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“What do you mean?”
“My grandmother kept books like this, as does my mother. I have some. Fuck, half our palace library is this sort of random musing—most seers get a barrage of information that they have to keep track of to find patterns.”
“Like the boat?”
He nodded. “I’m damn curious to know if the boat comes up again. Sometimes, something as small as that could lead to a thread that predicts the outcome of a great war. Sometimes, it’s just the weather. It’s hard to say without knowing how powerful your sister was.”
I gaped at him. “I…I have no idea.”
He cocked his head to the side and bit the inside of his cheek. “Nor have I, but from that one page alone, I’d say she was above average.”
“Even if she was a seer, this doesn’t seem to be connected to how she died,” I said, frustration creeping into my voice. “And if all the books are like this, I’ll never know what she had to do with Dullahan.”
Bael looked up at me sharply. “With Dullahan?”
“She’d joined the rebels,” I told him. “That’s the name of their leader, I suppose.”
He laughed hollowly. “I know who he is, little monster.”
My heartbeat sped up. I supposed that wasn’t so surprising. I’d heard him mention the name earlier this evening, and it would have been more surprising if he wasn’t aware of who his enemy was. After all, the rebellion had been going on for some years now, gaining strength in the North and pushing south, gaining strength and support from the non-noble classes in every province they targeted.
I gnawed on my lip, then slammed the book shut and placed it hurriedly on the nightstand beside me. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I’m too tired. I—I need to go to bed.”
It was a lie, and I was sure we were both well aware of it and one I felt somewhat guilty for. I simply could not continue this conversation—this line of thinking—right now. To go from no information about my sister, from sharing nothing at all, to possibly sharing everything? I could not. It was too much. Too overwhelming to take in one sitting.
I would peruse the rest later in private, and perhaps then I would tell him what I’d found.
For once, Bael didn’t push me, for which I was infinitely grateful. Instead, his gaze darted down the bed and back up, lingering over my body. “Then, by all means.”
I froze. I’d slept in far worse situations than beside a prince in a plush feather bed, yet suddenly, this seemed far more alarming than sitting beside each other to read or even another night on a dungeon floor or in the filthy servants’ quarters.
The foot of space I’d expected to use as my own felt impossibly small in practice, and my heartbeat thrummed in alarm. As long as we did not touch each other, it wasn’t all that difficult to remember all the reasons why I would be far better off staying away from Bael. However, even I couldn’t ignore that when we got too close, it was nearly impossible to think straight.
“I don’t feel like arguing with you about this.” I gestured to the bed, a quaver of uncertainty in my voice. “I haven’t slept in nearly two days.”
I hoped he would assume that meant I was too tired to engage in any sort of sparring. Verbal or otherwise. In truth, I should have been tired. By all accounts, I should have been exhausted, but instead, my mind and body hummed with adrenaline and awareness.
He smirked. “Nor have I, if you recall.”
Heat flared on my cheeks. I certainly did recall—the memory of that party in the field would likely be burned into my mind for the rest of my life.
My pulse quickened at the mere thought of all those bodies, wild and writhing. Of Bael’s teeth against my skin and silver eyes meeting mine while we both came apart.
Without warning, Bael’s hand shot out and closed around my upper thigh, tugging me closer. “Careful, little monster.”
“With what?” I gasped, trying to steady myself before I fell on top of him.
“Controlling myself is hard enough when I’m with you, without your scent driving me fucking insane.”
My eyes widened, mortification heating my cheeks. “S-sorry. Like I said, I’m tired.”
He tightened his grip on my leg and gritted his teeth. “Well, think of something else.”
He may as well have asked me to stop breathing. The moment he demanded I not think of sex, any other more important thing fled my brain, and suddenly, that was all I could imagine.
My mind flew, unbidden, to a tableau of the dreams I’d had over the last month.
Every time, I’d woken, gasping for breath with need pounding in my core, sweaty from the all-too-real memory of hot breath at my throat and fingers digging into my skin.
