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But he reaches over and tilts my chin up until I am looking into his eyes.
"I am not anxious to do anything you are not entirely ready to do."
My lips part in surprise, both at his words and the sentiment that no man has ever expressed to me before.
"Perhaps I have misled you." I point to the chain on my face. "I know I said this was to symbolize purity, but I'm not -- I haven't been considered pure in some time." Nine years, to be exact.
"You don't have to explain yourself to me. I'm not concerned about your past."
I look at him for a long, drawn-out moment, long enough to think that life is even crueler than Madame for showing me a man like this and making sure he can never truly be mine.
"You never asked about the scars," I say quietly.
His expression doesn’t change, not a single trace of consternation at my abrupt change of subject.
"And I never will. As I said, your past is your own, Zaina. You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to tell me." He says the words with such sincerity.
I want to tell him everything, give him every truth that's in me, but I know that isn't possible. So, I settle for this one.
"Someone gave them to me... on the same night he took something else from me."
I thought I had seen the king angry, but the rage that enters his gaze now is on another level entirely. I'm grateful. If it was sympathy, I'm not sure I could go on.
"I was thirteen." I don't know why I said that except that I know how he feels about choices, and I want him to understand how very few I had.
"I see," he bites out in an ominous tone. The words sound more like a death sentence than anything, and I wish I could tell him who was responsible to watch him carry it out.
When was the last time someone was furious for me rather than at me?
My sisters and I empathize with one another, but we hardly have the energy for the kind of righteous indignation the king shows now.
Khijhana growls, and I wonder if she is picking up on his emotions instead of mine for a change before I catch the telltale trembling of my fingers. Not with fear, but a singular, all-encompassing rage that always seems to thrum just below the surface.
"So, you see," I finish up, fiddling with the chain at my nose to hide my reaction. "I never should have worn this to begin with."
He blinks several times, the fury in his eyes warring with another emotion I can't quite put my finger on, and all at once, it is too much. I shake my head, sliding my hand across the table and reaching up to touch the chain around his neck.
"More importantly," I force my tone to be breezy. "You never did tell me what this was."
He stares at me for another moment, and I wonder if he will give me the out I am practically begging for. Finally, he nods.
"It would be easier to show you."
Chapter Fifty-One
Einar pulls back the tapestry on his wall, and I pretend to be surprised, as if I haven’t already explored the room beyond it.
What piques my curiosity, however, is how once we are in the large study at the top of the stairs, he heads straight to the bookshelves lining the back wall. With his left hand, he runs his fingers over seven of the spines in a seemingly random order, quickly pulling on them but not removing them from the shelf. Then, with his right hand, he pulls an older copy of a book on the history and properties of Pennyroyal all the way out before replacing it again.
My brows furrow as I try to remember the books he touched and in which order when, suddenly, the entire wall vibrates. A doorway appears in the middle of the shelf next to him, completely disguised to the untrained eye.
Khijha’s eyes widen, and she scrambles back a little. I can’t help but be a little shocked as well. I am genuinely amazed as I follow him through the corridor into a hallway.
“Where are we going?” I ask as he removes a torch from the wall to light our way.
“The West Wing.”
The way he says it sounds so final, and I’m taken aback a little.
