Page 101 of Bride of Ash & Dust

“We were having such a lovely journey,” Zarek says, as if he’s not beaten and bloody and in chains, as if instead we’re sitting together in the palace gardens, enjoying a cup of tea in the afternoon. “I’ve never been to this part of the Marion mountains. I didn’t realize how beautiful they are in the spring.”

Some part of me realizes he must be trying to keep me calm, to distract me as I run my hands through this pile of laundry, looking for something metal. There’s an odd, thin chain, a dagger⁠—

“Do you remember the sunrise when we left Detec?” Zarek asks. “Gods, it was glorious.”

I do not remember the sunrise. The soldiers forced us to leave early, which was quite a slight on Detec’s hospitality. Not that I noticed; I was still in a haze from the magic Zarek worked that morning with his fingers and his mouth. Hells, the mayor’s villa could have been burning down around me and I might not have even noticed.

My fingers brush something cold and hard. I pause, afraid to grab another body part. Behind me, Zarek is talking about the sunrise and the mountains and the gods only know what else, acting like all of this is normal.

I clench my jaw and pull the thing out of its nest of laundry.

It’s a key ring.

My hands are shaking so badly that it takes several tries for me to find the right key and unlock the cuffs holding Zarek to the chair. When they click open, his skin is bloody beneath the metal. I stare at the blood and wonder if I could have stopped this. If I’d come earlier, or if I’d told Zarek not to leave the tent, or⁠—

Zarek comes to his feet. His arms close around me, holding me tight to his chest. His heartbeat sounds like the ocean, like the crash of waves against a distant, wild shore.

“Lilias,” he whispers. “Princess. You saved my life.”

Something raw and horrible trembles inside me. For a moment, panic yawns its great, black mouth, and I waver on the edge of collapsing entirely.

And then the moment passes. I take a deep breath, safe in the circle of Zarek’s arms. For just a heartbeat, it’s enough.

Chapter 55

Zarek

ASH & DUST

Icarry the torch, and Lilias holds my hand as we follow the tunnel out of the cave. She’s breathing normally, and her skin still feels warm against my palm. Thank the gods.

It’s not easy to watch someone die. Especially when you were on the other side of the dagger that killed them. I’ve seen soldiers collapse on the battlefield and old men who still refuse to talk about the crimes of their youth. But she hasn’t fallen apart, my princess.

And she took the blade back. I picked it up after she unlocked me and helped me come to my feet. I wiped the blood on Syvan’s cloak, barely restrained the urge to kick his lifeless corpse, and then offered her the hilt of the blade she’d used to kill him.

It’s the same dagger I strapped around her thigh back in Vsenrog. I hadn’t realized she was still carrying it.

I almost kissed the damn thing before I handed it over. To think I owe my life to the fact that my wife decided to keep my blade strapped to her leg. That, and she got damn lucky with her blind strike. If she’d only cut him, or if the blade had bounced off a rib⁠—

I shake my head. Better not to think about it. I try to focus on the soft weight of my wife’s hand in mine and the shifting light of the torch as it reveals the jagged rocks at my feet.

As we walk, Lilias tells me what happened after Syvan drugged me. Her voice is low and even, almost calm, but her hand squeezes mine like she’s afraid of losing her way. Once again, I have the almost irrepressible urge to turn around, walk back down the tunnel, and kick the ever-loving shit out of Prince Syvan’s corpse.

He set us up, that double-crossing sack of piss. Syvan set us up, and Malrik set us up. But knowing that only leaves me with the biggest question of all: Why?

They wanted me for whatever fucked-up magic brought the weapon, that strange elf, out of the mountain’s stone heart, but what does Malrik have to gain from abducting my wife? And why would they ride toward Ethiria, of all places? Why not return Lilias to her father after my death, or leave her in the palace of Vsenrog like a beautiful, lone jewel plundered from another kingdom?

I shiver, and Lilias gasps. I look up. There’s a thin, pale light ahead, the ragged edge of dawn shining through the entrance to the mine. I turn to Lilias and hold my finger to my lips. Then I set the torch down, leaning it gently against the stone wall. Perhaps I’ll be able to find it again, if I have to.

“Quietly,” I whisper.

Lilias nods. In the strange light of the half-hidden torch at our feet, all I can see are the pale moons of her eyes. She’s scared, of course. She’s probably terrified. But she’s holding it together, and gods, that makes me want to sing her praises to the heavens.

I continue to hold her hand as we creep toward the entrance to the mine shaft, pausing every few shuffled footsteps to listen. I hear nothing strange, just spatters of birdsong and the restless whistling of wind across stone. Lilias told me Syvan sent Lyam back to camp with the strange elf who came through the stone wall like it was a beaded curtain. Still, I expect someone will be waiting outside the mine for Prince Syvan.

But I don’t hear anything. I hold my finger to my lips again, drop Lilias’s hand, and press my back to the stone. It’s cold against my skin, and for a moment I wish I’d thought to take Syvan’s cloak with me. Slowly, with my heart hammering against the inside of my rib cage, I slip through the shadows and toward the mouth of the tunnel.

Nothing. The eastern horizon glows golden, and the sky is that brilliant shade of blue that you only see in the spring, when the whole world feels like it’s holding its breath, waiting for summer. The only sign of the soldiers who dragged me here is Syvan’s white stallion, tied to one of the wooden buildings that now strike me as a bizarre kind of stage dressing, mere props to make this look more like a gold mine.