Page 41 of Ruling the Green

“Hm.” That might be useful. If she could possibly sense someone’s feelings toward me just by their sweat, that might be something valuable. “Anything else?”

“Well, there was this one time…” Her gaze went far away like she was lost in a memory.

“What happened?”

“A man came to my lake, and I’d… I hadn’t been dressed. He wasn’t someone who took ‘no’ for an answer…”

A growl crawled its way up my throat, making me need to cough to cover it. It was ridiculous to feel pissed off and possessive of a past version of Serin—before she was even mine.

For fuck’s sake.

She wasn’t mine now.

“And?”

“And I don’t even remember asking it to or anything like that, but the water rushed up and crashed down on him over and over. I think it might have drowned him if I hadn’t called out to beg it to stop.”

Now that, that could be very useful. But only if we were close to her lake, I suppose.

“Have you ever tried to command water other than your own?”

“Why would I?”

“Would you be willing to try?”

“But why would it respond to me?”

“Isn’t all water, essentially, the same water? It gets lifted up from all water sources and dropped back down onto the earth, refilling the ocean, streams, lakes…”

“Oh. I never thought of it that way. I suppose I could try.”

“Then try. Tomorrow. When you’re back to your full strength. I will send Nira out to the lake first thing in the morning before you wake. Then I will send Vishen when she gets back. You will have more than enough to hold you over. And we have all these other water sources,” I said, waving to all the flasks and jugs, “to test your skills on.”

“I can do that. In here?” she asked, glancing around.

I hadn’t considered how unusual it was for her, being in a palace, behind thick walls that kept out the nature that had been her home for so long.

“For the time being, it is the safest place for you. At least when you only have Nira for protection. As I know more, I will feel more comfortable with you moving around more freely. Besides, I’m pretty sure if you left here alone, the redcaps would follow you.”

A full-body shiver coursed through her.

“Why do they smell like that?”

“It’s the blood.”

“Blood?”

“That’s what smells. The blood on the tops of their heads. They just keep adding to it, and the smell intensifies.” Serin turned a certain shade of green, her eyes going round and panicked—like she might get sick. “The reality of the Unseelie court is not always pleasant,” I admitted. “The redcaps are a tool of my father’s to control me. When I am in charge, they will be gone.”

“At least they’re relatively easy to outsmart.”

“I’m not entirely convinced they have a brain. Or if they do, they somehow share it between the twenty of them.”

“Your quarters are spacious, but what if I’m craving fresh air?”

“I can take you outside if you need it.”

What?