I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to think about him bathing. My mind kept replaying being in the bath with him after he finished his punishment for keeping my ability a secret. It was the first time I’d been able to go into one since Kole.
I was thankful I now had a positive memory, that Kole wasn’t consuming my thoughts, but I couldn’t get rid of the hurt I felt from him not telling me the truth. I trusted him fully, so stupidly, foolishly fully. That night when he saidno more lies, I believed him, and I never looked back. I gave him blind faith when I barely knew him, only to find out he kept the biggest secrets of all from me.
I felt stupid.
He made me believe the prophecy was aboutmewhen it was abouthimall along.He warned me to stay away from Sie, that a child with him would become the chosen one. It gave me conflicting thoughts. I didn’t understand why I was so attracted to Tezya if I was destined to be with Sie, because that’s how I interpreted what he said to me. Why didn’t he just tell me? What was the purpose of me thinking it was about Sie?
The sound of water came from behind me, and a secondlater, I felt it in my veins. Now that I was learning to master my powers, I noticed it everywhere. It called to me, begging me to wield it—drops of sweat dripping down someone’s back, to the lingering dew over the morning grass. Everywhere water was, it sang to me, begging me to manipulate it. And whenever someone else was using their abilities, my enhancement called to that, begging to merge with whatever power they were using.
I instantly regretted my decision to not bathe. I missed the way water used to soothe me. Before everything happened, back when I was at school in LakeWood, soaking in the tub was my go-to way of calming down. Now, I was an anxious mess, and my emotions were all over the place.
The room we were stuck in was sticky. My clothes were clinging to me, adding to another layer of my anxiety. I focused on my own sweat, moving the liquid as I guided it off me until my clothes were dry and a small puddle formed at my feet, but I knew the smell lingered. It was another reason why I regretted declining the shower, but I wasn’t about to admit that now.
I needed to do something other than just sit here. I was terrified for my friends and doing nothing was only letting my thoughts fester. I didn’t think they’d kill Dovelyn or Kallon. They were too important to the King—Dove because she was the princess and Kallon for her portals—but they were still committing treason. They all were in order to help us.
But Peter… he wasn’t important to the crown. If he got caught, he wouldn’t be held to the same standards as them. He was the one I was worried about the most. He was also the most likely person to do something unplanned in order to save Sie.
I kept picturing Peter’s body hanging limply from the ceiling, with his dress in shreds and his back in ribbons. I shook my head, feeling my heart rate accelerate. He went through all of that just to be my maid, and I knew his friendship with Sie was even stronger. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to save him.
The sun was rising higher in the sky, filling the tiny room with a translucent warm light. Once they were back, we’d leave this place to head north—whatever that meant.
I’d been so focused on the task at hand, on busying myself with trying to rescue Sie, that I never actually thought about what would happen if we did.
I tried not to think about what it would mean if—when—Sie returned. Would he look the same as I last saw him, or would he be even more sickly than I remembered? He hadn’t been locked in the underwater prison for long, but a lot could happen in a short period of time. I knew firsthand what even a few days of being locked in a cell could do to your body, and Peter said he’d die without seeing a healer…
Did they torture him? Was he being fed? Allowed water? I had to remind myself he knowingly sent me to the same fate. He handed me over to the Lux King with no explanation. I was sentenced to twenty-seven days in a cage. Twenty-seven days of having a whip ruin my back, of being tortured for information about him. And before that, I was starved and left in solitude in the Tennebrisian dungeons, and he never once tried to speak with me. Never once tried to help me.
Our last conversation flashed in my memory. Howhewas mad atmefor being with Tezya. Howhesaid that he would forgiveme. How he wanted to be with me. I honestly had no idea what my feelings were anymore. I knew I wasn’t rescuing him just because of the guilt. I cared for him to some degree, but things were different with Tezya. It was real with him. I knew it wasn’t my powers pretending and manifesting into thinking we were one. Ifeltthe bond work. Deep in my bones and to my core, I could feel Tezya’s connection to me and mine to him. Whereas Sie just thought he felt a connection. He mistook my enhancement for the bond. It wasn’t real. The attraction we had for each other was, but not the connection.
I huffed. Itwasreal with Tezya. But now I couldn’t decipher reality from his lies, and I wasn’t sure where it left us.
More steam wafted into the room as Tezya opened the door and walked in. A towel was wrapped around his hips. I hated that I looked, that I kept staring.
My body leaned toward him on instinct. I was drawn to him. To the water, to his soul, to everything.
Droplets sprayed onto me as he shook out his bone-white hair. The pieces in the front were getting longer and starting to block his eyes. I watched as he raised his arm, dragging his fingers through the strands, and pushing them away from his face. My eyes trailed down his arm, scanning his markings as they wrapped around his bicep.
The flames on him were beautiful. I had memorized each one from when he was forced to stab himself, and I had to watch. I wasn’t scared of his fire, not after that day. Looking at the markings on his skin was the first time I thought flames were beautiful instead of terrifying.
I thought I had memorized every part of him. I thought I knew him so well after that day. But he had more markings—Tennebrisian markings. There was another part of him I knew nothing about.
I was so focused on gawking at his Luxian markings scattered across his broad chest, arms, and up his neck that I didn’t realize I’d been staring at him. But when I looked up, I found him staring right back. My eyes flicked to his scab over his palm before I met his gaze again.
He took a step closer, then another. I stood from the bed, unsure what I was planning on doing or why I moved in the first place, but I wanted to be near him. Ineededto be near him. I wanted to kiss him, I wanted to trace my hands across his stomach, and feel everything and nothing all at once. Whenever I was with him, it was so easy to get lost, so easy to forget about everything around us.
“Scotlind, I—” His words were interrupted as purple and black smoke filled the room. The next breath, Kallon, Dovelyn, and Peter portaled in. The princess fell to her knees, collapsing onto the ground before I caught a glimpse of black hair.
Sie was sagged between Peter and Kallon.
They did it.
EIGHT
TEZYA
I couldn’t tellif I was more relieved or pissed off. I desperately needed to talk with Scottie. I needed to fix things before Sie showed up. Some selfish part of me didn’t want to rescue him. I was scared as hell for what would happen after she saw him.
But I was worried about my friends more, and I was so fucking grateful to see they were all alive. I knew they were more than capable. We’d pulled off enough undercover missions together in the past for me to know they could handle this, but it was the first time I had to sit back and wait.
