Page 109 of Bride of Ash & Dust

Chapter 60

Lilias

BURN IT

Someone is talking, low and soft. I frown, trying to part the misty layers of my dreams to make out their words. Their voices are a soft, background hum, threaded with birdsong. And then someone giggles.

My eyes blink open. Sunlight traces delicate patterns across the soaring cathedral ceiling, catching on all the spiderwebs. Unusual. I frown, trying to remember why someone hasn’t cleaned those all up.

The voices start again. I turn toward them. Elrick sits in the massive hunting lodge bed, propped up on pillows, with his arm in a sling. And Anura leans over him, her face so close to his they’re almost kissing.

My cheeks burn, and I turn away. I’ve always known Anura and my brother are close, and I suspected they might have played at being lovers. But that doesn’t look like play. Not anymore.

I cough loudly, then push my blankets off and sit up.

“Finally,” my brother announces as I wipe my eyes. “See, you didn’t need to wake her up after all.”

Anura smiles at me. “Good morning,” she says. “There’s breakfast downstairs, and I have a clean dress in the⁠—”

“Zarek,” I blurt, suddenly worried. “Where is he?”

Anura and Elrick exchange a strange look, and then she turns back to me.

“Still sleeping, I think,” she says. “I put him in a room just down the hall.”

“I want to talk to him,” Elrick adds. “To both of you, really. If you want to get him…”

His voice trails off as I come to my feet. The panicked flutter in my chest doesn’t make sense, of course Zarek is fine, but I can’t stop thinking about the look on Owain’s face when he talked about Vsenrog, and if someone discovered who Zarek really is⁠—

Anura meets me at the door. I follow her into the hallway. In the light of day, the dust of the years this house spent empty is impossible to miss. Anura stops beside one of the servants’ rooms and nods. I push the door open with my heart in the back of my throat.

Zarek sits up in the bed, his hand dropping to his side, feeling for his absent dagger. I wonder if he always reaches for his blade when he wakes suddenly, then realize that’s a ridiculous question. Of course he does.

“Princess,” he says.

He smiles, and I forget how to speak. The soft morning light plays across his bare chest and tangles in his dark hair. His lip is still split, but the swelling is gone, and his wicked lips are as inviting as possible. The memory of a hundred kisses hisses through my mind like steam escaping a kettle.

And it was all a show. I turn to Anura, suddenly lost in front of the half-naked man that I married. She steps forward.

“The prince is ready to see you,” Anura tells Zarek. “Once you’re presentable.”

She glances at a chair that holds clean clothes, then at a washbasin on a table. I glance down at my own filthy dress and realize too late that I’m far from presentable myself. Zarek clears his throat, then comes to his feet and bows slightly.

“Of course,” he says. “I’ll be there shortly.”

I stare at him as Anura closes the door. He doesn’t look at me.

Anura leads me back to Elrick’s room, then into one of the bathing chambers. She ducks out, promising to return with hot water, and I press my hands to my face. My heart beats against the inside of my chest like it’s trying to escape.

Gods, after everything I’ve been through with Zarek, why did I freeze now? What in the hells is wrong with me?

Anura returns with a basin of steaming water, and I start to peel off the dress I’ve worn for days. Anura raises her eyebrow at the dark, rusty stains down the front.

“We could probably clean that,” she begins.

“No,” I snap. “Burn it.”

She frowns. I grab a towel, plunge it into the hot water, and then run it over my face, scrubbing hard, as if I can clean away everything that’s happened to me since I left the palace of Marion. Anura watches silently, handing me fresh towels, even when I begin to sob.