Yrene pushed, “Was it fire—”
“Not fire.”
A magic-given injury. It had to have happened … Midsummer, he’d said. The day rumors claimed that magic had returned to the northern continent. That it had been freed by Aelin Galathynius.
“Were you fighting against the magic-wielders who returned that day?”
“I was not.” Clipped, sharp words.
And she looked into his eyes—his hard stare. Really looked.
Whatever had occurred, it had been horrible. Enough to leave such shadows and reticence.
She had healed people who’d endured horrors. Who could not reply to the questions she asked. And he might have served that butcher, but … Yrene tried not to grimace as she realized what lay ahead, what Hafiza had likely guessed at before assigning her to him: healers often did not just repair wounds, but also the trauma that went along with them. Not through magic, but … talking. Walking alongside the patient as they traveled those hard, dark paths.
And to do so with him … Yrene shoved the thought aside. Later. She’d think of it later.
Closing her eyes, Yrene unspooled her magic into a gentle, probing thread, and laid a palm on that splattered star atop his spine.
The cold slammed into her, spikes of it firing through her blood and bones.
Yrene reeled back as if she’d been given a physical blow.
Cold and dark and anger and agony—
She clenched her jaw, fighting past this echo in the bone, sending that thread-thin probe of power a little farther into the dark.
The pain would have been unbearable when it hit him.
Yrene pushed back against the cold—the cold and the lack and the oily, unworldly wrongness of it.
No magic of this world, some part of her whispered. Nothing that was natural or good. Nothing she knew, nothing she had ever dealt with.
Her magic screamed to draw back that probe, move away—
“Yrene.” His words were far away while the wind and blackness and emptiness of it roared around her—
And then that echo of nothingness … it seemed to awaken.
Cold filled her, burned along her limbs, creeping wider, encircling.
Yrene flung out her magic in a blind flare, the light pure as sea-foam.
The blackness retreated, a spider scuttling into a shadowed corner. Just enough—just enough that she yanked back her hand, yanked back herself, and found Chaol gaping at her.
Her hands trembled as she gazed down at them. As she gazed at that splotch of paleness on his tan skin. That presence … She coiled her magic deep within herself, willing it to warm her own bones and blood, to steady herself. Even as she steadied it, too—some internal, invisible hand stroking her power, soothing it.
Yrene rasped, “Tell me what that is.” For she had seen or felt or learned nothing like that.
“Is it inside me?” That was fear—genuine fear in his eyes.
Oh, he knew. Knew what manner of power had dealt this wound, what might be lurking within it. Knew enough about it to be afraid. If such a power existed in Adarlan …
Yrene swallowed. “I think … I think it’s only—only the echo of something bigger. Like a tattoo or a brand. It is not living, and yet …” She flexed her fingers. If a mere probing of the darkness with her magic had triggered such a response, then a full-on onslaught … “Tell me what that is. If I am going to be dealing with … with that, I need to know. Everything you can tell me.”
“I can’t.”
Yrene opened her mouth. But the lord flicked his gaze toward the open door. Her warning to him silently echoed. “Then we shall try to work around it,” she declared. “Sit up. I want to inspect your neck.”
He obeyed, and she observed him while his heavily muscled abdomen eased him upright, then he carefully swung his feet and legs to the floor. Good. That he had not just this much mobility, but the steady, calm patience to work with his body … Good.
Yrene kept that to herself while she strode on still-wobbly knees to the desk where she’d left the vials of amber fluid—massage oils pressed from rosemary and lavender from estates just beyond Antica’s walls, and eucalyptus from the far south.
She selected the eucalyptus, the crisp, smothering scent coiling around her as she pried off the stopper from the vial and took up a place beside him on the couch. Soothing, that scent. For both of them.
Seated together on that couch, he indeed towered over her—the muscled mass of him enough to make her understand why he’d been so adept at his position. Being perched beside him was different, somehow, than standing above him, touching him. Sitting beside a Lord of Adarlan …
Yrene didn’t let the thought settle as she pooled a small amount of the oil into her palm and rubbed her hands together to warm it. He inhaled deeply, as if taking the scent into his lungs, and Yrene didn’t bother to speak as she laid her hands upon his nape.
Broad, sweeping strokes around and down the broad column of his neck. Over his shoulders.
He let out a deep groan as she passed over a knot between his neck and shoulder, the sound of it reverberating into her palms, then stiffened. “Sorry.”
She ignored the apology, digging her thumbs into the area. Another noise rumbled out of him. Perhaps it made her cruel not to comment on his slight embarrassment, not to dismiss it. But Yrene just leaned in, sliding her palms down his back, giving a wide berth to that horrid mark.
She reined her magic in tightly, not letting her power brush up against it again.
“Tell me what you know,” she murmured in his ear, her cheek close enough to scrape the faint stubble coating his jaw. “Now.”
He waited a moment, listening for anyone nearby. And as Yrene’s hands stroked over his neck, kneading muscles that were knotted enough to make her cringe, Lord Westfall began whispering.
To Yrene Towers’s credit, her hands did not falter once while Chaol murmured in her ear about horrors even a dark god could not conjure.
Wyrdgates and Wyrdstone and Wyrdhounds. The Valg and Erawan and his princes and collars. Even to him, it sounded no more than a bedtime story, something his mother might have once whispered during those long winter nights in Anielle, the wild winds howling around the stone keep.
He did not tell her of the keys. Of the king who had been enslaved for two decades. Of Dorian’s own enslavement. He did not tell her who had attacked him, or Perrington’s true identity. Only the power the Valg wielded, the threat they posed. That they sided with Perrington.
“So this—agent of these … demons. It was his power that hit you here,” Yrene mused in a near-whisper, hand hovering over the spot on his spine. She didn’t dare touch it, had avoided that area completely while she’d massaged him, as if dreading contact with that dark echo again. She indeed now moved her hand over to his left shoulder and resumed her glorious kneading. He barely kept in his groan at the tension she eased from his aching back and shoulders, his upper arms, his neck and lower head.
He hadn’t known how knotted they were—how hard he’d worked himself in training.
“Yes,” he said at last, his voice still low. “It meant to kill me, but … I was spared.”
“By what?” The fear had long faded from her voice; no tremor lingered in her hands. But little warmth had replaced them, either.
Chaol angled his head, letting her work a muscle so tight it had him grinding his teeth. “A talisman that guarded me against such evil—and a stroke of luck.” Of mercy, from a king who had tried to pull that final punch. Not just as a kindness to him, but to Dorian.
Yrene’s miraculous hands stilled. She pulled back, searching his face. “Aelin Galathynius destroyed the glass castle. That was why she did it—why she took Rifthold, too. To defeat them?”
And where were you? was her unspoken demand.
“Yes.” And he found himself adding into her ear, his words little more than a rumble, “She, Nesryn, and I worked together. With many others.”
Who he had not
heard from, had no idea where they were. Off fighting, scrambling to save their lands, their future, while he was here. Unable to so much as even get a private audience with a prince, let alone the khagan.
Yrene considered. “Those are the horrors allying with Perrington,” she said softly. “What the armies will be fighting.”
Fear returned to blanch her face, but he offered what truth he could. “Yes.”
“And you—you will be fighting them?”
He gave her a bitter smile. “If you and I can figure this out.” If you can do the impossible.
But she did not return the amusement. Yrene only scooted back on the sofa, assessing him, wary and distant. For a moment, he thought she’d say something, ask him something, but she only shook her head. “I have much to look into. Before I dare go any further.” She gestured to his back, and he realized that he was still sitting in his undershorts.
He bit down on the urge to reach for his clothes. “Is there a risk—to you?” If there was—
“I don’t know. I … I truly have never encountered anything like this before. I should like to look into it, before I begin treating you and compose an exercise regimen. I need to do some research in the Torre library tonight.”
“Of course.” If this damned injury got them both hurt in the process, he’d refuse. He didn’t know what the hell he’d do, but he’d refuse to let her touch him. And for the risk, the effort … “You never mentioned your fee. For your help.”
It had to be exorbitant. If they’d sent their best, if she had such skill—
Yrene’s brows furrowed. “If you are so inclined, any donation may be made to help the upkeep of the Torre and its staff, but there is no price, no expectation.”
“Why?”
Her hand slid into her pocket as she rose. “I was given this gift by Silba. It is not right to charge for what was granted for free.”
Silba—Goddess of Healing.
He had known one other young woman who was gods-blessed. No wonder they both possessed such unbanked fire in their eyes.
Yrene took her vial of that lovely-smelling oil and began packing up her bag.
“Why did you decide to come back to help me?”
Yrene paused, her slim body going rigid. Then she turned to him.
A wind drifted in from the garden, blowing the strands of her hair, still half-up, over her chest and shoulder. “I thought you and Captain Faliq would use my refusal against me one day.”
“We don’t plan to live here forever.” No matter what else she’d implied.
Yrene shrugged. “Neither do I.”
She packed up the rest of her bag and headed for the door.
He stopped her with his next question. “You plan to return?” To Fenharrow? To hell?
Yrene looked to the door, to the servants listening, waiting, in the foyer beyond. “Yes.”
She wished not just to return to Fenharrow, but also to help in the war. For in this war healers would be needed. Desperately. No wonder she had paled at the horrors he had whispered into her ear. Not only for what they would face, but what might come to kill her, too.
And though her face remained wan, as she noted his raised brows, she added, “It is the right thing to do. With all I have been granted—all the kindness thrown my way.”
He debated warning her to stay, to remain here, safe and protected. But he noted the wariness in her eyes as she awaited his answer. Others, he realized, had likely already cautioned against her leaving. Perhaps made her doubt herself, just a bit.
So Chaol instead said, “Captain Faliq and I are not the sort of people who would hold a grudge against you—try to punish you for it.”
“You served a man who did such things.” And likely acted on his behalf.
“Would you believe me if I told you that he left his dirty work to others beyond my command, and I was often not told?”
Her expression told him enough. She reached for the doorknob.
“I knew,” he said quietly. “That he had done and was doing unspeakable things. I knew that forces had tried to fight against him when I was a boy, and he had smashed them to bits. I—to become captain, I had to yield certain … privileges. Assets. I did so willingly, because my focus was on protecting the future. On Dorian. Even as boys, I knew he was not his father’s son. I knew a better future lay with him, if I could make sure Dorian lived long enough. If he not only lived, but also survived—emotionally. If he had an ally, a true friend, in that court of vipers. Neither of us was old enough, strong enough to challenge his father. We saw what happened to those who whispered of rebellion. I knew that if I, if he set one foot out of line, his father would kill him, heir or no. So I craved the stability, the safety of the status quo.”
Yrene’s face had not altered, not softened or hardened. “What happened?”
He reached for his shirt at last. Fitting, he thought, that he’d laid some part of himself bare while sitting here mostly naked. “We met someone. Who set us all down a path I fought against until it cost me and others much. Too much. So you may look at me with resentment, Yrene Towers, and I will not blame you for it. But believe me when I say that there is no one in Erilea who loathes me more than I do myself.”
“For the path you found yourself forced down?”
He slung his shirt over his head and reached for his pants. “For fighting that path to begin with—for the mistakes I made in doing so.”
“And what path do you walk now? How shall the Hand of Adarlan shape its future?”
No one had asked him. Not even Dorian.
“I am still learning—still … deciding,” he admitted. “But it begins with wiping Perrington and the Valg from our homeland.”
She caught the word—our. She chewed on her lip, as if tasting it in her mouth. “What happened on Midsummer, exactly?” He’d been vague. Had not told her of the attack, the days and months leading to it, the aftermath.
That chamber flashed in his mind—a head rolling across the marble, Dorian screaming. Blending with another moment, of Dorian standing beside his father, face cold as death and crueler than any level of Hellas’s realm. “I told you what happened,” he simply said.
Yrene studied him, toying with the strap of her heavy leather satchel. “Facing the emotional consequences of your injury will be a part of this process.”
“I don’t need to face anything. I know what happened before, during, and after.”
Yrene stood perfectly still, those too-old eyes utterly unfazed. “We’ll see about that.”
The challenge hanging in the air between them, dread pooling in his stomach, the words curdled in Chaol’s mouth as she turned on her heel and left.
CHAPTER
9
Two hours later, her head leaning against the lip of the tub carved into the stone floor of the enormous cavern beneath the Torre, Yrene stared into the darkness lurking high above.
The Womb was nearly empty in the midafternoon. Her only company was the trickle of the natural hot spring waters flowing through the dozen tubs built into the cave floor, and the drip of water from jagged stalactites landing upon the countless bells strung on chains between the pillars of pale stone that rose up from the ancient rock.
Candles had been tucked into natural alcoves, or had been clumped at either end of each sunken tub, gilding the sulfurous steam and setting the owls carved into every wall and slick pillar in flickering relief.
A plush cloth cushioning her head against the unforgiving stone lip of the tub, Yrene breathed in the Womb’s thick air, watching it rise and vanish into the clear, crisp darkness squatting far overhead. All around her echoed high-pitched, sweet ringing, occasionally interrupted by solitary clear notes.
No one in the Torre knew who had first brought the various bells of silver and glass and bronze down to the open chamber of Silba’s Womb. Some bells had been there so long they were crusted with mineral deposits, their ringing as water dropped from the stalactites now no more than a faint plunk. But it wa
s tradition—one Yrene herself had participated in—for each new acolyte to bring a bell of her choosing. To have her name and date of entry into the Torre engraved on it, and to then find a place for it, before she first immersed herself in the bubbling waters of the Womb floor. The bell to hang for eternity, offering music and guidance to all healers who came afterward; the voices of their beloved sisters forever singing to them.
And considering how many healers had passed through the Torre halls, considering the number of bells, large and small, that now hung throughout the space … The entire chamber, nearly the size of the khagan’s great hall, was full of the echoing, layered ringing. A steady hum that filled Yrene’s head, her bones, as she soaked in the delicious heat.
Some ancient architect had discovered the hot springs far beneath the Torre and constructed a network of tubs built into the floor so that the water flowed between them, a constant stream of warmth and movement. Yrene held her hand against one of the vents in the side of the tub, letting the water ripple through her fingers on its way to the vent on the other end, to pass back into the stream itself—and into the slumbering heart of the earth.
Yrene took another deep breath, brushing back the damp hair clinging to her brow. She’d washed before entering the tub, as all were required to do in one of the small antechambers outside the Womb, to clean away the dust and blood and stains of the world above. An acolyte had been waiting with a lightweight robe of lavender—Silba’s color—for Yrene to wear into the Womb proper, where she’d discarded it beside the pool and stepped in, naked save for her mother’s ring.
In the curling steam, Yrene lifted her hand before her and studied the ring, the way the light bent along the gold and smoldered in the garnet. All around, bells rang and hummed and sang, blending with the trickling water until she was adrift in a stream of living sound.
Water—Silba’s element. To bathe in the sacred waters here, untouched by the world above, was to enter Silba’s very lifeblood. Yrene knew she was not the only healer who had taken the waters and felt as if she were indeed nestled in the warmth of Silba’s womb. As if this space had been made for them alone.