I can’t stop one corner of my mouth from twitching upward. “No.”
I prepare to step away and close the door, but she moves in a flash, her palm pressing to my chest. The breath catches in my throat at how fast she moved, but what surprises me more than her speed is that the pressure of her hand feels deliberately restrained.
She takes a deep breath, an alluring pull of air. “Will you please eat dinner with me?”
Once again, I study her features, the brightness in her eyes and the fucking enticing curve of her lips.
I answer more softly this time. “No.”
Her heartbeats become heavy and her face falls. “Okay.”
She lifts her hand from my chest and I fight the urge to press her palm back to me, to tell her I changed my mind.
I let her go.
Her footfalls are quiet as she steps into the main room and disappears down the hallway, leaving me in the open doorway.
I rub the heel of my palm across my heart and force myself to close the door.
When I turn, I find Nara staring at me.
“Go,” I say, abruptly dismissing her. “Hunt.”
She snarls and doesn’t budge.
I stare right back at her. “I can’t afford distractions at nighttime. Least of all to lose focus by having dinner.” With a woman whose very breaths push and pull at me.
I’m certain that the one night I’m distracted will be the night Iker sends another assassin. I won’t tempt fate just because I don’t want to eat alone.
Even if I’d give anything for the chance to share a peaceful meal with Thyra.
Nara scowls back at me as she slinks along the path and away into the distance.
Leaning up against the external wall, I wait for darkness to descend. Within the Rose Room, Thyra spends a much shorter time in the bath before making her way, not into the main room, but into the back garden for the first time in days.
I stiffen when she starts to hum, expecting her to be communicating with the Lethian threads, but I’m surprised when she doesn’t sing the passion-filled melody that could call the armor to her body.
Her humming is soft. Sad. Off-key.
She and I have barely spoken to each other these last five days. I’ve escorted her to training and back again, delivering her to and from the Rose Room each day. And yet I’ve heard everything she has said and done. I can’t close my ears to any of it. How hard she’s training, every determined exhalation, every cracking punch and kick against wood, louder with each passing day.
In all that time, Thyra hasn’t had a single Oracle vision. No blade visions, either.
When I first brought her here, she vowed she would sleep where I sleep and I reasoned that even if I’m outside, I’m still…here. Close to her.
But I’m not. I haven’t been part of any of it, even though she hasn’t pushed me away.
Now, when she returns to the main room, I listen to her pause for a long time near the entrance to the hallway, stopped there, her breath caught.
A whisper of sound tells me she’s brushing her fingertips against…the wall?
But why?
At that moment, the staff appears, and I wait for them to place the baskets onto the path, as they’ve learned to do.
Except that one of them doesn’t stop there. While the othertwo put down their baskets and hurry away, the third staff member proceeds hesitantly toward me.
She’s the oldest member of the staff and the only one with whom Lilis deigns to speak. I know all of my staff members’ names, and this woman’s in particular.
