A sudden urge grabbed me, and I reached up to touch my hair, brushing against his hand.
“Do you have your dagger?” I asked, my voice urgent.
“I... what?” He straightened. “Yes?”
“Can I use it, please?”
“My... dagger?”
I arched a brow. “I really resent the way you just said that.”
A startled laugh erupted from him, and I smothered a smile.
“Yes, your actual knife. The beautiful one you killed the halmasti with.”
He pulled out the blade from his hip, the snake head still fierce, with golden emeralds for eyes. He handed it over to me wordlessly.
I held it up to my hair, measuring how much I would need to chop off the burnt parts. Right at shoulder height. I hadn’t worn my hair that short since I was a child.
He watched my hands work as I hacked away at my hair, hoping that I made everything a bit better looking, not worse. But when I got to the strands at the back, I struggled.
“Here.” His voice was closer and I jumped at the intimacy contained in that one word.
He took the blade back from me, his calloused hands brushing my ink-stained ones as he gripped the hilt.
It felt like I was playing with fire, doing this, the tension between us, the blade.
Then he bade me turn around in front of him. I complied and he took a step closer to me, the warmth of him along my back.
His breath was a whisper across my skin as he carefully lifted a handful of my hair from my nape. The tips of his fingers brushed my neck, and I sucked in a sharp breath. Every single thing felt heightened between us, that small touch from his hand as if he’d placed his whole mouth there. Then he pulled my hair down in a methodical manner so he could cut.
He took his time, the sharp blade slicing easily through my burnt hair. He put no more emotion into it than I did when cataloging artifacts, but still the air between us felt blistering.
The tent was silent besides the sound of his efficient slicing of every ravaged strand.
Eventually he cut the last burnt piece, but he didn’t move away from me. Instead, he ran his hands along the bottom of my curls, taking the time to brush away any excess. When it was done, I lifted my hands up to the ends of my hair. I wanted to lean back into his warmth, feel the skin of another person against mine.
I’d been alone for so long that being near Kiyan felt like stark relief in comparison.
He cleared his throat, and I looked back over my shoulder at him. He was so close I could see the dark irises of his eyes against the deep brown, rimmed with thick lashes.
I didn’t understand him—at times he was curt, dismissive, and bottled up, but other times—like in the woods when he killed the halmasti, and here in the tent—he was like a quiet, raging fire.
He cocked his head, surveying me. “It suits you.”
His hand skimmed my hair, and I felt the impression of his palm on the back of my head. He pulled one thick curl between his thumb and forefinger. Then he dropped it.
It was rare to get him alone, and even rarer to see him soft like this. I didn’t want to waste this chance to find out everything I could about the Viceroy, so that when it was time to run, I could do it.
“What did the Viceroy mean? When he said his power comes from the Court of River?”
I wanted to know where the Viceroy’s magic came from, and what its limits were. I still didn’t know how I was going to steal the crown once we found it and every little piece of knowledge helped.
If there was one thing I knew, it was that research, information, and preparedness would be my best chance of getting out of here.
Kiyan ran his fingers through his own hair then, chewing the inside of his cheek in thought.
“As you know, Reza’s magic is different from ours. His skills are to absorb the magic of those he drains and take it as his own, as is all the Salt Court’s. Normally that ability is only temporary—a way to borrow the magic of other peris. But when he came to the Court of River, he had something that amplified his ability to take—the ancient peri King Rusul’s crown.”
