I try to meet Essos’s eyes, confused as to what’s happening. I don’t want to open my mouth, afraid that my voice will waver. Cold suffuses my limbs, and the only thought pounding in my mind is that this is how it felt when I was drowning. There was that momentary awareness, then cold before everything was different.
“Ess—” I start, but never finish. His hands grab my waist as my vision slowly tunnels to black.
CHAPTER19
I’m on a boat, my body swaying with the water below me. I’ve got on a tea-length navy dress and oversized sunglasses. I’m lying back, watching Essos. He’s wearing a polo, and his biceps bulge with each stroke of the oars as he watches me intently. My lips pull into a smile, enjoying how serene the King of the Underworld looks bathed in light. I’m just as calm as I look at him, but his face blurs, and instead of Essos, I’m sitting with Galen. My sense of serenity is gone, and now I’m confused and alarmed, as if a glitch in the Matrix keeps changing their faces.
My eyes open, and I find I’m sitting up and swaying, gently propped against something firm.
“Look who has decided to join the world of the living,” Essos quips, sounding amused by his own joke, and I realize he’s holding me on Costello’s back. I rub my head and touch my nose, finding the crust of dried blood there.
“How long was I out?” My voice sounds groggy.
“About 10 minutes. You got a nosebleed and passed out. Your heart…” Essos pauses, and I think I hear him swallow. “I was able to heal you.” I turn slightly in the saddle, accidentally grinding against him as I try to look at him. I see blood on the flower I put in his pocket, and I’m suddenly thankful he’s wearing black.As badly as I want him to finish his sentence, I can’t hear him say it.
“Stop the horse,” I say firmly, and without question, he does. I go to climb off, and he steadies me before jumping off first and helping me down.
“Why does this keep happening?” I ask, my voice shaking. “I demand a real answer, not the ‘Ring Around the Rosie’ bullshit you keep giving me. Ideservean answer. It felt like I was dying.”
“I don’t know.” He shoves his hands in his suit pockets. I pace in front of him, unsatisfied with the answer. When I meet his eyes, I see regret, and that makes me angrier. I shove him hard.
“IsaidI want an answer,” I shout in his face.
He whips his hands out of his pockets to catch his balance. “Isaid, I don’t know!” He runs one hand through his hair, leaving his dark locks unkempt. He continues shouting. “Don’t you understand how frustrating that is for me? This is my domain—I’m supposed to have all the answers, and I just don’t.”
“Don’t you know how frustrating this is forme? I keep almost dying!” I don’t want to keep shouting, but I do. I have no one else to take out my frustration on, just him.
He walks past me to grab the reins of the horses and starts walking them toward the house and away from me. “I have Sybil making inquiries. If you could be so kind as to not almost get yourself killed for one godsdamned day, I would greatly appreciate it.”
I have to run to catch up to him.“Hey, you don’t get to walk away from me. You hold all the cards in this game, and I don’t even know what game we’re playing!”
“Then for the love of the gods, will you just play along like everyone else?”
I kick sand at him, but the wind just blows it back at me, leaving me sputtering.“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Me playing doll, like Zara. That way you can bend me and dress me any way you want.”
I see the moment I go too far and he shuts down.
“I’m not going to be baited, Daphne. It’s not happening.”
Like I know the sky is blue, I know that if I push him a little harder, I can bait him into a reaction. I can bait him into shredding his cool veneer before he—I kill the thought.
Why do I think I know this man that well?
I lift my skirts to kick more sand at him but get woozy in the wind. My body feels effervescent, and I grab my head, starting to fall backwards. Essos is there in a flash to catch me before gently settling me on the beach. Our combined weight throws him off balance, his butt crashing into the sand, but he doesn’t let me feel the jarring impact. He holds me practically in his lap and places a hand on my forehead, as if seeing if I have a fever.
“We can’t even have a proper argument without you nearly passing out,” he grumbles.
“Stop that. Don’t touch me; I’m mad at you.” My protest is as halfhearted as my attempt to push his hand away.
He silences me with a dirty look before he closes his eyes in concentration. My head feels lighter somehow, like the vise released my brain and the blood flow has returned to normal instead of gushing out my nose. I don't even consider what a tragedy my dress has become.
“I’ve done what I can for your head. You’re not bleeding internally, but there’s a deeper issue I can’t fix because I can’t find the source.”
I pull my knees up to my chest and rest my chin on them. “You’re infuriating,” I mutter. “But thank you.” I’m genuinely thankful for him helping heal me at every turn.
I can see he’s just as frustrated as I am. I play with the hem of my dress, looking away from him, the fight draining out of me.
“And so are you. You’re making keeping you alive a full-time job, and I already have one of those.” He shifts, removing his coat and undoing the top button of his shirt. This is the most casual I have seen him since embarking on this journey.