She took a step back.
Chaol’s hands curled around empty air.
He clenched his jaw as he fought to remain upright, his body swaying and strange.
“Perhaps it makes you feel better about yourself to associate with meek, pathetic little people like me.”
“I do not …” He ground his teeth, and lurched another step toward her, needing to just touch her, to take her hand and squeeze it, to just show her he wasn’t like that. Didn’t think like that. He swayed left, throwing out a hand to balance him as he bit out, “You know I didn’t mean it.”
Yrene backed away, keeping out of reach. “Do I?”
He pushed forward another step. Another.
She dodged him each time.
“You know it, damn you,” he growled. He forced his legs into another jerking step.
Yrene sidled out of the way.
He blinked, pausing.
Reading the light in her eyes. The tone.
The witch was tricking him into walking. Coaxing him to move. To follow.
She paused, meeting his stare, not a trace of that hurt in them, as if to say, It took you long enough to figure it out. A little smile bloomed on her mouth.
He was standing. He was … walking.
Walking. And this woman before him …
Chaol made it another step.
Yrene retreated.
Not a hunt, but a dance.
He did not remove his eyes from hers as he staggered another step, and another, his body aching, trembling. But he gritted through it. Fought for each inch toward her. Each step that had her backing up to the wall.
Her breath came in shallow pants, those golden eyes so wide as he tracked her across the room. As she led him one foot after another.
Until her back hit the wall, the sconce on it rattling. As if she’d lost track of where she was.
Chaol was instantly upon her.
He braced one hand upon the wall, the wallpaper smooth beneath his palm as he put his weight upon it. To keep his body upright as his thighs shook, back straining.
They were smaller, secondary concerns.
His other hand …
Yrene’s eyes were still bright with those tears he’d caused.
One still clung to her cheek.
Chaol wiped it away. Another one he found down by her jaw.
He didn’t understand—how she could be so delicate, so small, when she had overturned his life entirely. Worked miracles with those hands and that soul, this woman who had crossed mountains and seas.
She was trembling. Not with fear, not as she looked up at him.
And it was only when Yrene settled her hand on his chest, not to push him away but to feel the raging, thunderous heartbeat beneath, that Chaol lowered his head and kissed her.
He was standing. He was walking.
And he was kissing her.
Yrene could barely breathe, barely keep inside her skin, as Chaol’s mouth settled over hers.
It was like waking up or being born or falling out of the sky. It was an answer and a song, and she could not think or feel fast enough.
Her hands curled into his shirt, fingers wrapping around fistfuls of fabric, tugging him closer.
His lips caressed hers in patient, unhurried movements, as if tracing the feel of her. And when his teeth grazed her lower lip … She opened her mouth to him.
He swept in, pressing her farther into the wall. She barely felt the molding digging into her spine, the sleekness of the wallpaper against her back as his tongue slid into her mouth.
Yrene moaned, not caring who heard, who might be listening. They could all go to hell for all she cared. She was burning, glowing—
Chaol laid a hand against her jaw, angling her face to better claim her mouth. She arched, silently begging him to take—
She knew he hadn’t meant what he said, knew it had been himself he’d been raging at. She’d goaded him into that fight, and even if it had hurt … She’d known the moment he stood, when her heart had stopped dead, that he hadn’t meant it.
That he would have crawled.
This man, this noble and selfless and remarkable man …
Yrene dragged her hands around his shoulders, fingers slipping into his silken brown hair. More, more, more—
But his kiss was thorough. As if he wanted to learn every taste, every angle of her.
She brushed her tongue against his, and his growl had her toes curling in her slippers—
She felt the tremor go through him before she registered what it was.
The strain.
Still he kissed her, seemed intent to do so, even if it brought him crashing to the floor.
Small steps. Small measures.
Yrene broke away, putting a hand on his chest when he made to claim her mouth again. “You should sit.”
His eyes were wholly black. “I—let me—please, Yrene.”
Each word was a broken rasp. As if he’d freed some tether on himself.
She fought to keep her breathing steady. To gather her wits. Too long on his feet and he might strain his back. And before she could encourage the walking and—more, she needed to go into his wound to look around. Perhaps it had receded enough on its own.
Chaol brushed his mouth against hers, the silken heat of his lips enough to make her willing to ignore common sense.
But she shoved back against it. Gently slid out of his reach. “Now I’ll have ways to reward you,” she said, trying for humor.
He didn’t smile back. Didn’t do anything but watch her with near-predatory intent as she backed away a step and offered her arm to him. To walk back to the chair.
To walk.
He was walking—
He did so. Pushed off the wall, and swayed—
Yrene caught him, steadied him.
“I thought you never stepped in to help me,” he said drily, raising a brow.
“In the chair, yes. You have much farther to fall now.”
Chaol huffed a laugh, then leaned in to whisper in her ear, “Will it be the bed or the couch now, Yrene?”
She swallowed, daring a sidelong look up at him. His eyes were still dark, his face flushed and lips swollen. From her.
Yrene’s blood heated, her core near-molten. How the hell would she have him nearly naked before her now?
“You are still my patient,” she managed to say primly, and guided him into his chair. Nearly shoved him onto it—and nearly leaped atop him, too. “And while there is no official vow about such things, I plan to keep things professional.”
Chaol’s answering smile was anything but. So was the way he growled, “Come here.”
Yrene’s heartbeat pounded through every inch of her as she closed the foot of space between them. As she held his burning gaze and settled into his lap.
His hand slid beneath her hair to cup the back of her neck, drawing her face to his as he brushed a kiss over the corner of her mouth. Then the other. She gripped his shoulder, fingers digging into the hard muscle beneath, her breathing turning jagged as he nipped at her bottom lip, as his other hand began to explore up her torso—
A door opened in the hallway, and Yrene was instantly up, striding across the sitting room for the desk—to the vials of oil there. Just as Kadja slipped through the door, a tray in her hands.
The servant girl had found the “ingredients” Yrene needed. Twine, goat’s milk, and vinegar.
Yrene could barely remember words to thank the servant as the girl set the tray on the desk.
Whether Kadja saw their faces, their hair and clothes, and could read the white-hot line of tension between them, she said nothing. Yrene had no doubt she might suspect, would no doubt report it to whoever held her leash, but … Yrene found herself not caring as she leaned against the desk, Kadja departing as silently as she had come.
Found Chaol still watching her, chest heaving.
“What do we do now?” Yrene asked quietly.
For she didn’t know—how to go back—<
br />
Chaol didn’t reply. He just stretched out one leg wholly in front of him. Then the other. Did it again, marveling.
“We don’t look back,” he said, meeting her stare. “It helps no one and nothing to look back.” The way he said it … It seemed as if it meant something more. To him, at least.
But Chaol’s smile grew, his eyes lighting as he added, “We can only go on.”
Yrene went to him, unable to stop herself, as if that smile were a beacon in the dark.
And when Chaol wheeled himself to the couch and peeled off his shirt, when he lay down and she set her hands on his warm, strong back … Yrene smiled as well.
CHAPTER
40
Standing and walking a few steps wasn’t the same as being back to full capacity.
The next week proved it. Yrene still battled with whatever lurked in Chaol’s spine, still clinging—down to the very base, she explained—and still keeping him from full motion. Running, most jumping, kicking: out of the question. But thanks to the sturdy wooden cane she procured for him, he could stand, and he could walk.
And it was a gods-damned miracle.
He brought the cane and the chair to his morning training with Hashim and the guards, for the moments when he pushed himself too hard and couldn’t manage the return trip to his rooms. Yrene joined him during the early lessons, instructing Hashim on where to focus in his legs. To rebuild more muscle. To stabilize him further. She’d done the same for Shen, Hashim had confided one morning—had come to supervise most of his initial training sessions after his injury.
So Yrene had been there, watching from the sidelines, that first day Chaol had taken up a sword against Hashim and dueled. Or did it as best he could with the cane in one hand.
His balance was shit, his legs unreliable, but he managed to get in a few good hits against the man. And a cane … not a bad weapon, if the fight called for it.
Yrene’s eyes had been wide as saucers when they stopped and Chaol approached her spot on the wall, leaning heavily on the cane as his body trembled.
The color on her face, he realized with no small amount of male satisfaction, was from far more than the heat. And when they’d eventually left, walking slowly into the cool shadows of the halls, Yrene had tugged him into a curtained-off alcove and kissed him.
Leaning against a supply shelf for support, his hands had roved all over her, the generous curves and small waist, tangling into her long, heavy hair. She’d kissed and kissed him, breathless and panting, and then licked—actually licked the sweat from his neck.
Chaol had groaned so loudly that it was no surprise a servant appeared a heartbeat later, ripping the curtain away, as if to chide two workers for shirking their duties.
Yrene had blanched as she’d righted herself and asked the bowing and scraping male servant not to say anything. He assured her that he wouldn’t, but Yrene had been shaken. She’d kept her distance for the rest of the walk back.
And maintained it every day since. It was driving him mad.
But he understood. With her position, both in the Torre and within the palace, they should be smarter. More careful.
And with Kadja always in his rooms …
Chaol kept his hands to himself. Even when Yrene laid her own hands upon his back and healed him, pushed and pushed herself, to break through that final wall of darkness.
He wanted to tell her, debated telling her, that it was already enough. He would gladly live with the cane for the rest of his life. She had given him more than he could ever hope for.
For he saw the guards every morning. The weapons and shields.
And he thought of that war, unleashing itself at last upon his friends. His homeland.
Even if he did not bring an army with him when he returned, he’d find some way to stand on those battlefields. Riding, at least, was now a viable option while fighting alongside them.
Fighting for—her.
He was thinking of it as they walked to dinner one night, over a week later. With the cane, it took him longer than usual, but he did not mind any extra moment spent in her company.
She was wearing her purple gown—his favorite—her hair half up and curling softly from the unusually humid day. But she was jumpy, unsettled.
“What is it?”
The royals hadn’t cared the first night he’d walked on his own two legs to dinner. Another everyday miracle of the Torre, though the khagan himself had commended Yrene. She’d beamed at the praise. Even as the khagan had ignored Chaol—as he had done since that ill-fated meeting.
Yrene rubbed at the scar on her neck as if it ached. He hadn’t asked about it—didn’t want to know. Only because if he did … Even with a war upon them, he might very well take the time to hunt down whoever had done it and bury them.
“I convinced Hasar to throw me a party,” Yrene said quietly.
He waited until they’d passed a cluster of servants before asking, “For what reason?”
She blew out a breath. “It’s my birthday. In three days.”
“Your birthday?”
“You know, the celebration of the day of your birth—”
He nudged her with an elbow, though his spine slipped and shifted with the movement. The cane groaned as he pressed his weight upon it. “I had no idea that she-devils actually had them.”
She stuck out her tongue. “Yes, even my kind has them.”
Chaol grinned. “So you asked her to throw one for you?” Considering how the last party had gone … He might very well wind up one of those people slipping away into a darkened bedroom. Especially if Yrene wore that dress again.
“Not exactly,” Yrene said wryly. “I mentioned that my birthday was coming up, and how dull your plans for it were …”
He chuckled. “Presumptuous of you.”
She batted her eyelashes. “And I might have mentioned that in all my years here, I’ve never been to the desert and was debating a trip of my own, but that I’d be sad to not celebrate with her …”
“And I’m guessing that she suggested an oasis owned by her family instead?”
Yrene hummed. “A little overnight excursion to Aksara—half a day’s ride to the east, to their permanent tented camp within the oasis.”
So the healer could scheme after all. But—“It’ll be boiling in this heat.”
“The princess wants a party in the desert. So she shall have one.” She chewed on her lip, those shadows dancing again. “I also managed to ask her about it—Aksara. The history.” Chaol braced himself. “Hasar grew bored before she told me much, but she said that she’d once heard that the oasis grew atop a city of the dead. That the ruins now there were merely the gateway inside. They don’t like to risk disturbing the dead, so they never leave the spring itself—to venture into the jungle around it.”
No wonder she’d seemed concerned. “Not only caves to be found, then.”
“Perhaps Nousha means something different; perhaps there are also caves there with information.” She blew out a breath. “I suppose we’ll see. I made sure to yawn while Hasar told me, enough that I doubt she’ll wonder why I asked at all.”
Chaol kissed her temple, a swift brush of his mouth that no one might see. “Clever, Yrene.”
“I meant to tell you the other week, but then you stood, and I forgot. Some court schemer I am.”
He caressed his free hand down the length of her spine. A bit lower. “We’ve been otherwise engaged.” Her face flushed a beautiful shade of pink, but a thought settled into him. “What do you really want for your birthday? And which one is it?”
“Twenty-two. And I don’t know. If it wasn’t for this, I wouldn’t have brought it up at all.”
“You weren’t going to tell me?”
She gave him a guilty frown. “I figured that with everything pressing on you, birthdays were inconsequential.” Her hand slid into her pocket—to hold that thing he’d never inquired about.
They neared the clamor of dinner in the great hall. He bru
shed his fingers against hers. She halted at the silent request, the hall spreading away before them, servants and viziers striding past.
Chaol leaned on his cane while they rested, letting it stabilize his weight. “Am I invited to this desert party, at least?”
“Oh, yes. You, and all my other favorite people: Arghun, Kashin, and a handful of delightful viziers.”
“I’m glad I made the cut, considering that Hasar hates me.”
“No.” Yrene’s eyes darkened. “If Hasar hated you, I don’t think you’d be alive right now.”
Gods above. This was the woman she’d befriended.
Yrene went on, “At least Renia will be there, but Duva shouldn’t be in the heat in her condition and her husband won’t leave her side. I’m sure that once we get there, information or no, I’ll probably wish I could have made a similar excuse.”
“We’ve got a few days. We could, technically, make the same one if we need to leave.”
The words settled in. The invitation and implication. Yrene’s face went delightfully red, and she smacked his arm. “Rogue.”
Chaol chuckled, and eyed the hallway for a shadowed corner. But Yrene breathed, “We can’t.”
Not about his sorry joke, but about the want she no doubt saw building in his eyes. The want he beheld simmering in hers.
He adjusted his jacket. “Well, I’ll attempt to find you a suitable present that can compare to an entire desert retreat, but don’t hold me to it.”
Yrene looped her arm through Chaol’s free one, no more than a healer escorting her patient to the table. “I have everything I need,” was all she said.
CHAPTER
41
It took over a week to plan it.
Over a week alone for Sartaq and Houlun to dig up ancient maps of the Dagul Fells.
Most were vague and useless. What riders had assessed from the air but not dared get too close to detail. The kharankui’s territory was small, but had grown larger, bolder these last few years.
And it was into the dark heart of their territory that they would go.
The hardest part was convincing Borte to remain behind.
But Nesryn and Sartaq left that up to Houlun. And one sharp word from the hearth-mother had the girl falling in line. Even as Borte’s eyes simmered with outrage, she bowed to her grandmother’s wishes. As heir, Houlun had snapped, Borte’s first obligation was to their people. The bloodline ended with her. Should Borte head into the dim tangle of Dagul, she might as well spit upon where her mother’s sulde stood on the slopes of Arundin.