Traitors.
I shove them behind me and cross my arms, trying to gain some semblance of calm, though my heart is pounding hard enough to rattle my ribs.
Creases of light fold in from the gaps between the curtains, casting shards of glowing lines between us. We regard each other in silence for a moment, while my nervous embarrassment grows.
“I’m sorry,” I rush out. “Fake Rip let me in, but I should’ve stayed in the sitting room. It was incredibly rude of me to come in here.”
He tilts his head. “So why did you?”
My mouth opens and closes, but no words come out, because what am I going to say? Well, I just wanted to snoop? That doesn’t seem like a good answer.
When I don’t reply, he says, “You just decided to come in here and rumple up my blankets because you were bored?” His tone isn’t impatient or angry, even though I’ve clearly overstepped. If anything, he’s just amused, though there’s an underlying wariness too. His green eyes seem darker than usual, his shoulders tight with a tension that won’t let go.
The blush on my cheeks burns hotter at his teasing tone. “Are you angry?”
“Very,” he replies steadily, and my heart drops until he adds, “but not with you.”
I swallow hard, unsure how to respond to that.
“What are you doing here, Auren?”
“Here, as in...Ranhold or...?”
I’m stalling. I know it, he knows it, but I can’t seem to help it. Not now that he’s here in front of me.
Mirth flashes across his face. “Here, as in my personal chambers.”
Our conversation from the library replays in my head again. “I...well, I came here to see you.”
He may look relaxed to others, but I’ve paid enough attention to Slade to know that’s not the case. He’s watching me in that intense way of his, like he’s studying every inch, noting every gesture.
“Why?”
I twist my hands into my skirts in a nervous gesture because this is so much harder than I thought. Or maybe I just didn’t really let myself think it through because I didn’t want to chicken out.
“Auren?” he prompts.
He’s always doing that, isn’t he? Prompting me, pushing me, and it’s exactly what I need. But I’m not only hearing him now, I’m hearing him then. When he gave me words and fight and a choice.
Listen to your instincts and stop holding back.
I can’t wait to see the rest of you.
You’re so much more than what you let yourself be.
Do you want to stay?
My throat thickens like I’ve gulped mud, but I manage to look him in the eye. “I’m here because I wanted to say something to you.”
The only indication that I’ve surprised him is in the way he slides his propped-up foot onto the floor, as if he’s bracing himself for what I have to say. “...Alright.”
Before I can lose my nerve, I take a deep breath. “When I was five years old, war came to Bryol, where I lived in Annwyn. It arrived with fire and smoke and death. My parents tried to sneak me out with the rest of the children on the street, but our escorts didn’t last the hour. We were stolen long before we ever reached safety.”
Slade’s attention intensifies, like this was the last thing he expected. Even a part of me is surprised that this is how I’ve chosen to open up. Then again, maybe this is exactly what I needed to say.
“Even though I didn’t have my magic yet, hadn’t even sprouted ribbons from my back, I was too recognizable to be bought by any fae. So, I was smuggled into Orea—I still to this day don’t know how. All I know is, one night I was in Annwyn, and the next, I was here in th
is world where I didn’t belong, where the sky didn’t sing and the sun wasn’t right. I was bought by a man in Derfort Harbor who smelled like alcohol and pipe smoke. A man who taught me how to steal and to beg. That same man who later made me into a street rat saddle, who made sure I opened my legs for any paying customer who wanted a night with the painted girl.”