Page 48 of Kingdom Of Veil And Vow

Xander shuts the door behind him, throat working as he pretends to casually observe the room while making his way towards me. But he betrays himself when his eyes look past where I’m standing and right to the space where I suspected the door to be. It is there.

“You should eat,” he says, closing the distance between us before handing me the brush.

The rush of his scent in the air clouds my next inhale as I tip my chin up to look at him. Gods, has he always been this tall? His gaze makes a path over my hair and down my face, pausing briefly on my lips before he forces his head to turn, and then he’s walking to one of the tipped-over crates on the other side of the food. Pushing the crate against the wall, he takes a seat and leans back, extending his legs out in front of him at an angle.

“Please,” he adds, his voice deep but also soft, the brush he grabbed from the cell set on the crate between us.

My heart pounds wildly as I sit opposite of him, both of us tracking the other’s movements. Get it together, Siyala. Gathering my hair over one shoulder, I begin brushing it, the noise of the bristles running through my strands the only sound at first. “Are you going to eat as well?” I ask, looking at the amount of food on the tray. There is more than enough for us both.

Xander shakes his head. “This is for you.”

“I can’t eat all of this,” I lie, sliding the tray closer to him even as my stomach protests. My mouth waters at the scent of the cooked meal before me, but I force my attention to working out the knots in my hair. I’ll eat enough to keep my energy up, but I can’t get too full.

The guard’s stony expression has returned, and my nerves flutter in response. It takes effort to not look at where I’ve marked the second door, so I watch Xander watching me, wondering if I have ever been part of a more awkward moment.

“So you shifted?”

My hand pauses halfway down my hair. “Yes.”

Xander’s brow arches, a dark slash over his forehead. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not particularly.” Setting the brush down, I slowly work my hair into a braid, dropping my hands when I get to the end. Without anything to secure it, it begins to unravel, and when Xander notices, he uncoils a brown strip of leather from around his wrist, extending his hand out over the table.

“Here.”

I ignore the acute awareness of our skin touching when I pluck it from his grasp. His eyes feel like a brand upon me as I tie it around the end of my braid, so I lower my own gaze back down to the food and grab a fork. Though cold now, everything is cooked and seasoned perfectly, and before long, I’ve cleared half the plate. With my stomach satisfied, my fingers close around the waterskin.

“Can I ask you a question, Xander?” Taking a drink, I find it curious that despite the bored expression Xander wears, his eyes remain locked on me, watching my throat as I swallow. There’s an intensity in them that makes me shift on the crate, my thighs squeezing together. Stars above, perhaps this is a new symptom of insanity. I need to get out of this dungeon. The thought sobers me, reminding me of what I need to do. I could use more information, anything to help make sure that Immie and I make it out of the castle as unscathed as possible. Swiping the back of my hand over my mouth, I set the waterskin down.

“Go ahead.”

“Am I correct to assume that this room, and the tunnels that are woven throughout the castle, are unknown to King Dolian?” He doesn’t react, doesn’t appear to be breathing, as he lets the silence linger between us in answer. I keep my tone light as I continue. “I just mean, you said it was for your men—”

“My community.”

“Right, yes, your community. I’m just wondering if that community includes the king.”

Xander’s gaze narrows, and my stomach dips in response. “Do you think it includes the king?”

“By choice? No. Not really. But by vow…” I shrug, playing with the hem of my tunic, the fabric soft between my fingers. “Or, perhaps, everything you’ve told me is a lie, and this is nothing more than a ploy to gain my confidence so that I will spill my secrets.” At that, his gaze jumps up again, and despite the fact that I’m using his hope of earning my trust so that I might escape, there is a twinge of disappointment that I might be right. He’s lied to you already. He’s a Trusted, which means he was there when Alexi died. He put Rhea back in that tower when she tried to escape. The reminders bolster me, and I sit up a little taller.

“The king is unaware of these tunnels,” he admits, looking like he’d rather slice his own tongue off. “At least, I’m fairly certain he is. They’re documented in records, I’m sure, but whether or not he read those when he became king, I don’t know.”

I nod, absorbing the information. Xander said some of his community included guards, but if the king doesn’t know about the tunnels, I have to assume that the number of guards that do is very small. Meaning that if I could get Xander locked in my cell, then it’s doubtful Immie and I would run into anyone when we escape. And until another guard comes down for the daily meal drop-off, Xander would likely go undiscovered for a while.

Hope fills my chest, enough so that the slight bit of guilt I feel at what I will have to do is squashed beneath it. This could truly work.

“My turn,” Xander says, boots planting on the ground as he leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees. A few strands of black hair fall from the bun that has twisted half of his hair up behind him, framing his face in a way that makes it impossible not to look at him. I brace for whatever question he might ask about Rhea, mentally sorting through the information I think will be safe to tell him. “Why are you afraid to shift?”

I nearly tumble off the crate from shock. “What makes you think I’m afraid?”

“The fact that you’ve avoided talking much about it before. That I haven’t found you without clothing before today, so that means you haven’t shifted in your time down here. I thought perhaps it might have been because you were embarrassed about being without clothing, but I don’t think it is that at all. The commander mentioned that you were frantic when he saw you as a fox—”

“You would be too if the man who captured you kept threatening that he’d do far worse,” I growl.

A dark look crosses his face, biceps flexing beneath his undershirt. His mouth opens, then closes, a sharp exhale coming through his nose. Whatever he wanted to say clearly isn’t what comes out. “You mentioned before that shifter magic can get antsy when you are in one form for too long. Is that what happened?”

“Why does it matter?” I counter, internal thorns sliding into place.