His eyes turned haunted, not only from what had been done to Emerie by her father, Nesta could tell, but at the memories of those fifty years. The guilt.
And perhaps it was to save him from reliving those memories, to banish that unwarranted guilt in his eyes, that she nestled against the mat and said, “Cooldown.”
“You sound eager.”
She met his stare. “I …” She swallowed. Hated herself for balking, and forced herself to say, “The breathing makes my head stop being so …” Horrible. Awful. Miserable. “Loud.”
“Ah.” Understanding washed over his face. “Mine too.”
For a moment, she held his gaze, watched the wind tug at the strands of his shoulder-length hair. The instinct to touch the sable locks had her pressing her palms to the mat, as if physically restraining herself.
“Right.” Cassian cleared his throat. “Cooldown.”
She’d done well. Really damn well.
Nesta finished the cooldown and sprawled on the black mat, as if needing to piece herself together. Rally her strength.
Cassian let her, rising to his feet and walking to the water station to the right of the archway. “You need to drink as much water as you can,” he said, taking two glasses and filling them from the ewer on the small table. He returned to her side, sipping from his own.
Nesta remained prone, limbs loose, eyes closed, the sunlight making her hair, her sweaty skin, shine. He couldn’t stop the image from rising: of her lying in his bed like this, sated, her body limp with pleasure.
He swallowed hard. She cracked open an eye, sitting up slowly, and took the water he extended. Chugged it, realized how thirsty she was, and eased to her feet. He watched as she aimed for the ewer, filling her glass and draining it twice more before she finally set it down.
“You never told me what you wanted for the second hour of training,” he said eventually.
She looked over a shoulder. Her skin was rosy in a way he hadn’t seen for a long, long time, her eyes bright. The breathing, she’d said, had helped her. Settled her. Looking at the slight change on her face, he believed it.
What would happen when the high wore off remained to be seen. Small steps, he assured himself. Small, small steps.
Nesta said, “The second hour was on the house.”
She didn’t smile, didn’t so much as wink, but Cassian grinned. “Generous of you.”
She rolled her eyes, but without her usual venom. “I have to change before I go to the library.”
As Nesta entered the archway, the gloom of the stairwell beyond it, Cassian blurted, “I didn’t mean what I said last night—about everyone hating you.”
She halted, her blue-gray eyes frosting. “It’s true.”
“It’s not.” He dared one step closer. “You’re here because we don’t hate you.” He cleared his throat, running a hand through his hair. “I wanted you to know that. That we don’t—that I don’t hate you.”
She weighed whatever the hell lay in his stare. Likely more than was wise to let her see. But she said quietly, “And I have never hated you, Cassian.”
With that, she walked through the doorway into the House, as if she hadn’t hit him right in the gut, first with the words, then by using his name.
It wasn’t until she’d vanished down the stairs that he released the breath he’d been holding.
CHAPTER
13
She was starving. It was the only thought that occupied Nesta as she shelved book after book. That, and how sore her body was. Her thighs burned with each foot she walked up and down the ramp of the library, her arms unbearably stiff with each book she lifted to its resting place.
That much soreness, just from stretches and balance exercises. She didn’t want to consider what a workout like the ones she’d seen Cassian go through would do to her.
She was pathetic for being so weak. Pathetic for now being unable to walk so much as a step without grimacing.
“Cooldown, my ass,” she grumbled, heaving a tome into her hands. She peered at the title and groaned. It belonged on the other side of this level—a good five-minute walk across the central atrium and down the endless hall. Her throbbing legs might very well give out halfway there.
Her stomach gurgled. “I’ll deal with you later,” she told the book, and scanned the other titles remaining in her cart. None, fortunately or unfortunately, needed to be shelved in the section that book belonged in. To lug the cart all the way over there would be exhausting—better to just carry the tome, even if it was an essentially meaningless trip to deposit one book.