Page 22 of Hearts on Fire
“What do you mean?” Elex looked puzzled.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” I muttered under my breath. “Tell him I have diarrhea. A really bad case. And I don’t want to… um,soilhis fine gathering in any way.”
Not waiting for his reaction, I ran to the tower with the staircase at the other end of the hallway.
“What'sdiarrhea?” the guard asked Elex, sounding confused.
I guessed the fae didn’t have that particular ailment—lucky for them. I didn’t go back to explain, however, letting them figure it out on their own, or not. Either way, I trusted Elex to come up with a suitable excuse for the king if needed. He was so much better at court life than I could ever hope to be. And I had a different priority right now.
Running down the stairs, I made it to the floor with the kitchen, then to the corridor that led to thesalamandras’bedroom.
Zenada lay on her uninjured side on her perch. Her leather top was off. Her pants had been shoved down. Mother sat next to her, applying a brown poultice to Zenada’s freshest burn.
“How are you?” I padded closer, instantly subdued at the sight of my friend suffering in pain.
She gritted her teeth as Mother smeared another dollop of paste on her red and blistered skin.
“She’ll be fine,” Mother bit out. “It’ll take a few days for the new skin to grow.”
“For thescarto form, you mean?” I fisted my hands, wishing I could punch something… No, someone… I wished I could punch the king for burning Zenada for no other purpose but for some perverted kind of fun.
Damn you, King Edkhar.
Mother shrugged. “Is there a difference?”
Anger rose in me, burning my insides like fire.
“You know there is. The king could’ve had his entertainment by letting Zenada dance with the regular fire. If she burned herself with it, at least she could heal without a scar. But no, he wanted to burn her himself, with his dragon’s fire. Because he knew it would really hurt her, leaving a mark on her—”
“Silence!” Mother jumped to her feet. The clay lid of the poultice jar rolled from her lap and shattered to pieces against the stone floor. “Don’t you dare criticize the king.” She slammed the jar on the perch nearby.
Fuming, I plopped onto my bed next to Zenada’s. Mother kneeled at my feet unexpectedly, leaving me speechless for a moment. Then I realized what she was doing as she snapped a metal manacle around my right ankle.
“Why?” I yanked at my foot, making the chain attached to the manacle rattle. It stretched all the way to a ring mounted into the wall.
“This is to make sure you stay put at night,” Mother hissed, locking my restraints then slipping the key into her pocket.
Hurt and indignity stirred in me. I’d promised her I wouldn’t leave the room at night anymore. Did she not trust me?
Her haunted expression held so much fear, however, that I didn’t even argue. Mother’s actions had little to do with her trust or with any of her own feelings. She simply tried to please the men in power because that was the only way she knew how to survive.
Well, let her sleep better, thinking she had restrained me. There was no need for me to wander at night, anyway. But if that need arose, I’d just have to get my hands on something long, sharp, and flexible—like Zenada’s hairpin, for example—to set myself free.
I was a thief, after all. And picking locks had been the skill I’d honed for years.
Seven
ELEX
He spread his wings and pushed off a window in his bedroom. Silently, he glided around the mountain, heavily leaning into his newly healed right wing to test its strength. The royal hag knew her trade well. The wing healed so well, it didn’t even feel like it’d been broken.
A warmer spiral of air brought him around the Bozyr Peak and onto the north wall of the castle.
The midday sun was high. It burned brighter as spring began. The ice on the black, spiky roofs of the turrets was melting, dripping down in icicles all along the wall. On the south side, it evaporated, rising into the air as steam. Here in the shade, it was a little cooler, but shadows helped him hide.
Folding his wings through the slits on the back of his shirt, he landed on the inner wall of the castle, not far from the spot where he’d spent a night two weeks ago, when Amber had pushed him out of the window.
Crouching behind a turret, he waited.