“Lory.”
Smooth velvet with an edge of danger. His familiar voice enveloped her in an invisible caress as she opened her eyes to bright daylight.
“About time, Gutter Gem. I’ve been waiting for you to follow my invitation for a while.”
“Invitation?” Sitting up in a wide bed of golden silk and soft pillows, Lory rolled her shoulders, expectant of yet another onslaught of agony.
Not a hint of pain. Not even some remaining tenderness.
“Where are we?” Lory scanned the tall, cream-walled space, gaze catching on the front of windows next to the bed. Outside, there was no sand, no desert—only lush green spread as far as she could see, and the air was comfortably cool and humid, perfect to take a deep breath after nearly losing her head. She’d never seen anything so beautiful.
“A dream.” Khayrivven sat down at the edge of the bed, lacing his fingers together in his lap and scanning her face. “You look better. Any pain?”
Lory shook her head.
“Good, that means I didn’t fuck up this time.”
Sliding back against the headboard, Lory made sure she was wearing proper clothes and found herself wearing a plain, soft cotton shirt and long, wide-legged pants, both in the cream of the walls with golden accents. Nothing like the barely-there nightgown Khayrivven had put on her in the last dream he’d dragged her into. “You did that in the mess hall.”
Khayrivven cocked his head, his black waves shimmering in the soft sunlight filtering in through the windows. Wet stains cover his shirt and the knees of his pants, where he’d kneeled in what could have very well been just another dream but felt so much more real, even as a memory.
“Fuck up? I did, didn’t I?” A bitter smile quirked his lips, his gaze flicking to the greenery outside the windows.
Yes, he had. And not just then, but that wasn’t what Lory had been meaning to say.
“You pulled me into a dream in the mess hall without me being asleep. How does that work?”
Khayrivven’s brows wandered up on his forehead. “So, that’s what’s bothering you? Not that they marked you as Flame-born or that you just handed your life and your free will over to King Ulder, or that you’ll probably end up dead after the three months are over?”
Lory hadn’t even thought about what happened, too fresh the trauma and too dazzling the view. But the dream was only a reprieve, and reality would be waiting for her when she woke up. Lips pursed, Lory remained quiet.
“Usually, dreamweavers can visit the sleeping and manipulate their dreams. My abilities go a step further.” As if admitting to a crime, he lowered his head. “I can induce dreams to the waking.”
Lory swallowed the questions popping into her mind. Khayrivven was speaking, and he had answered a question about his magic. Hadn’t Lenya mentioned something about his powers?
And has he shown you the sort of magic he holds? Has he ever told you why he’s the youngest hand at Ashthorn?
“Only parts of it, and those parts aren’t the ones that would have gotten you killed.” His eyes, gray like the clouds brewing above the desert before a thunderstorm, found hers, and no matter how Lory wanted to feel nothing, somethingsprang to life in her stomach—a thin trickle of warmth that could have been her magic or something more. Not breaking the connection, Khayrivven reached for the hem of his shirt, pulling it over his head and dropping it on the silken sheets at Lory’s feet.
And Guardians be damned if the sight didn’t make that warmth turn into smoldering embers—embers like the ones heating the branding iron.
Before she could dive into panic, Khayrivven’s chest heaved in a shaky breath, and he scooted closer, until his hand was braced next to her thigh and his eyes pinned her with the sort of look that could have set cities on fire.
“Not what you think, Gutter Gem,” was all he said before he turned to the side, exposing his right shoulder just enough to show her a glimpse of a V-shaped scar with swirls atop the wide end of the V.
The outlines were so faint they had become nearly invisible, but Lory recognized the torch, anyway. This was a symbol of a torch, burned into his flesh the same way Lenya had it burned into hers.
Unthinking, Lory lifted her hand, leaning forward so she could take a better look, and her fingers absently traced the lines along his brand. A ripple ran through the muscles cording Khayrivven’s back as he shuddered under her touch.
“Flame-born,” she whispered, and when Khayrivven turned around, Lory’s hand sliding over his shoulder, his biceps, his forearm, a tear glistened in his eye.
Nineteen
After Khayrivven releasedher from the dream, he and Anees left Lory in the clean chamber to heal.
“I’ll be back in a few days,” the Flame-born said with an unreadable expression, his eyes the only part of him giving away the fire living beneath his skin.
Anees had followed him out of the room, her hand on his forearm, not very unlike the way Lory had touched him in her dream. Her pitiful smile spoke volumes about how much she knew about Khayrivven’s secret. One Lory supposed the other students had no clue about or they wouldn’t accept him as a teacher. That left the only question: What role did Aiden play in this? Was he here merely because his ice magic kept fire in check? If Ulder feared fire magicso much, why make someone with that horrible, volatile power a captain and even appoint them hand at Ashthorn? Why hand him any power at all? Why not kill him instead? Who else knew? Were there others? And what the fuck was this assassin job she’d agreed to?
