Yrene made a mental mark to never send correspondence to the palace again. At least not letters that mattered.
No wonder Chaol had been restless and angry, if Nesryn had vanished like that.
“Do you suspect foul play?”
“From Sartaq?” Hasar cackled. The question was answer enough.
They reached the princess’s doors, servants silently opening them and stepping aside. Little more than shadows made flesh.
But Yrene paused in the doorway, digging in her heels as Hasar tried to lead her in. “I forgot to get him his tea,” she lied, disentangling her arm from Hasar’s.
The princess only gave her a knowing smile. “If you hear any interesting tidbits, you know where to find me.”
Yrene managed a nod and turned on her heel.
She didn’t go to his rooms. She doubted Chaol’s mood had improved in the ten minutes she’d been storming through the palace halls. And if she saw him, she knew she wouldn’t be able to refrain from asking about Nesryn. From pushing him until that control shattered. And she couldn’t guess where that would leave them. Perhaps a place neither of them was ready for.
But she had a gift. And a relentless, driving thrum now roared in her blood thanks to him.
She could not sit still. Did not want to go back to the Torre to read or help any of the others with their work.
Yrene left the palace and headed down the dusty streets of Antica.
She knew the way. The slums never moved. Only grew or shrank, depending on the ruler.
In the bright sun, there was little to fear. They were not bad people. Only poor—some desperate. Many forgotten and disheartened.
So she did as she had always done, even in Innish.
Yrene followed the sound of coughing.
27
Yrene healed six people by the time the sun set, and only then did she leave the slums.
One woman had a dangerous growth on her lungs that would have killed her. She’d been too busy with work to see a healer or physician. Three children had been burning up with fever in a too-cramped house, their mother weeping with panic. And then with gratitude as Yrene’s magic soothed and settled and purified. One man had broken his leg the week before and visited a piss-poor physician in the slums because he could not afford a carriage to carry him up to the Torre. And the sixth one …
The girl was no more than sixteen. Yrene had noticed her first because of the black eye. Then the cut lip.
Her magic had been wobbling, her knees with it, but Yrene had led the girl into a doorway and healed her eye. The lip. The cracked ribs. Healed the enormous handprint-shaped bruises on her forearm.
Yrene asked no questions. She read every answer in the girl’s fearful eyes anyway. Saw the girl consider whether it would land her with worse injuries to return home healed.
So Yrene had left the coloring. Left the appearance of bruises but healed all beneath. Leaving only the upper layer of skin, perhaps a little tender, to conceal the repaired damage.
Yrene did not try to tell her to leave. Whether it was her family or a lover or something else entirely, Yrene knew that no one but the girl would decide whether to walk out that door. All she did was inform her that should she ever need it, the door to the Torre would always be open. No questions asked. No fee demanded. And they would make sure that no one was allowed to take her out again unless she wished it.
The girl had kissed Yrene’s knuckles in thanks and scurried home in the falling dark.
Yrene herself had hurried, following the glimmering pillar of the Torre, her beacon home.
Her stomach was grumbling, her head throbbing with fatigue and hunger.
Drained. It felt good to be drained. To help.
And yet … That hounding, restless energy still thrummed. Still pushed. More more more.
She knew why. What was left unsettled. Still raging.
So she changed course, spearing for the glowing mass of the palace.
She paused at a favorite food stall, indulging in a meal of slow-roasted lamb that she devoured in a few minutes. It was rare that she got to eat beyond the confines of the palace or the Torre, thanks to her busy schedule, but when she did … Yrene was rubbing her satisfied belly as she made her way up to the palace. But then spotted an open kahve shop and managed to find room in her stomach for a cup of it. And a honey-dipped pastry.
Dawdling. Restless and angry and stupid.
Disgusted with herself, Yrene stomped up to the palace at last. With the summer sun setting so late, it was well past eleven by the time she headed through the dark halls.
Perhaps he’d be asleep. Maybe it would be a blessing. She didn’t know why she’d bothered to come. Biting off his head could have waited until tomorrow.
He was likely asleep.
Hopefully asleep. It’d probably be better if his healer didn’t barge into his room and shake him silly. It definitely wasn’t behavior approved by the Torre. By Hafiza.
And yet she kept walking, her pace increasing, steps near-clomping on the marble floors. If he wanted to take a step back on their progress, that was just fine. But she certainly didn’t have to let him do it—not without trying.
Yrene stormed down a long, dim corridor. She wasn’t a coward; she wouldn’t back down from this fight. She’d left that girl in that alley in Innish. And if he was inclined to sulk about Nesryn, then he was entitled to do so. But to call off their session because of it—
Unacceptable.
She’d simply tell him that and leave. Calmly. Rationally.
Yrene scowled with each step, muttering the word under her breath. Unacceptable.
And she had let him kick her out, no matter what she might have tried to tell herself.
That was even more unacceptable.
Stupid fool. She muttered that, too.
Loud enough that she nearly missed the sound.
The footstep—the scrape of shoes on stone—just behind her.
This late, servants were likely heading back to their masters’ rooms, but—
There it was. That sense, pricking again.
Only shadows and shafts of moonlight filled the pillar-lined hallway.
Yrene hurried her pace.
She heard it again—the steps behind. A casual, stalking gait.
Her mouth went dry, her heart thundering. She had no satchel, not even her little knife. Nothing in her pockets beyond that note.
Hurry, a small, gentle voice murmured in her ear. In her head.
She had never heard that voice before, but she sometimes felt its warmth. Coursing through her as her magic flowed out. It was as familiar to her as her own voice, her own heartbeat.
Hurry, girl.
Urgency laced each word.
Yrene increased her pace, nearing a run.
There was a corner ahead—she need only round it, make it thirty feet down that hall, and she’d be at his suite.
Was there a lock on the door? Would it be locked against her—or be able to keep whoever it was out?
Run, Yrene!
And that voice …
It was her mother’s voice that bellowed in her head, her heart.
She didn’t stop to think. To wonder.
Yrene launched into a sprint.
Her shoes slipped along the marble, and the person, the thing behind her—those footsteps broke into a run, too.
Yrene turned the corner and slid, skidding into the opposite wall so hard her shoulder barked in pain. Feet scrambling, she fought to regain momentum, not daring to look back—
Faster!
Yrene could see his door. Could see the light leaking out from beneath it.
A sob broke from her throat.
Those rushing steps behind her closed in. She didn’t dare risk her balance by looking.
Twenty feet. Ten. Five.
Yrene hurled for the handle, gripping it with all her strength to keep from sliding past as she shoved against it.
The door opened, and she whirled in, legs slipping beneath her as she slammed her entire body into the door and fumbled for the lock. There were two.
She finished the first when the person on the other side barreled into the door.
The entire thing shuddered.
Her fingers shook, her breath escaping in sharp sobs as she fought for the second, heavier lock.
She flipped it closed just as the door buckled again.
“What in hell—”
“Get inside your room,” she breathed to Chaol, not daring to take her eyes off the door as it shuddered. As the handle rattled. “Get in—now.”