My knees wobble, threatening to buckle from the weight of her deep, mournful yowls. “Give me something else to focus on. Please.”
The words have barely left my lips when Kaan presses his against my ear, a dense hum rumbling from his chest and cutting through the din as he tucks me impossibly close.
A song I’m achingly familiar with.
I don’t dissect it—not right now—allowing myself to fall into his calming baritone, letting the melody seep through my pores like grains of stone that gather in all my dips and hollows, weighing me down in a comforting crush. Sanding the jagged sadness in my chest into something rounded and smooth.
My shuddered inhales begin to lose their shake …
Still, he hums … threading me together one familiar note at a time until I can draw enough steady breaths to sing along with the tune. Words I’ve only ever heard murmured through the hollow of my mind—distant echoes I’ve never been able to grasp the dusky origin of.
Words that have given me solace in times I’ve felt alone or uncertain. Brought me peace when my soul screamed the opposite. Words I think might’ve belonged to somebody special … once.
In another life.
Another time.
The storm stops just as abruptly as it began, Kaan planting the final note against the arch of my neck like a phantom kiss—the tender press of his lips infusing me with a burst of knee-buckling familiarity. Like I’ve been here before. Caught in his grasp. Crushed close to his chest.
Kissed.
Like I’ve been lulled by his comforting presence in a dream I can barely remember the shape of.
Only the sturdy bind of his arms keeps me from crumbling into a heap on the puddled ground, my lungs now powering for a different reason …
“You know my song,” I whisper.
Silence ensues—so thick and heavy my heart rate spikes.
“How, Kaan?”
I regret the question the moment it falls from my lips, a bulb of dread swelling in the back of my throat. Threatening to choke me.
What if he says something too big and painful for me to discard? What if his words resonate with another unsettling strike of familiarity? Drains more of my icy lake? Exposes more stones?
What then?
“There’s something I need to show you,” he murmurs against my neck, then grabs my hand, plants a warm kiss upon my blanched knuckles, and tugs.
For some strange, uncertain reason … I don’t argue. Don’t dig my heels into the ground.
I follow.
Deep within the heart of the Imperial Stronghold, Kaan unlocks a chain threaded between two mammoth black wooden doors carved to look like a pair of warring Sabersythes going head-to-head, the handles twin tusks curling from their pronged faces. I cut a glance down the empty, dim-lit tunnel behind me as I wait for him to unwind the chain, tugging the left door open.
With a sweep of his hand, he gestures for me to step inside. The dark room. Ahead of him.
I don’t think so.
“You first.”
He sighs, charging into the gloom with a barrage of heavy footsteps.
I follow, sketching out the shape of the space, slivers of sun coming through from what I suppose are curtains over on the far side. Kaan moves toward them.
“Veil de nalui,” I whisper, whipping Clode into a giggling churn. She twirls across the room, tangles with the curtains, and rips them wide, dousing the room full of light.
Kaan stops before the glass doors, hand outstretched. He clears his throat. “Thanks.”
“Pleasure,” I say, taking in what I suppose is his personal suite based on the dominance of his warm scent. I’m certain he dabs something on his skin each aurora rise that makes him smell so inconveniently moreish.
This sitting room is packed with curved bookshelves, plush leather chaises, and a black rug stretched across the floor. Beside a deep, upholstered chair that’s worn to the padding in places sits a large string instrument resting on a stand, the frayed strings in desperate need of replacing. On the other side of the same chair is a small round table with a bottle of spirits, an empty glass, and a corked jar that holds something misty.
Swirling.
He snatches it, tucking it inside a drawer within the table.
I arch a brow. “Don’t want me to see your jar of mist?”
“Not particularly,” he murmurs, hanging his málmr on the instrument.
I look away, seeing various weapons haphazardly dumped on shelves and a pair of boots kicked off by the door. My stare glides to a map of the world that stretches across a large curve of wall, the yellowed parchment littered with tiny black crosses—most of which are south of Gore.