“Athesper?” I called after him.
“He will know,” was all thepujeraksaid.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Myvolikiwas empty and quiet when I woke.
There was no sign of Vienne. For a brief, startling moment, I wondered if I had dreamed her up entirely. If she was just the next phase of my fragmenting mind after hallucinations of those I’d killed.
Then I scentedkuveri. In the furs on my bed. The place where she’d lain beside me was disheveled. Someone had placed more fuel onto the fire and the food on the low table was half-eaten.
When I looked down at my body, I found I was dressed in my trews, still in my boots. Confusion descended before I remembered that I’d gone out to the plains, half-hoping I’d find anungira, before I’d returned thevoliki, returned to her, and slept.
Vok.
I felt rested. Recharged. Yet my head was pounding and I needed food. How long had I been asleep?
And where was Vienne?
I didn’t need to wonder for long because just as I pushed up from the bed, someone entered without announcement…and only one being would dare, only because she didn’t know any better.
The white-hairedkallesducked inside, struggling to carry a food tray that was almost twice as large as she was. Her arms shook with the effort but she stopped in her tracks when she saw me sitting up in my bed.
“You’re awake,” she breathed.
My brow furrowed. Justhowlong had I been asleep?
“Three days,” she answered, as if I’d asked the question out loud. Perhaps I had. She struggled towards the table with the tray before setting it down loudly. Some broth from a bowl spilled out but she paid it no mind. Instead, she straightened and looked at me with an assessing gaze.
My body tightened in response to her almost immediately, my nostrils flaring, my cock beginning to stir in my trews. She looked disheveled. Her hair was tied back but tendrils had come loose to frame her face. Something dark stained her cheek, which smeared when she wiped the back of her hand across it. But she was flushed, her eyes bright. She was wearing another tunic of mine—telling me she’d gone searching through my chests—but the same pants.
I drank in the sight of her like she was sweetened wine.
“It’s night now,” she told me, shifting from one foot to the other.
“Where have you been?” I asked, my voice hoarse and husky. Unused.
“Today? With Lokkaru again. I spend my days with her.”
I stilled, wondering if the elderly female had remembered anything about the heartstone as I slept. I didn’t think it would happen but Lokkaru’s mind was unpredictable at best.
I stood, rolling out my neck. That was when I noticed a washing tub in the corner, though the water was probably cold. I desperately wanted to bathe and then I would eat.
Vienne eyed me as I approached her. She nibbled on her bottom lip and a flash of heat raced down my spine. I’d bitten at that bottom lip myself.
“I…I was worried about you,” she admitted softly, darting her gaze down to the food tray. “You were asleep for so long but yourpujeraktold me it was normal.”
I grunted. So she’d spoken with Hedna?
I stopped in front of her. Reaching out my hand, I grasped her chin, forcing her to meet my eyes. Her grey gaze was wide, knowing. Much had transpired between us before I’d gone to sleep. Much that we hadn’t discussed.
“You were worried for me?” I rasped.
She blinked. “Yes.”
She wouldn’t be worried for me unless she’d begun to care for me. Had she begun to trust me too?
I didn’t dwell on how that realization made me feel.
