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Chin up and shoulders squared, Ro looks to me for guidance. “Well, what should we do next?”
She’s projecting the courage of any seasoned warrior, but I don’t miss the way her fingers are balled up into tight fists or the slight tremble in her knees. Her toes anxiously wiggle inside my socks, and just seeing her wear an article of my clothing—knowing the material that was once on me is now touching her—sends more heat rushing to my cock.
Ignore it.
I nod to the pristine palace shining in the distance. “I think that’s our destination. I say we enter it with caution.”
Ro
Again, Kai and I are puzzled by the lack of action. I thought the challenge would be obvious once we got inside the palace.
But nope.
“It’s so quiet,” I observe as we stand in the foyer, my voice echoing off the high ceilings.
Closing his eyes, Kai listens intently. With his fae ears, he has better hearing than I do, and a few seconds later he gives his assessment. “I don’t detect anything at all. Not a whisper. There are no scuffles or thumps.”
“Is the palace abandoned?”
“Abandoned? No. Empty for the time being? Perhaps.”
“When is a palace ever empty?”
Never. That’s the answer. There’s always a bustle of activity, whether it’s for royal events or meetings, honored guests staying a while, or the staff carrying out their daily duties.
“Don’t think of it as a normal palace,” Kai says. “Armand is making us see what he wants us to see.”
“He’s good at it.”
Kai grunts in agreement as he strolls over to the detailed marble banister leading up to the second floor. “I’ve never known an Illusionist to have this much power. I can’t believe Armand transformed the Lost Land into this. Somehow, he’s making ugly things look beautiful.”
His comment makes me pause.
Is he talking about our surroundings or himself?
I wonder how he’s feeling now that his scars are gone. There was a moment when he looked at his smooth skin. A split second when he let his grumpiness slip, and I saw joy spark in his eyes.
“Is this always here?” Motioning to a round entry table with a big vase full of flowers, Kai circles it while keeping his distance from the roses as if the stems and petals might attack him again.
And it could happen.
I’m wary of them and literally everything else.
The only thing I know that’s safe is Kai.
“Yeah,” I reply, “and I recognize these flowers. It’s a rose hybrid from a part of the garden outside of the maze.”
The blooms are bigger than normal roses, like peonies, and the petals are multicolored. I’ve always called them watercolor flowers because it looks like someone took a rainbow paintbrush and let white paper soak up the pastel hues in a nonsensical pattern.
They were my favorite, but they also stir up sad memories. They were a silent apology for the abuse no one could stop.
Whenever I was healing from an unfortunate scuffle with Zarid, Zander would do the only thing a little boy could to help his mother—he’d bring me a present. The bouquets were his go-to because he knew they cheered me up.
After he went blind, a man from the landscaping staff took up gathering the flowers instead. I once saw the gardener passing the vase to Zander outside my bedroom door. Then, it wasn’t so much the gift that I appreciated, but the help someone gave to my son.
That good man was not repaid for his kindness. Zarid saw the gesture as a tactic to woo me, and he sentenced the gardener to death. Not a quick or merciful one. The terrible screams of agony still echo inside my mind as if I witnessed his execution just yesterday.
Stalking over to the double doors leading into the great hall on the left, Kai peeks into the throne room.
