“Your Majesty.” She gave Kye a deferential bow and a wide berth before leaving, casting a perturbed look at the red glass droplets under his feet.
“It must hurt like hell,” I said, pointing at his cuts. “Can you at least get someone to clean them and maybe put something on them for better healing?”
“Something that would turn to glass the moment it touches me?” He smiled, then shook his head. “I don’t need anyone to treat them even if they could be treated. Look.” He brushed off the blood crystals clinging to his right forearm. “They’re healing already. I’m a fae, remember? It doesn’t take long for our wounds to heal, especially shallow cuts like that. They weren’t even made with an iron blade. Just glass.”
Two guards entered the palace. They found my bed, then carried it up the stairs to the top of the tower as I remained at the bottom of the stairs under Kye’s close supervision.
“You’ll be safer up there,” he assured me.
“And where will you be for the rest of the night?” I asked.
Anxious apprehension vibrated through me at the thought of sleeping alone anywhere in this place, no matter how high from the water that was.
A satisfied smile appeared on Kye’s face. He knew how much I needed him in this terrible darkness, and he clearly loved being needed.
“I’ll be where you are, dearest,” he cooed ever so gently. “After all, it is now my duty to sing you to sleep, isn’t it? I take that duty very, very seriously.”
Chapter 12
Maren
He lied. He didn’t spend the rest of the night with me. But he did sing me his lullaby to lull me into a fitful, restless sleep before he left.
While oscillating between sleep and half-wakefulness, I heard Kye walk up and down the spiral staircase several times through the night. He didn’t spend every minute in the tower with me, but he was looking out for me in the darkness, guarding me from the monsters that lurked in the deep.
As the sun rose in the morning, there was nowhere to hide from it in the glass tower. Bright sun rays found me under my sheet that I’d pulled over my face. I wrinkled my nose and sneezed, then rubbed my eyes before finally opening them to face the day.
A soft chuckle greeted me. “Morning, butterfly.”
Kye sat on the floor, with his back leaning against the wall and his right forearm resting on his bent knee. A grin brightened his face, but it didn’t melt the weariness from his eyes.
At the memory of last night, all remnants of my sleep disappeared. But sunlight held the magic of banishing nightmares away, both real and imagined. It turned the glass walls of the palace below from sinister to almost whimsical, sending the lights dance inside it with playful iridescence.
“You’re adorable when you sleep, little minnow,” Kye murmured.
“And you’re pretty creepy for watching me,” I parried.
There was no bite in my words though. I couldn’t be angry with him in earnest, not with that overwhelming sense of relief that washed over me at finding him close. I didn’t even have it in me to get annoyed at the ridiculous nicknames he kept calling me.
“Oh no, my dear, I’m too handsome to be creepy,” he protested, a smile lighting up his weary eyes.
I exhaled a laugh and stretched my legs under the sheet, wincing at the ache in my muscles.
“I’m not going to ask if you slept well,” he said in a more serious voice. “Not after the night we’ve had.”
I sat up, stretching my neck and shoulders while holding the sheet to my chest. “And I’m not going to ask if you slept at all. I heard you walking up and down the stairs all night.”
“Am I that heavy-footed?” he asked, the glint of a smile returning to his expression.
I soaked up his playful mood; it energized me as much as the sunshine did.
“You’re not,” I admitted. “Rather opposite actually. You’re so graceful and light on your feet, you can be a ballet dancer if this royalty gig doesn’t work out for any reason. But I’m sure you know that, so stop fishing for compliments.”
His smile widened.
“I so rarely get any compliments from you that I’m forced to resort to fishing for them,” he said with a pout that made me laugh again and shake my head.
“Everything is good then?” I wasn’t sure if my question referred exclusively to the monsters being handled for now or his own wellbeing after so many sleepless nights. Overall, helooked better this morning. All his cuts had already turned into pale streaks of scars. Sirens did heal fast.
