Page 125 of City of Snakes
I stared at it. A memory flashed of me slipping it over her knuckle.
Firose could have challenged my crown or forced her way next to me as Queen.
She hadn’t.
She could have run from it all.
Yet she’d stayed to help me.
She pulled the ribbon from her hair and dropped it. “He could have placed more than one on you,” she said as her fingers hooked into her breeches. She pushed them down her legs, which were scattered with deep white blotches of scarring. “You should change clothes too.”
Watching her undress shouldn’t have excited me, but I’d once told Ryssa that I would find what was hidden under her robe beautiful no matter what.
Somehow, I still did find her alluring.
Her blue lace undergarments made my mouth dry, and I averted my gaze.
I nodded and dropped my dagger to undress, too. Since I wore only a tunic and breeches, it was quick work. Leaving only my undershorts on, I asked, “Where did you put the sword?”
“I’ve mostly been carrying it since I found you that day. I left it in the Temple of Light this morning. It will just look like you are having a day of prayer.”
She struggled with the laces of her corset.
“Let me?” I asked.
A pile of clothes and unsaid words lay between us as she nodded and turned. I found the clasp at the top before pulling at the dainty laces far less gracefully than I’d like to admit. She leaned into the touch of my fingers at her lower back.
At the sensation of her soft skin, need sank heavy in my stomach and blood rushed to my groin.
She was flushed when she spun around, and I watched her slip the corset straps off and let the garment fall. My heart pounded as Firose placed her hand on my chest over one of the burn scars she’d given me that night in the tower.
“This,” she whispered, “wasn’t me.”
I desperately tried not to stare at her body, but failed. My resolve to be a gentleman ran thin.
She licked her lips before she spoke again. “You’re a kind man, and you will be a great King. You deserve none of this, but he will warp what you are. It is what he did to me—I didn’t start this way either. It doesn’t mean I don’t deserve your hatred for what I became.”
“Why did you decide to help me? Why not just run?” I ground out, trying to ignore the heat of her palm on my chest.
“It felt right. I thought maybe if I could save you from falling too, then it might redeem some of the pain I’d caused. That it would redeem not having been able to save Corric.”
I examined her face—the pinch between her brows, the way her mouth hung parted as she gazed up at me. I should kill her, loathe her. She’d tried to destroy my city, tried to kill my friends, and forced me to marry herfor my crown.
It hadn’t been her. At least not all of it.
Could we be broken down and sorted neatly into the good and bad parts of ourselves?
I’d killed more people than I could remember—him.
I’d gone against my dearest friend and threatened to take her crown by force—me.
I’d visited King Sheffield, found him on a ride and knocked him from his horse, letting Death crawl into his veins—him.
I’d stationed troops along the borders at Bringham and Haward’s recommendation—me.
I’d become a vessel. Unveiled before me, a woman stood who understood how helpless that felt.
My voice grew lower. “I don’t know what to think of you. I don’t know if I hate you or want you.”
