The weight in her eyes troubled me; her words even more so. I fought the urge to cup her cheek in my palm, suspecting she would strike me if I did. The initial physical draw I felt to her at the festival had shifted somehow to something more prominent. There was a need to touch her, yes, but something else existed, too.
“Why can I not be here?” I asked, chest constrained.
She pursed her lips. “Because—” She cut herself off, tone exasperated, and ran her hands through her curls. Sighing, she lowered her voice. “Because you’re supposed to bedead.”
“Do you want me to be dead?” I cocked my head to the side, considering, even as her statement hurt.
Sucking in the inside of one of her cheeks, she looked behind her as if making certain we were alone. “How did you escape?”
Shame bridled me. “I ran.”
Huffing, she shoved at my chest weakly with one palm. I stepped back, yielding to her.
“How could you not tell me what you are?” she asked.
“Not tell you what I am?” Remembrance of her frustrating nature returned to me as her question hung in the air. A guard? The son of the King?
The woman gaped her lips to speak, then closed them again, and her expression changed. “You didn’t know.”
Didn’t know what?
When I gave no response, she started again, tone less accusatory this time, almost defeated. “Why are you dressed like a commoner?”
“I have taken work at the inn until I can get word to—” I paused, knowing I could not give the full truth. “To the royal family, to clear my name and expose the true assassin hiding within the capital.”
“Why did you come to Elrune?”
Because my fox stowed away in your wagon.“It is my hope to acquire the services of a huntsman here.”
She frowned. “What are you, then?”
“What am I?”
The woman held out her wrist, covered in wraps. Not following, I pulled back my hood and ran my fingers through my hair, briefly surprised at its shortness.
The corners of the woman’s lips turned up and quivered. “Your hair looks dreadful. Did you do that yourself?”
Self-conscious, I made to pull my hood back up.
She placed her hand on mine, stilling me. “I’m sorry. It’s not”—she grinned and ducked her head—“thatbad.”
“You are a dreadful liar,” I said, but left my hood down regardless. When her hand left mine, I sensed the absence. I looked to her wrists and the wraps that bound them. “Are you hurt?”
“Am I…?”
“I have basic field training,” I told her. “Let me see it.” I reached for her, and though she hesitated briefly, she let me take her left hand in mine. The delicate touch of her shot electricity through my veins and straight to my heart in the most exquisite way. I smiled at her, but her eyes were sad again.
I withdrew the wraps, careful not to agitate the wound. Yet when the cloth fell away, I stiffened and my hands dropped. It was not a wound, but a tattoo. One nearly exactly like the one I’d seen on Kaius’s wrist.
“My father had one just like this.” My words were a whisper, a ghost.
“You really don’t know what it means?”
I raised my cloak at my arm, a vague connection coming over me. I didn’t understand it, yet I knew it meant something.
“I woke with this,” I told her, revealing my own tattoo. Was it not some magical punishment, but a connection that tied me to the stunning and curious woman who stood before me?
Her eyes were knowing, soft, almost sad. “What are you?” she asked again and turned her wrist over to reveal the animal’s face, intricately interwoven into the design.
