She saw mahogany and teak and linen and red; then everything blurred again.
“Easy,” Tavin said somewhere above her. “Don’t push yourself.”
“Where am I?” She blinked until her vision cleared again.
“A spare room. We’re in the royal quarters.”
The room about her was—strange, she thought. Small for a royal bedroom and worn in a way the palace usually painted over. The walls were soft golden teak, the bedposts lacquered Hawk red, a familiar thick-woven blanket covering the mattress—
The last time she’d seen that blanket, she’d been sharing it with Tavin in Draga’s camp. This was his room, hisrealroom.
She saw a modest collection of weapons neatly racked on the wall, light streaming in from a screened window facing a mossy cliff. Across from her sat a small shelf of scrolls, along with a washbasin and brass mirror beside a dish of what had once been rings, necklaces, and other jewelry before they’d conspired to knot into a solid ball the size of her fist. On the table beside the bed stood a simple brass lamp, a mammoth carved of ebony, an amulet of mammoth ivory with the master-general’s personal seal.
It was like a window into a part of Tavin she couldn’t bear to look at.
It was a room Niemi wasn’t meant to know.
“Sorry,” Tavin said after a moment. He was sitting at the foot of the bed, wringing a rag stained with blood. “Other than the nosebleed, you didn’t have any injuries that I… saw, and I didn’t know where else to take you.”
“This is fine.” She pushed herself up, and he handed her a mug of water. “Thanks. I… don’t know what happened.”
It was half a truth.
Tavin passed her the bloody rag and tapped his chin. “You’ve still got some, er. Would you like me to get a doctor?”
Fie mopped at her face to buy herself a moment. When she surfaced, she had the best answer she could scrounge together: “Allergies,” she blurted out. “It’s just—allergies.”
“I see,” he said, in a way that meant he did not see at all. Then he rubbed the back of his neck, sheepish. “I apologize, I… may have moved… things… a little too fast, earlier.” She gave him a blank look. “In the tomb.”
Fie’s brow furrowed, still groggy. He hadn’t seen the visions of Ambra’s life, had he?
“When we kissed,” Tavin clarified, cheeks darkening. “I-I got a bit carried away.”
“Oh.” Fie shook her head distractedly. “No, I liked it.”
She’d seen Ambra’s life. She hadn’t called the spark from that bone. It had swallowed her whole anyway. Animal bones did that, aye, because they knew no better. Human bones knew to wait, not to offer their gifts or their secrets so freely.
But Ambra’s skull had just drawn her in, like it was part of her.
Tavin’s voice jostled her from her thoughts. “I want you to know,” he said, fumbling for words, “that if you feel like you have to go along with whateverIwant, because of who I am—you don’t.”
His fingers were tracing unseen patterns on his wrist, where a glamour hid the scars.
Fie couldn’t stop herself; she reached over and caught his hand. “I know.”
Now, Niemi hissed.Take him. Finish what you started in the tombs. He’ll be ours.
The notion turned Fie’s belly. So did the notion of hearing him say Niemi’s name in the close, shuddering way he’d once breathed hers.
She let go. “I should probably go lie down. In my rooms. For a bit.”
She didn’t want to. She wanted to stay here with him, in a room that feltreal. Fie wanted to unroll all his scrolls, look in his mirror, pick out the tangle of jewelry, run her hands over every bit of it until she could find a way to forgive him for selling her Crows to the queen.
But Fie had come to the palace to keep her oaths. So she let Tavin walk her back to the guest quarters, let him leave her with a quick, soft kiss on her cheek, made herself ignore the tension in his shoulders as he left.
She’d expected her room in the guest quarters to be empty. Instead, her door swung open to a chorus of mews.
Fie blinked. Jasimir and Khoda were seated on the ground, trying to wrestle a black-and-white cat into some sort of vest. More catswere lounging about the room, pouncing on carpet fringe, napping on the bed, or grooming an ear. Barf herself rolled on the carpet beside Jasimir, squirming in another of the vests.
