He frowns, wishing she’d have let the man finish. But it was interesting that for all the damning things she allowed Bogdana to say, whatever he wanted to undo was the one thing she didn’t want her Court to hear.
“Child,” Bogdana cautions her. “If my mistakes can be unmade, then let me unmake them.”
“You spoke of power,” Wren snaps. “And yet you suppose I will let you strip me of mine.”
Bogdana begins to speak again, but as Wren descends from the throne, guards gather around her. She heads toward the double doors of the Great Hall, leaving the storm hag behind.
Wren sweeps past Oak without a look.
The prince follows her into the hall. Watches the guards accompany her to her tower and begin to ascend.
He follows, staying to the back, blending in with a knot of soldiers.
When they are almost to her rooms, he lets himself fall behind farther. Then he opens a random door and steps inside.
For a moment, he braces for a scream, but the room is—thankfully— empty. Clothing hangs in an open armoire. Pins and ribbons are scattered across a low table. One of the courtiers must be staying here, and Oak is very lucky not to be caught.
Of course, the longer he waits, the luckier he will have to be.
Still, he can hardly barge into Wren’s rooms now. The guards would not have left yet. And there would certainly be servants—even with so few in the castle—attending her.
Oak paces back and forth, willing himself to be calm. His heart is racing. He is thinking of the Wren he saw, a Wren as distant as the coldest, farthest star in the sky. He cannot even focus on the room itself, which he should almost certainly hunt through to find a weapon or mask or something useful.
But instead he counts the minutes until he believes he can safely— well, as safely as possible, given the inherent danger of this impulsive plan—go to Wren’s rooms. He finds no guard waiting in the hall— unsurprising, given the narrowness of the tower, but excellent. No voices come from inside.
What is surprising is that when he turns the knob, the door opens.
He steps into her rooms, expecting Wren’s anger. But only silence greets him.
A low couch sits along one wall, a tray with a teapot and cups on the table in front of it. In a corner beside it, the ice crown rests on a pillow atop a pillar. And across the room, a bed hung with curtains depicting thorned vines and blue flowers.
He walks to it and sweeps the fabric aside.
Wren is sleeping, her pale cerulean hair spread out over the pillows. He recalls brushing it out when they were in the Court of Moths. Recalls the wild tangle of it and the way she held herself very still while his hands touched her.
Her eyes move restlessly under their lids, as though she doesn’t even feel safe in dreams. Her skin has a glassy quality, as though from sweat or possibly ice.
What has she been doing to herself?
He takes a step closer, knowing he shouldn’t. His hand reaches out, as though he might graze his fingers over her cheek. As though to prove to himself that she’s real, and there, and alive.
He doesn’t touch her, of course. He’s not that much of a fool.
But as though she can sense him, Wren opens her eyes.
CHAPTER
3
W
ren blinks up at Oak, and he gives her what he hopes is an apologetic grin. Her startled expression smooths out into puzzlement and some emotion he is less able to name. She reaches up, and he bends lower, going to one knee, so that she can brush her fingers over the nape of his neck. He shivers at her touch. Looking down into her dark green eyes, he tries to read her feelings in the minute shifts of her countenance. He thinks he sees a longing there to match his own.
Wren’s lips part on a sigh.
“I want—” he begins.
“No,” she tells him. “By the power of Grimsen’s bridle, get on your knees and be silent.”
Surprise makes him try to pull away, to stand, but he cannot. His teeth close on the words he now cannot say.
It’s an awful feeling, his body turning against him. He was on one knee already, but his other leg bends without his deciding to move. As his calves strike the frozen floor, he understands, in a way that he never has before, Wren’s horror of the bridle. Jude’s need for control. He has never known this kind of helplessness.
Her mouth curves into a smile, but it isn’t a nice one. “By Grimsen, I command you to do exactly as I say from here forward. You will stay on your knees until I say otherwise.”
Oak should have left when he had the chance.
She rises from the bed and draws on a dressing gown. Walks over to where he kneels.