He sets his jaw. “Show me what he did to you.”
It’s a command, this time. One dark and dripping with the royal authority that I know gets him his way the vast majority of the time.
And suddenly I’m so furious about it all—all his secrets, all his smugness, and the endlessly frustrating imbalance of power between us—that I act without thinking, ripping my coat open, jerking my shirt down, revealing the whole of that nasty bruise…
Along with far more of my breasts than I actually meant to.
I’m much too proud to act like I’m mortified by this last part, so I keep my head high and my glare leveled on the king, exposed chest and all.
He stands bewildered for a moment before averting his eyes again. “You know, most women are not nearly this angry about the opportunity to take their clothes off for me.”
“Opportunity?”
“Yes.”
I shake my head. “Has anyone ever told you you’re an arrogant prick?”
“Not to my face, that I can recall.”
“Well, allow me to do the honors,” I snarl, jerking my coat back around myself. “Because you are.”
He doesn’t disagree. He just shrugs, then sits down on one of the benches facing the creek.
I don’t think he’d say another word to me if I turned and walked back to the palace right now. And after accidentally flashing him, the temptation to flee is stronger than ever.
But we’re still alone. He seems unbothered by my defiant mouth, despite the threats he made last night…and I remind myself, again, of what a rare opportunity it is to have him cornered like this.
I don’t sit on the bench, but I do draw a bit closer, settling down on a thick tuft of grass near the water. I pick a few reeds and start to weave them into a crown. My mother and I used to do the same thing when I was younger; the river we sometimes explored was far less pristine than my current surroundings, but we usually managed to find enough beautiful flowers and strong strands of grass to make our creations work.
I’m focused on trying to secure a sprig of white blossoms into my crown when the king says, “Some of the scars on your chest looked much older than anything Gareth could have caused. As old as the ones around your eye.”
I freeze.
Why is he bringing these things up?
Swallowing hard, I lay the crown in my lap and press a hand over the largest of the scars on my chest. This particular one came from that encounter with the men who were defacing the gravesites in Halvgate. There are smaller ones around it that are more souvenirs of Emberfall, like my eye, and still others from various jobs that went wrong over the years.
“Where did they come from?” Reave asks.
“I don’t remember.”
“Most of them don’t seem like the sort one would forget receiving.”
“Trust me: After a while, you begin to lose track of where the hurt is from.”
His chest rises and falls with a deep sigh, but he doesn’t press the conversation.
We sit in silence for several minutes, lost in our own thoughts. The sun is sinking lower, casting him in a light that seems like an extension of his own body, reminding me of the story he told me last night—of the dragons stealing the fiery colors from the sun. The glow makes it hard not to keep glancing at him.
I eventually notice the scars on his forearms again, and I think of Arlo and his covered hands, of the dragon-scale accessories that their sister is always wearing…
Are they all covering up similar things?
I frown, considering this for a moment before I glance over at him and clear my throat. “And what about your own scars?”
“I’m afraid I’ve lost track, too,” he says, after a pause. “Funny how that happens.”
“Isn’t it?”
