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By the time Einar looks back at me, I display all the emotion of the carved headboard behind me.
“Then I guess I’ll have to visit my ambassador,” he growls.
Khijhana’s whiskers twitch anxiously while I fight to keep the blood from leaving my face. I grasp for something to say to shift the focus from me before he can ask why that idea terrifies me. I’m thinking of the long, frozen trek to the alchemist’s house when I see an image of the dragon’s cave.
But instead of the images of charred flesh and dragonfire, or even the memory of Einar’s impossibly warm skin on mine in the springs, I see roses. Hundreds of spiky roses, exactly like his.
“There were roses like yours in the dragon’s cave,” I blurt out.
His eyes widen, probably as much at the news as my uncharacteristic offering of information. “I didn’t see any,” he says, but not exactly like he’s accusing me of lying, for a change.
“They were in the far corner of the cave, on the other side of the spring. I think the dragon sleeps in front of them.” I pause. “On the wall where it was sleeping when we were there, before.” I nearly wince at the memory.
Somehow, it hurts more than the memory of Damian attacking me and the dragon burning us. I force myself to continue.
“I only saw them last time because the dragon was gone. It didn’t come back until after we got there.”
He gives me a long, measured look. “I’ll stop by the caves on the way, then.”
I hesitate for the briefest moment, debating on a thousand things to say before landing on something simple that encompasses all of it.
“You’ll be careful?” I ask, my words softer than I mean them to be.
Einar stares at me, his chest slowly rising and falling before his lips part to answer.
“If you’re concerned that I will give you up, then you can rest assured that I have no trouble keepingmyword.”
I bite back a sigh of resignation. Of course, he assumes my concern was only for my own wellbeing.
Einar is both brilliant and tactical, though. He will be cautious without my reminder, so I don’t bother to correct him. I will always be the villain in his mind, self-serving and calculating and a liar.
I have to be content with that.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Einar
Something about Zaina’s explanation felt off. Not exactly a lie, but maybe not the whole truth either. I turn her words over and over in my head as I prepare to leave.
Before I make it to the stables, I stop to see Sigrid as I have each day since she was confined to her bed. At least I have more time to visit, since the castle has largely left me to my “grief.”
The woman is stronger than almost any person I know, but I can’t imagine it’s easy to keep fighting the havoc that the poison has wrought on her. And it’s my fault. If I had found the cure earlier, I could have saved her from so much pain.
I could have saved them all.
And now Zaina is claiming to have seen more roses, right under my nose. In my own kingdom.
I wrench the door open with more force than necessary, startling Sigrid in her bed.
“What has happened, Úlfur?” She forces herself to sit up, and I feel even angrier when I see the effort it takes her.
Closing the door behind me, I force myself to calm down before I explain what Zaina has told me.
“Too many things,” I begin. “The body at the funeral...it was Willem’s.”
Sigrid nods her head and closes her eyes.
“Yes, I heard from Leif. He was a good man.”
