“Sorry…” I say, suddenly embarrassed, moving to quickly tug them off, though they come away begrudgingly.
Ravinger gives me a crooked smile and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear with such gentleness that my throat constricts. “Hopefully that clears things up.”
He straightens up, and even though the sight of him still has my pulse racing, it’s not in fear. Not anymore. His timing of that transformation was deliberate. Because his form might change, his eyes, his stance, his name, but those lips, his hands, his words, his heat…they’re the same.
Rip and Ravinger are the same, and it took a kiss for that to really sink in.
As he turns away, he’s already changing again, bringing back the spikes, the scales, the unforgiving stride of a warrior, but it’s still him.
He stops at the balcony door and looks back at me, the last of his green eyes ebbing away. “Goodnight, Auren.”
It’s still him.
Which is why I murmur, “Goodnight…Slade.”
His eyes widen for an infinitesimal moment, belying his shock that I’ve called him by his first name. Then his lips curl up, my ribbons curling too, as if we’re sharing something private, intimate. Something poignant between us.
Maybe we are.
When he’s gone, I sit back in my chair, blanket forgotten, unnecessary after the heat we invoked. In the silent snowfall, I whisper his name again, just a few more times, a single-word plea to the cluster of hidden stars above.
Please, let him prove it.
Chapter 17
QUEEN MALINA
What used to be old, frostbitten stone is now weathered gold bricks that nip at my hands as I lean against the yawning mouth of the tower’s archway.
A rare peek of sun has hammered through split-apart clouds, the waning daylight brightening the bell behind me. The golden reflection beats from its surface, engulfing my back in a judgmental glare.
Highbell’s bell tower is so high up, I’m told over a hundred workers lost their lives during its construction, though that didn’t stop my ancestors from seeing it through to the end.
We Coliers don’t give in.
Which is why the sight far below me, in the heart of the city, grates against my nerves like a plow scouring the surface and churning up what lies beneath.
Riots.
Everywhere.
From the filthy shanties to the upscale boutiques, the city has risen against me.
Looting is rampant, and desecration of royal property is nonstop in the square. The constabulary is being attacked every time they try to step in and make arrests. I watch it all from the tower, the bell at my back, gleaming with disgust as its people revolt beneath.
I had them.
For a moment, I had them. I was on the throne, ruling as I always should have. I was winning nobles, reviving Highbell to its former glory, repositioning myself—a true Colier—as the rightful ruler.
Everything was falling into place.
Until it all started falling apart.
The mobs are nothing but speckles in the city proper, clumps moving together. They’re burning, pillaging, and just generally breaking laws, until the city’s constabulary can cut them off. The problem is, when one rampage is subdued, it seems two more crop up.
My fingers curve in like claws, fingernails scraping the frost that’s gathered on the gilded sill, the cold air soaking into my skin. Three days, this has been going on, and every minute that passes in which these people do not come to heel, is another tick mark against them. I tried to be the kind queen. Benevolent with offerings, reminding them that it was Midas who let them starve, let them despair and ebb into poverty.
Yet, they’ve turned on me.
The muscle in my jaw kinks, a dull ache shooting through my ground teeth.
When another fire blazes to life in the city, I turn away with disgust. All four of my Queen’s guards are silent as I turn for the spiral stairs, its golden steps gone black from too many trodden heels.
It’s a dizzying way down as my pale hand grips the railing, curving walls mocking me with the staircase’s endless corkscrew.
When I finally reach the bottom, I’m berated by a biting wind while I walk through the open-walled walkway to yet another set of stairs and then finally back into the castle.
Inside, the air is thick with the scent of paint.
The walls are thick with it, too.
Two dozen carpenters. That’s how many workers have been hired to paint over every gaudy surface or build around them to hide it.
And yet everywhere I look, there are blemishes. Where the walls are painted white, nicks have appeared. Where floors have been covered, the rugs have slipped. Where wood has been nailed over table tops and window frames, gaps loom, like slitted smirks meant to mock me.