I hear the rustling of clothing before a soft chuckle. “You turn around like we didn’t just consummate in front of a room full of people. I think you’ve already seen everything.”
The sleep aide is already taking hold. It always makes me a little foolish too before it fully sets in. It makes even the worst things humorous. I glance over my left shoulder and see her back to me. Her curves are enough to make me want to fall to my knees and worship her right here, right now. She’s perfect. As she slips the tunic over her head, I turn back around.
“Let’s get you into bed,Ryehro. The medicine will take you under soon.” I pull the blankets from the bed and hold her hand, noticing how she obviously favors her unbranded leg. She slides into the bed and I stop and ask, “This is my bed. Would you like me to take you to yours?”
She yawns before scooting over to Anara’s side. I shake my head and let out an exhale. I can’t think about her. Not right now. My relationship with Anara is something I can’t handle right now. She disappeared before everything happened, I know she is safe. My father would have loved showing off if she wasn’t.
“Your bed or mine, it doesn’t matter. Both are unfamiliar to me. But I feel ... safer ... with you here. I saw you trying to stop your father.” Her words slur as the medicine takes hold. “Stay with me...” She pats the bed beside her.
I shouldn’t. She could change her mind in the morning, but I stay anyway. As I slide into the bed, I let her head rest against my chest, her smell of sea salt and sugar overtaking me. I make sure not to touch her leg.
“Thank you,” she mumbles, even though I’m not sure what she is thanking me for.
My thumb rubs against the soft skin of her shoulder as I stare at the ceiling. I know my father will want to make me pay for my public distaste for him tonight. But right now, at least for a little while, he can’t come in here. As exhaustion takes me, I think I hear a soft knock, but when I don’t hear it again I pull Carnaxa closer before falling asleep.
I stir the fire in front of me with a piece of wood. I threw out all the iron pieces for the fire last night after I cleaned myself up. I want nothing to send her into a shock, not in this room. I want her to feel safe. I glance over my shoulder at her where she sleeps in my bed, her bright strands of hair cascading across the dark fabric.
Members of thePrelstand outside both our doors, refusing anyone's entrance. This is a tradition in Shaston, following theNle Shomandplal ryow.The couple gets the night of their union, the next day and the following night— men get full access to their woman with no interference. Most of the children in Shaston are conceived during this time.
I put down the stick and wipe the debris off my knees before standing up. The sun will set soon and come morning, our time will be over. She slept all day. I check on her every so often, making sure she’s alive, but she just mumbles something about a valley before going back to sleep.
Last night, I thought I heard a knock at the door, but I knew the guards wouldn’t knock, so I checked the door that leads to thewhore road. I’ve avoided it since the last time my father was the one who came barreling out of it. When I opened the door this morning, all I found was a jar of healing ointment. I knew without a doubt it was from Anara. It was her recipe that was inside the jar. I could tell by the minty scent, the ones from the healer don’t smell so good.
“You think she is any better than the whore you’ve loved all these years? The one who made a deal with me before she ever stepped foot in your room.”
I shake my father’s words from memory. He is Ashonera’s best liar. I’ve lived a life of him taking and turning and twisting everything around. He was just trying to irritate me further. I’ve learned to take his physical torture, so now he works harder on my mental stability. She would never betray me. Anara was scared when she was sold to Shaston. I remember the sad look in her eyes and the way my heart tightened when I met her gaze. What will I do now that both of them are inside my home and I’m unable to protect them?
I hear Carnaxa stirring and then she sits up and looks around the room. The way my heart tightened when I saw Anara is nothing compared to the way it feels right now.
eighteen
Carnaxa
It’s still dark from what I can see behind the giant of a man standing in front of me. The fire casts dancing shadows across the room and I know I’ve already been asleep for longer than I expected to be. I am tired of sleeping. I move the covers from me and hiss at the pain radiating from the burn. I couldn’t look at it the night we made it to Ereon’s room. I didn’t want to know what gruesome image the King had seared into my skin. My gaze falls upon the snake againstmy thigh.
“It won’t always be so swollen.” Ereon’s voice breaks the silence. “And I have some ointment that I need to get on the burn. It will help with the pain.”
“Okay,” is all I say. What else is there? As he walks to me, I notice that he has brushed back his hair and is wearing a silk robe over matching pants. He’s washed off the blood that was on him from the night before. Ereon kneels down beside the bed as I let my legs fall off the edge. He opens the jar and his fingers touch my knee slightly before pushing it apart from the other. I take a deep breath and try to forget about the pain.
“I haven’t forgotten what I asked you last night,” I mention to him as his calloused fingers slather the ointment across the injury before wrapping a piece of gauze around the wound.
His gaze flicks to mine before returning to his work. “What do you want to know?” He stands up, tossing the rest of the supplies on the bed behind us.
“Everything.”
He nods his head and runs his hand through his hair, debating. Then he looks at me and nods again. He sits across from me on the chaise.
“I’ll tell you what I know. I’ll start from the first time I met you.”
I don’t know how long Ereon has been talking. It could have been minutes or hours, but he’s kept his word. He told me of the way he felt when I entered my father’s throne room upon his arrival, ofthe way he acted when he realized I would often ignore the rules set out for me. He told me a tale of us walking on the beach, how I hated him, hated leaving Antalis, and how we traveled to Midaeliea and of my attack. How he was afraid he wouldn’t find me, and how Thylas and him agreed to a peace between them during that time. How thekhindbacked away when we were under threat in the Cartilen Pass, and how we all collapsed at the border of Shaston. Our trip to the village for medical care, and when he prayed to my goddess with Thylas. Some memories came back as he spoke, as if lit by candle light. A glance here, a word there. They aren’t complete.
But the part that I can’t seem to wrap my mind around is the story he weaves of the night after the attack. The moment he saw the twin drop ripples connecting me to both him and Thylas. I take a drink of the water, trying to find words. He’s been muted for a while now, letting me take in everything he told me.
“So the three of us ...” I stop, my cheeks heating. “You, Thylas, and I ... were together?”
He told me during the consummation that I wasn’t a maiden anymore, but I didn’t know why. I didn’t have time to think about it. From what Ereon tells me, I was in love with Thylas, and Thylas loves me still. Ereon did what he could by letting us act on those feelings. He chuckles under his breath and sits back down beside me on the edge of the bed. We’ve taken turns pacing the room, sitting on the chaise, moving from one area to another, but I always seem to come back here.
“No — you and Thylas were together. I was just able to join for a moment, by your choice. But I was there for you. The Captain — now the Ambassador — isn’t exactly my type.”
