“Do you want to sit?”
Slade shakes his head. “Just…gimme…a…second.”
I help him stagger over to the cave wall, and he braces himself against it, still pulling in lungfuls of air. His pallor has gone gray, his aura sticking around him like the drip of sap on a tree.
Worry indents into me, leaving me feeling raw and pitted. I stay at his side just in case, and my pulse only starts to calm down when he finally catches his breath and looks over at me.
“Are you okay?” I ask, the distress lifting my tone.
He ignores my question and instead grabs my arm, pushing up my sleeve to reveal the cut. “Fuck,” he hisses out. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
I glance down at the slice against my skin. “It’s fine. It’s not even very deep, and it’s my fault for grabbing you.”
With a creased brow, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a clean handkerchief to gently wipe away the blood before tying it around my arm. His fingers caress my skin just below the fabric, and when he looks back up at me, tormented black eyes fade back into green. “I hurt you.”
“You didn’t. It’s barely a scratch,” I say as I pull my sleeve back down. “But you were worrying me.”
He lets out another deep breath and then straightens up from the wall. “I know, I’m sorry.” He runs a hand through his messy hair. “I wanted to expel enough power into it just in case I can’t come back for a couple of months. It’s always a difficult push, and I let it get away from me. The rip doesn’t like for me to cut off my power.”
My eyes look over to the tear, which is now back to its calm swirl, sparkling stars blinking, and the faintest lightning boiling within churning clouds.
Slade takes my hand, bringing my attention back to him. “Are you truly ready?” he asks, eyes watching me steadily. “To leave Drollard, to go to Fourth Kingdom?”
To leave the cocoon.
Slade delves into my thoughts with the look in his eye, like he’s always been able to root right down inside me. “Because fuck the rest of the world, Auren. If you need to stay here, we’ll stay here.”
My lips tip up, even as emotion drags down my chest. “I’m ready.”
CHAPTER 44
QUEEN MALINA
Time seems to move differently at the edge of the world in Seventh Kingdom.
The days have bled together, and somehow, Cauval Castle has been the respite I didn’t know I needed, a balm to soothe the wrongs that have nicked into my soul and tried to bleed out my purpose.
I thought this place was in ruins, but Fassa and Friano have shown me the truth. They were called here, just as I was, to preserve the castle and wait for a rightful queen to take its throne.
They were waiting for me.
Even though the twins are the only ones here other than Pruinn and myself, they’ve somehow made everything seem so full. The gray and white marble walls gleam, the floor tiles are as blue as glaciers, and a soft light always seems to cling to the lanterns and leave off a lush glow.
There must be excellent castle staff, too, though I’ve never seen a single one. Yet the dining table is always laid out with hot and perfectly spiced food for each mealtime, my bed is made each time I return to my room, and my bath is filled whenever I want to soak and wash.
There’s always music playing as well, a song I can hear even when I sleep in the feather bed at the top of the turret. Soft and lyrical, as if it’s carried in by the mist that clings to the windows. The air smells nice too—permeating from the frosted flowers that drip with crystalline petals, their bouquets set in vases all around the castle.
I get out of bed with a stretch, poising my hands over my head, curling my toes beneath my feet before I walk into the bathroom to clean up, and then I enter the closet. Everything is just my size, each gown the perfect combination of the white Colier color along with the glacier blue of Seventh Kingdom. I choose a dress with a long flowing train that sounds like the faintest chimes when I walk, the hollow beaded crystals at the hem dragging along the tiles and adding to the soft hum in the air.
Coiling my white hair up into two full braids that make a crown on my head, I pin it in place in front of the mirror, and then, hands dropping, I study myself. My cheeks and nose are no longer chapped from the frozen wind of our travels, my lips no longer peeling. My ghostly pale skin is so smooth I nearly look ethereal, and whatever soaps I’ve been using have made my hair seem lusher and shinier.
Yet for a split second, as I look into my own icy blue eyes, I see a flash of darker blue, and instead of my own face, I see a smattering of freckles dusted like cinnamon, hair as red as blood, a grin pulling at lips.