side and see a figure outlined on the bed next to me. Even with only the light of one of those small flames on the other side of the room, I still know it’s Nox.Nox—how easy his name now sounds in my head, not quite as foreign as it once did.
I trace his face with my eyes, noting how his body is tense even at rest. Balled fists lay in front of him like he’s ready to strike as soon as a threat is revealed. His breathing is easy but not deep enough to suggest that he’s fully asleep.
Moving as quietly as I can, I change my position so that I’m lying on my side facing him. Our bodies are mirrored on the bed, not quite knee-to-knee but certainly heart-to-heart. Nox’s breathing stays even, his body curled to take up the smallest amount of the bed, which is still almost half of it because he is so big. Tenderly, afraid to disturb the air around him, I lift my hand and gently push my fingers through his hair. Simultaneously, we both release a deeper exhale, as if touching somehow unlocked a breath.
I think about the first time I ever touched Nox’s hair during our passionate first kiss. It was the pinnacle of a fixation that seems so silly now. Of all the things I could possibly be obsessed with about Nox—and there were many to choose from—one of the greatest longings I had was simply to run my fingers through his sable waves. It seemed so simple, so banal, but I suppose to someone who had spent her life alone and in a tower, the simplest things sometimes felt the most monumental.
My fingers trail out of his hair and move achingly slowly down his temple, his skin soft under my touch. Smoothnessgives way to stubble the closer I get to his jaw. My thumb brushes beneath his lower lip, and emotion constricts my throat.
Staring at him like this, with my touch unhurried, ushers in memories of the quiet moments at the inn. When he gave me a journal; when we confessed that we loved each other. It felt less like an admission and more like an acknowledgment of the inevitable. After my time in the Middle, after the things I had seen there, I could find the truth in that. In the idea that, despite whatever my fate is to be, it might have always led to this somehow—to him and me.
“Rhea?” He says my name roughly as his eyes open.
“Hi,” I respond quietly.
Nox shoots up to sit, rubbing a hand over his face as if to wake himself from a dream. His wide gaze never leaves mine while his chest heaves with rapid breaths. I join him in sitting up, my arms a little shaky from the inactivity of however long I’ve been lying here.
“Are you really awake? Are you really here?” He reaches out to touch me but stops midway.
“Yes.” The word is tough with my throat so dry, and it makes something in Nox snap out of his mystified state.
He quickly moves off the bed, crossing out into the sitting room where a small table with a silver tray glints under a dancing flame—a golden pitcher and glass cups stacked on top. Returning to my side, he hands me a glass of water, the cool liquid quelling my aching throat. My hand shakes as I hand it back to him, his fingers lingering over mine.
“I’m okay,” I whisper.
He pushes the wayward strands of hair back from his forehead, the movement making a small smile uncurl on my face. “Like hell you are,” he says warily.
Turning on the bed, my legs dangle off the edge as I watch him pace in front me. His bare feet are silent, the only tell to hismovement the lightly squeaking wooden floorboards beneath them.
“I promise I’m fine.” Deciding I want to prove it to him, I try to stand and immediately crumple under my own weight.
Nox moves quickly, catching me before I drop to the floor. “Fine?” he questions, our chests flush together.
“Okay, maybe my legs are a little stiff, but I’ve been in bed for, what, a day or two?”
Nox’s fingers tighten on my back as he holds me, his gaze piercing. “Try six days.”
I freeze, my hands holding on to the front of his thin gray shirt causing the fabric to bunch. “That can’t be right,” I murmur. “You’re sure?”
“I have counted every hour—everyminute—since you passed out, Rhea. I’m sure.” His anxious voice hits me harshly, and guilt ties my stomach in knots. “It is the sixth night.”
“Have you stayed here the whole time?”
“I wasn’t going to leave you. I promised you I never would.” I close my eyes and lean my forehead onto his chest, breathing him in. “Only you could ever hold that power over me,” he confesses.
“I don’t want that power. I don’t want to do that to you. And I want to talk about everything, truly I do. But learning I have been laying in a bed for six days has left me somehow more exhausted and desperately wanting to take a bath. And hungry.” I realize with a small laugh.
Nox’s hand relaxes on my back as it moves in soothing strokes. “Why don’t you take a shower, and I’ll have some food brought up. And then we can talk.”
My head lifts from his chest, our eyes connecting through a chasm of the unspoken. “And then we can talk,” I agree.
Nox shows me how to use the shower, the mechanics the same as the one I used in Celatum. Standing under the warmwater, I nearly jolt at the realization that Celatum and our entire night at the inn was apparently over a week ago. I had been in the Middle for the equivalent of six nights, and yet it felt like less than half of that. My heart pounds as I turn off the water and grab a soft black towel to dry myself with.
The scent of Nox is everywhere in his bathroom and now on my skin, and I can’t say that I dislike it. He had left a pair of sleeping clothes that I think must have been his sister’s on the counter, the silk short bottoms and sleeveless top soft against my skin and the color a pretty dark blue.
