His lips quivered. “You seem upset.”
“Iamupset. Is no one else in this town capable of doing such work? You are killing yourself with these tasks. How you get all this done in a day is beyond me.”
He mustered me cautiously while I washed the needle and snapped the desk drawer shut. “It costs me,” he said quietly while I stood with my back to him. “I work on borrowed time.” I turned slowly, seized by a horrible inkling. The shadows beneath his eyes. That dark, dark weariness… “We faeries favor wild mounts not just for their grace. There is magic at play, and it comes with a price. The wild demands a balance.”
“The stag… what sort of magic does it grant?”
“I have never had much patience for travel,” said Adrik hollowly. “An hour might pass in town and barely the beat of a bird’s wing on that stag’s back.”
Had I not wondered an hour ago how he’d made it back from the forest so soon? He must have left his riders behind and gone alone to recover Marin.
“What does the wild demand in return?”
I’d suspected it, and still my heart lurched with sorrow when he said, “It takes as much as it gives. An hour of my life for every hour spent riding the beast.”
“And how many hours have you spent riding?”
“Enough to lose the years I stole through bargains. More, perhaps.”
Adrik rose slowly from the chair. I knew from the knot on his brow that he was hiding his pain. “Please,” I breathed and hurried to brace him. “You are hurt. You need to rest.”
He shook his head. “I cannot,” he said. “I cannot rest knowing all this—”His voice broke as he stepped past me onto the balcony. He braced his hands on the ice-cold railing and looked forlornly out into the snow, over his small realm.
“I am no king, Ana,” he whispered into the night; quietly, as if scared the wind might steal his confession and spread the truth around town. “I’m an alchemist at heart, perhaps a bard, and a warrior because I must be. I belong in the forest, in taverns and in libraries, and if I never have to draw a sword again, I shall be content. I do not belong in a castle. I have nothing to give these people but my protection, and at that I am doomed to fail.” He lowered his head into his hands, bowing once more under the weight of a phantom crown. “I am no king.”
That was why he’d never mentioned his title in all these hours we’d spent together. To protect himself. To hide that he felt, despite all that he did for these people, unworthy of the crown he refused to wear. I reached for his arm, marveling at the strength beneath my cold fingers. I did not know how else to comfort him. I had only my touch to give—and the words that broke suddenly and fiercely from me.
“What is a king if not someone who inspires his people to courage and kindness? Who protects them with such fierce devotion? Who listens to their troubles, no matter how trivial? Who loves them so dearly and proudly? Who hurts for them as you do now? You might not wear a crown or sit on a throne, but in every way that matters, you are these people’s king.”
Adrik tilted his head just far enough to look at me. A lone teardrop, silver in the starlit night, rested like a pearl on his long,dark lashes. “I do not deserve this kindness. I do not deserve this praise, Ana.”
A wild awe seized me, spilling heat through my veins and courage into my heart. I leaned in—close enough to hear the hitch of his breath, close enough he might have felt the wild flutter of my pulse—and I kissed his cheek.
“I think you deserve much more.” I retreated at once, heart throbbing painfully against my ribs. “Lorell is right,” I said with a breathless laugh just to distract from my misstep. “It is an art to be this vain and still sell oneself short.”
Adrik did not laugh. He only stared at me with parted lips, slightly bemused and wholly struck. “Do that again,” he breathed, his finger lingering where I’d kissed him.
I blushed fiercely. “I will, only if you promise to rest.”
“Do that again, and I will do whatever you ask of me.”
Heart and blood aflame, I leaned forward to brush my lips over his cheek. I lingered this time, allowing myself to feel his skin against mine. To lose myself in his scent; wild as the snow, and the forest, and all the things I held dear.
His thumb travelled lightly over my wrist, over my frantic pulse. I gasped, retreating one step and another to ensure I did no such foolish thing as kiss him elsewhere—on the sharp edge of his jaw, or the string of muscle at the side of his throat, or on that heaving chest, a sliver of skin exposed by his half-buttoned shirt.
“Rest,” I ordered breathlessly, afraid if I lingered too long with his taste on my lips, I might ask him drunkenly for more.
“As you wish,” he said with a mischievous smile and a small bow. “Now, tell me what I must do to ask something ofyou.”
“It depends on what you ask.”
He bent low, the words caressing my ear. “Stay here tonight.”
“In that case, you need not do anything at all.”
I slept, that night, in a bed as large as a room, in a room as large as a house.
I slept tangled in silk that moved against my skin like a cold river’s kiss but did nothing to quell the heat still aflame in my veins. That heat reignited whenever I glanced sleeplessly to the other end of the bed. Adrik had gone out like a light the moment he’d sunk into the cushions. I’d climbed into the bed at the far side; far enough my restless fingers could not reach him in a moment of weakness.
