“Let’s see how sharp your tongue is now, shall we?”
Icy dread curled through Nick as she laid her hand over his bleeding arm.
Chapter Thirty-Two
A blanket of warmth settled over Nick. Peace. Happiness. His shoulders relaxed as he stared at the delicate fingers curved around his bleeding arm. Fine green veins ran beneath pale skin, nails trim and blue. Nick’s gaze moved slowly upwards, from the notch of her wrist, the curve of her elbow, to the sleeve of her wedding dress. Desre was beautiful. Through a thick fog that permeated his mind, Nick had the vague feeling that he was meant to be doing something to please her.
“Desre,” Nick murmured, meaning to ask what she wanted from him. He knew it was something very important to her, something he could give that nobody else could.
“My lady,” she corrected.
“My lady,” Nick copied instantly.
Desre slid a hand under his chin and lifted his face, peering into his eyes. Nick leaned into her wonderful, cold touch, shivering. “My lady,” he repeated, feeling lost and content at the same time.
The doors to the hall banged open. Heels clicked hollowly on marble stone as someone marched down the centre aisle. “They’re gone,” Rin said.
Desre looked over Nick’s shoulder. “They withdrew without attacking?”
“Not just the army.Allof them are gone. The guards, the workers, the people—there’s not a soul left in Aridia.” Rin came side by side with them. She bore a confused expression, one that Greya matched, though Desre’s expression—the only one Nick cared to read—filled with realisation.
“So this was the solution he found, to deny me of people at all.” There was a hard note of anger in her voice. Nick felt that anger shivering through him, dangerous and threatening. A pained groan slipped past his lips as the need to placate Desre overwhelmed him.
“I can show you on a map where they are,” Nick offered. Within the fog of his mind, something twisted and rebelled. But that feeling mattered none at all when compared to what Desre wanted. “Kit is being kept there.” A flicker of something sharp and painful passed through him. “I even know what room he’s in. I can help you get him back.”
“What do we do?” Rin butted in.
Desre turned back to Nick assessingly. She was worried, he thought, that he was tricking her. Nick’s heart ached that she suspected him of trying to harm her. Even though hehad. “I’m sorry. I hurt you. I didn’t know what I—I didn’tknow.” Confusion curled through him. How could he have forgotten his love of her? How could he have struck out and physically attacked her?
Something was terribly wrong.
“He hurt you?” Rin asked, distracted.
Desre’s anger swept through Nick; she felt so cold inside he wondered if anything in the universe could warm her? He squeezed his eyes shut. He’d displeased her again. She didn’t want these people to see her vulnerability. To know that aprotection symbol had blocked her power, that she had come to physical harm.
“Rin’s jealous of you,” Nick said, trying to distract Rin from asking more questions that Desre didn’t want asked. “She thinks the god that came here liked her, not you. She’s delusional.”
Rin’s breath stuttered. “Excuse—I—that’s it, I’m having that tongue.”
Desre’s head tilted to the side, a slow smile twisting her lips. Her eyes gleamed. She still felt ice cold. “No,” she said, amused. “It’s growing on me. And really, Rin, all this time you thought he favoured you? His maid? You were with him for years, and he never once took you to bed.”
Rin reddened. “It was an intellectual connection! We discussed strategy and battle plans and –”
“He was many things, but he was no battle commander. None in that family line were; it’s why they’re all dead. I’m actuallymarriedto a commander, so I can tell you the difference is rather irksome. What do you know of Valor’s plans?” She addressed the question to Nick.
Nick breathed out, thinking hard through confusing, muddled thoughts. This was important. “What I know could be lies,” he said, recalling Valor’s nature. “He would burn Aridia down to keep Kit free of you; that matters more to him than anything. Ending you is important. But he cannot kill you. He…” Nick blinked, a thought coming suddenly through the gloom. “He let you find me.”
Desre’s eyes narrowed. “Letme?”
Nick would have nodded, but her lovely fingers were digging into his throat, nails biting into his pulse and drawing blood. “How did you know where to find me? I only went to the river twice, and the second time, Captain Hin was waiting.”
“An informant. Valor does not think you can kill me, even if he knows of your…spells,” Desre said. “You’re no match for even the weakest of my guards.”
“I’m not,” Nick agreed. “But I doubt you were the only one to get information about my whereabouts. Your power doesn’t work on merfolk, does it?” Nick asked. She wouldn’t have diverted them to the Dia River, where she knew rebels waited to snatch away Kit, if she wasn’t afraid of the mermen stopping their ship. “They’ll come for me. Here. He’ll tell them where I am and what you are.” Fear made his heart stutter. “He’ll twist it so that they’ll kill you when they do.”
Foreign emotions roiled through Nick. Anger. Hate.
“Why would they come all this way? For a student?” Desre demanded. In his peripheral vision, he saw the uneasy look Rin and Greya exchanged.
