I looked to the king. “What would you like me to write?”
His face softened into his disconcerting, unreadable expression, blue eyes fixed to mine. “Something simple for now. Tell them to sit down.”
I wrote the small sentence smoothly and had barely finished signing my name when the paper was snatched from my hands. General Lenek strode from the tent, and everyone else followed to see the outcome of this latest test. All except Lord Kheal. Elbows propped on the table, his critical eyes assessed me over crossed hands.
I shifted under his assessment. Terym hadn’t requested I follow, and my presence would defeat the purpose of the test,but the way the old lord watched me was unnerving, so I darted my gaze around the tent, looking anywhere but at his weathered face.
“Toreshire?” Kheal’s brittle voice drew my attention back to him.
“Sorry?”
His eyes narrowed. Though his frail body exhausted quickly, his cool eyes were sharp, and they bore into me now. “The king. He found you in Toreshire?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting.”
Gooseflesh prickled along my arms. Something about the way he said the word hinted at more than just a comment on our small village.
His hand shook when he reached for his goblet of wine, and only after he took a long drink, did he continue, “An odd place to settle after your parents’ deaths. Why did you choose it?”
“W-what?” My heart thudded furiously against my ribs. It wasn’t hard to guess our parents were dead, I admitted to the king I was all Eleanor had. But how did he know we hadn’t always lived in Toreshire. I hadn’t mentioned it to anyone. Unless the king and his men asked around while they were there.
“I would have picked the Western Territory myself,” Kheal went on, oblivious to the way my hands now clenched the edge of the table. “Before he died, the senior Harkin was particularly clueless, not a lot going on up there.” He tapped his temple lightly a few times.
Fear was a living, breathing thing inside me. Choking me wholly. Heknewsomething. I didn’t know if it was the truth or if he suspected something else. My breathing quickened, hands whitening as I gripped the table tighter. I had to remain conscious to find out what he knew.
“Although, North is a good second. Zyome won’t leave the bottle alone enough to remember what day it is, let alone know what happens within his territory.”
No one knows.
I leaned back in my chair, doing my best to feign casualness as I spoke. “I don’t know what you mean. We moved to Toreshire so I could work and raise my sister.”
Kheal smiled in light amusement. “There weren’t taverns in other villages?”
“Mr. Port was a family friend.” Lie. I didn’t know the man from a bar of soap before we arrived in Toreshire, but I doubted the king’s investigations told him so. Mr. Port agreed to the ruse when I first arrived, to protect my reputation and his own. Why else would he hire a seventeen-year-old girl with her younger sister in tow?
“The king is different to other men.” The sudden change in subject gave me whiplash. “Watching your mother waste away with no power to stop it does something to a young mind.”
I was well aware of what childhood trauma could do to you; I had plenty of my own.
Kheal chuckled when I didn’t respond, then waved me away. “I don’t think the king will require you for the rest of the day. You may go.”
He didn’t have to tell me twice. I hurried from the tent, fleeing the elderly man’s scrutinizing gaze, with Shade at my heels. Past the now-brown field, the scent of rotting blooms only added to the panic and confusion warring inside me. I didn’t stop until I ducked inside my tent. Then I paced the space as our conversation played over in my mind.
There was no way he could know, he was simply feeling me out. Trying to find dirt on me while he had me alone. That’s all it was.
Purloe flowers invaded my senses, and I stopped wearing a track into the ground. A light fingertip trailed down my arm, from elbow to wrist, and I turned to face Shade. He was close again—too close.
“Are you okay?” His deep rumbling voice vibrated through me, and I couldn’t stop the physical shiver it elicited. I stared at his solid chest, then let my body get the best of me and leaned my forehead against him. Warm and hard. The consistent humming louder with my head so close to him, touching him. His heartbeat. That was the source. His heart beating faster than should be possible.
“Adelia.”
I shivered again and closed my eyes, the sound settling deep in my core. I wanted to give in so badly, to lose myself in this strange connection. I had been right about Shade being a distraction. After Kheal alluded to knowing my biggest secret, or at least something about it, all I could think about was losing myself in Shade in a way I had never been tempted to before.
His hands trailed up my arms again, and I leaned farther into his touch. “Tell me.”
I pulled back, stepping out of his space. Swirling silver orbs met mine, and I closed my want away, shutting it behind the stone walls guarding every personal desire deep within my chest. “I’m fine.”
