Someone did this to me while I was sleeping.
What else did they do?
How could I have slept through it?
I want to scream. To scrape away the mark and all the skin around it until there's nothing left for anyone to lay claim to. But I manage to stay calm, to take one deep breath, and then another, pressing the heels of my hands against my eyes until the impulse passes.
Then I notice what's sitting on the bedside table.
A bouquet of flowers, most of which are blue verbena.
The same flowers I'd planned to decorate with on my wedding day.
Chapter Forty-Two
The feverish heat in my skin is back, as is the throbbing in my head, but I don't care.
I can't spend another second in this bed.
I have to get up. I have to get out. I have to find someone and warn them that Malachi obviously still has spies inside this palace, that we've just entered a new stage in this dark, terrible game he's playing—that he’s apparently been playing foryears.
My legs are unsteady beneath me as I leave the room, my vision threatening to blur at the edges every time I turn my head too quickly. The mark on my finger throbs with every heartbeat. I keep my fist curled around it, as if I could hide it from myself, and I trudge onward.
Fate is on my side; I don't have to travel far in my panicked, bedraggled state before I spot Reave coming down the hallway. Seeing him triggers a flood of emotions—such a massive, jumbled rush of them that I have to brace my hand against the wall just to stay on my feet.
He sprints forward at the sight of me, catching me just before my legs give out entirely.
“Arowyn, what are you doing? I was on my way to check on you—one of the servants said you fainted.”
“I did, I…”
“Then why are you out of bed?”
I curl against his chest, trying to catch my breath.
“Hey. Look at me.” He gently cups my chin and lifts my face to his. “What's going on?”
My voice comes out much steadier than I feel. “Someone came into my room while I was sleeping. When I woke up, the ring you gave me was gone.”
He keeps his hands braced on my arms, steadying me, but takes a step back to see me more fully, clearly still confused.
I can't manage any more words, so I lift my clenched fist between us, showing him. I watch his gaze travel from my face to my hand, to the dried blood tracing its thin red path across my knuckles. His expression shifts from confusion to something far darker, rings of black overtaking his pupils like ink dropped in water.
He carefully takes my wrist and holds it steady as he uncurls my fingers. His eyes find the freshly-carved mark and he goes perfectly still—the practiced stillness of a man who’s learned how to hide his beastly side when he needs to.
But even in my dazed state, I sense the rage rippling just beneath the surface as he says, in a low, dangerous voice, “I'm going to fucking kill him.”
His tone frightens me almost as much as the blood on my skin.
We're moving an instant later, and he doesn't tell me where we're going. He offers to carry me, but I refuse; I feelsteadier in his presence, with his hand tightly clenching mine, even as the walls are pressing in and every corridor feels narrower than it did a moment ago.
His eyes dart about as we move, noting every doorway, every shadow, every servant who glances our way. Finally, he spots who he was apparently looking for: his sister. She stands with a cluster of courtiers at the far end of the hall, speaking in low, quick tones. She stops talking the instant she catches sight of Reave.
He doesn't even say her name. All it takes is a look, some unspoken understanding passing between them. She dismisses the crowd around her with a brief word and makes her way over to us, her dark eyes questioning.
Reave summarizes the last few minutes in clipped, precise sentences, fury still writhing under his skin like a living thing that’s dangerously close to finding a way out.
“So apparently the cleansing we did after the Sun Harvest Feast wasn't thorough enough,” Kestrel mutters. “He still has bodies inside the palace. One of the lower servants was probably bribed into doing his bidding for a handsome price.”
