Almost without meaning to, she slipped her hand into his.
Heat punched into her as his fingers closed over hers. Anya was surprised to find them hard and faintly rough, as if this man—this King—regularly performed some kind of actual labor that left calluses there.
Snips of overheard conversations between guards echoed inside her, then. Tales of a king who had risen from his bed and held off the enemy with his own two hands and an ancient sword, like something out of a myth.
Surely not, Anya thought.
She saw a flicker of something in his dark eyes, then. That same heat that should have embarrassed her, yes, but something else, too.
Maybe it was surprise that there was thisstormbetween them, as if a simple touch could change the weather.
Indoors.
You have been locked up too long,Anya snapped at herself.
He did something with his head that was not a bow of any kind, but made her think of a deep, formal bow all the same.
Then, still gripping her hand and holding it out before him—like something out of an old storybook, wholly heedless of the way sensation lashed at her like rain—the King led her out of the dungeon.
And despite herself—despite every furious story she’d told herself over the past months, every scenario she’d imagined and reimagined in her head—as they emerged from the steep stone steps into what was clearly the main part of the palace, Anya was charmed.
She told herself it was as simple as moving from darkness into light. Anyone would be dazzled, she assured herself, after so many months below ground. Especially when she’d been brought here that terrifying night they’d been captured, hustled through lines of scary men with weapons, certain that the fact she’d been separated from her colleagues meant only terrible things.
Today Anya still had no idea what she was walking into, but at least it was pretty.
More than pretty. Everything seemed to be made of marble or mosaic, inlaid with gold and precious stones or carved into glorious patterns. It was all gleaming white or the sparkling blue water of the fountains. There were splashes of color, exultant flowers, and the impossibly blue sky there above her in wide-open courtyards, like a gift.
She found herself tipping back her face to let the sun move over it, even though she knew that gave too much away. That it made her much too vulnerable.
But if he was only taking her from one cell to another, she intended to enjoy it.
Anya had learned the language, but still, she didn’t understand what Tarek muttered to a specific man who strode directly behind him. The rest of the men fell away. There were more impossibly graceful halls, statues and art that made a deep, old longing inside her swell into being, and then this blade of a king led her into a room so dizzy with light that she found herself blinking as she looked around.
The light bounced off all the surfaces, gleaming so hard it almost hurt, but Anya loved it. Even when her eyes teared up, she loved it.
Tarek dropped her hand, then beckoned for her to take a seat in one of the low couches she belatedly realized formed a circle in the center of the room. But how could she notice the brightly patterned cushions and seats when the walls were encrusted in jewels and the room opened up on to a long, white terrace? She thought she saw the hint of a pool. And off to one side, more chairs, low tables, and lush green trees for shade.
“This is your suite and your salon,” he told her. “I’m going to ask you some questions, and then I will leave you to reacclimate. You will be provided with whatever you need. Clothes to choose from, a bath with whatever accessories you require, and, of course, access to your loved ones using whatever medium you wish. My servants are even now assembling outside this room, ready to wait on you hand and foot. In the meantime, as I cannot imagine that the food in the dungeon speaks well of Alzalam and because I am afraid I must ask you these questions, I’ve taken the liberty of requesting a small tea service.”
“A tea service,” Anya repeated, and had to choke back the urge to burst out laughing. She coughed. “That is...the most insane and yet perfect thing you could possibly have said.A tea service.”
She suspected she was hysterical. Or about to be, because she was clearly in shock and attempting to process it, when that was likely impossible. She was out of her cell, and that was what mattered. More, she did not think that Tarek had chosen this room bursting with light and open to the great outdoors by accident.
Yet somehow, she thought that after all of this, she might not survive if she broke apart like that. Here, now, when it seemed she might actually have made it through.
She would never forgive herself if she fell apart now.
When he was sitting opposite her, all his ivory and gold seeming a part of the light that she was suddenly bathed in. As if he was another jeweled thing, precious and impossible.
If she cried now, she would die.
And as if to taunt her, that knotted horror in her solar plexus pulled tight.
“You do not have to eat, of course,” he said with a kind of matter-of-fact gentleness that made the knot ache and, lower, something deep in her belly begin to melt. “Nor am I suggesting that a few pastries can make up for what was done to you. Consider it the first of many gifts I intend to bestow upon you, as an apology for what has happened to you here.”
Anya didn’t really know how she was expected to respond to that. Because the fact was, she was still here and she couldn’t quite believe what was happening. She shifted in her plush, soft seat and dug her fingernails into her thigh, hard. It hurt, but she didn’t wake up to find herself in her cell. She’d had so many of those dreams at first, and still had them now and again. They were all so heartbreakingly realistic and every time, the shock of waking to find herself still stuck in that cell felt like the kind of blow she couldn’t get up from.
Slowly, she released her painful grip on her own thigh and assessed her situation.