My legs round his waist. His hands in my hair.
Growling with irritation, I roll over to face the wall, the chill in the air now exacerbated by my flushed cheeks.
I wrap my arms round myself as another cool draught blows in from under the door, my whole body wracked with shivers.
All of a sudden, there’s a long-suffering sigh, followed by the twang of mattress springs. I let out a feeble squeak of protest as I’m lifted effortlessly off the floor and dumped unceremoniously on to the bed.
‘What’re youdoing?’ I hiss.
‘How am I supposed to sleep with all that teeth-chattering going on?’ Fox retorts, climbing in the other side.
The bed is by no means large. He lies mere inches away from me in the darkness. I can just make out the steady rise and fall of his chest.
This is a bad idea. Averybad idea. I have every intention of returning to my spot on the floor. But perhaps … perhaps I should stay and warm up, just for a minute or two.
The moon emerges from behind a cloud, briefly illuminating the room. Fox stares up at the ceiling, turning the Eye of the Past over and over in his palm. Moonlight glances off his cheekbones, the bow of his lips, the cobbled muscles of his chest, turning his sun-kissed skin silver. And I just lie there, looking at him.
Fox Calloway Castellion. The Earth Cleaver, whose broken heart ripped the realm in two. The sadistic killer with Healer’s hands. The hunter who has never slain an animal. The Prince of Slavers who liberates the enslaved. He truly is the perfect conundrum. Every time I think I’ve gothim figured out, he obliterates the blueprint and I have to start again.
His eyelashes are so long they cast their own shadows. For a moment all I can think about is the way they brushed against my neck as he trailed soft kisses down my throat.
Fox’s eyes meet mine, and I forget how to breathe.
‘You’re thinking,’ he says quietly. ‘What are you thinking about?’
And maybe it’s because it’s easier to be honest in the dark, or maybe it’s because I’m not convinced I’ll have the courage to, but I hold his gaze like a grudge, then tell him, ‘You.’
Fox grows very still, as if that one word had the ability to turn him to stone.
‘Why do you let everyone believe all those terrible things about you?’ I whisper.
He shifts on to his side, facing me. ‘It serves a purpose,’ he says, his voice gentle. ‘People see what you want them to see. Act the part and you become the part.’
‘We all have our roles to play,’ I murmur, recalling his words.
Fox smiles, and I can feel my heart beating. ‘This way, I was untouchable.Free. I could do as I pleased, go anywhere I wanted.’
‘I always envied you that,’ I admit. ‘I used to think it so desperately unfair that you were off sailing the world while I was locked up in Harglade Hall.’
He’s silent for a moment, mulling this over. Then he says, ‘I’ll show you, if you like.’
‘Show me what?’
His hand finds mine in the darkness, callused and warm. ‘The world.’
And suddenly I’m no longer lying in a rickety bed in the Wildlands, but standing at the crest of a sand dune in Veridia, gazing out at miles upon miles of endless desert.
The visions melt into one another, each more breathtaking than the last. We scale the canyons of Havar, wade across the saltmarshes of Nepta, walk through the vibrant rainforests of Serolia. I watch a phoenix burst into flames. I see kelpies and sirens and sea dragons, moon panthers and starpools, flowers as tall as trees, and trees as tall as mountains. It’s everything I’ve ever dreamed of and more. The stories of my childhood come to life, words on a page given form. Mythic and treacherous and utterly beautiful.
I don’t remember falling asleep, but when I wake, sunlight is streaming into the room, and Fox is still holding my hand.
33
Flint
The Greenwood is enveloped in a dense shroud of gloom and carpeted with a thick layer of moss.
There’s not so much as a faint trill of birdsong or rustling of leaves. It’s a dead, empty kind of silence, as though this part of the world has been forgotten, and yet I can’t shake the feeling that we’re not alone. I’m thankful for the comforting weight of the bow slung across my back. Whatever danger lurks among the darkened trees will not find me defenceless.
