“Right. Then let’s get it sorted,” he says with a satisfied smile.
He turns and plunges a thin metal rod into the flames, letting it sit for a long moment while my heart beats me up from the inside. When he pulls it out, its pointed tip glows with a fiery pulse, much like my needle after I’d fire the tip in my candle flame.
He threads a tiny piece of silver wire against the pinched mouth of the iron latch, then brings the blazing prong close.
I swallow words trying to bludgeon my throat, desperate to jerk away—to escape the radiating heat and my tethered fate.
The scalding metalchewsthe fragile skin on the inside of my wrist—the smell of burnt flesh smacking me in the senses, gouging through my conscience, dashing visions across my mind.
Burnt bodies.
Blistered skin that slid away. Stuck to my palms.
I clench my teeth, watching through a sheen of unshed tears as he touches the flaming tip against the wire, and it turns to liquid, seeping into the latch’s nooks and crannies. Cainon tips a cup of water over the permanent seal, and it sizzles much like the blood in my veins and the hurt on my wrist.
He just burned me …
Soldered my cupla in place …
Turned it into a shackle …
What’s more, I practicallyaskedhim to.
I swallow, pulling my arm close to cradle it, fingers trembling, a fireball burning on the tip of my tongue.
“That should prevent any further breaks. You’re happy, yes?”
Similar words are soldered through the folds of my brain from the night he first slipped this cupla around my wrist …
This is what you wanted, yes?
No.
This is not what I want. Who I am.
I can’t live with a bitten tongue and unsaid words in my chest.
A little part of my soul slips further away with every deep throb on my wrist—the part that thought I could secure these ships without burning myself to the ground.
“Petal?”
I look up, give him a small smile, and nod.
“Good,” he murmurs, easing around the table. He takes my hand, brings my knuckles to his lips, and plants a gentle kiss on the wounds there. “What happened to these?”
“I caved a man’s face in for hurting someone I care about,” I say, holding his unflinching stare.
He laughs, low and throaty, brushing his lips across them again. “Seriously, though. Did you fall?”
You have no idea.
“Just a little trip. Grazed them on a wall.By the way, I enjoyed seeing your city today.”
His eyes light up. “You did?”
I nod. “Though I did overhear someone mention a Vruk was roaming not far from your city wall …”
“What?” His head kicks back, a flash of fear in his eyes. “Did you tell anyone?”
