Page 71 of To Dance with Death

“Was your past really so painful?”

“Painful,” I breathe, “is an understatement.”

“So let me share the burden,” he says. “Surely—”

“You won’t tell me Moranya’s past for the same reason, to the point of admitting you wish you didn’t know it,” I say, wringing my hands. “Yet you demand I tell you mine? What if it’s a truth you aren’t ready to hear, Majesty?”

“For you, I would bear it.”

I don’t know what to make of that.

Perhaps…I could find a way to share vague information, twist it somehow like Sundar did. I could tell him I worked for someone I thought cared for me, even loved me, but he betrayed me in the end. Except that would only serve to sour Anton toward love even more.

He clamps his bottom lip with his teeth, a bead of water hanging from his lashes. I want to brush my thumb across it—want to cup his cheeks and force him to look at me until heseeswho I was to him.

There’s little he can do to rebut my argument, reed-thin as it is. But he’s yet to loosen his tongue about Moranya, and for that to happen, I need to gain his trust. Temper him, somehow. Theremustbe another way without crossing the boundary I set for myself.

His heart is wounded, enclosed in a shield of glass, but I need only find a crack where I might pry my way in.

For now, I place my hand on his, where it rests on the rock just to the right of my thigh. He goes very still as I settle my gaze on his—pry into the low-lit green as if I could see the soul trappedwithin its depths. “I will tell you everything one day soon. I vow it—on my life.”

He escorts me to my room in silence, the both of us finding ourselves in the too-small lift once more. I turn away from him, unable to handle the feel of his breath on my brow, too frightened to look up at him and see what I suspect has taken residence in his gaze, if the heat on my nape while we climbed from the pool was any indication. So I face the glass as we ascend, narrow my focus to the aurora reflected in the pool below, rippling under the ruffle of water like the sun glancing off fragmented glass.

A single knuckle falls down the line of my spine, almost as if by accident. An idle, absent-minded gesture.

I nearly collapse on the spot.

But he can’t know that. And when we stand before my door minutes later, he whispers, so softly I almost don’t hear it, “You’re beautiful.”

Chapter Twenty-One

The next morning, I wait until Anton leaves for the appeals and search his room. Last night proved that getting information from him is going to take time, and we’ve yet to find what we need in the Abyssal. I’m starting to fear we won’t, what with the missing codices.

I have ten days left. Two-thirds of my span, already elapsed.

So I dig through his rooms again, leaving no crack or crevice untouched. I move to his study next, rifle through it all over again, only to come up empty-handed. All of it leaves me winded, breathless, fatigued—more so after spending half the night with him in that pool and not sleeping a wink afterward, my heart an aching pulse in my chest. He is both so close and yet so far. And now, being in such close proximity—

You’re beautiful.

It frightens me, the intensity of my feelings. The way I can’t seem to block them out.

I feel everything I did on Anell and more. His gentle spirit, his goodness…I see it, even here, despite his careless, hedonistic façade. Despite what Moranya has done to him. He brought me to that pool because he thought it would help ease my pain. And it’sall the harder like this. I want to guard my heart, yet he’s intent on thieving it from me—even at his worst.

So I remind myself what it would feel like if I were to give in, to crawl into his bed and cling to him throughout the night, only for him to reject me thereafter.

Be his friend. Gain his trust. It won’t be won by touching him, teasing him, or slipping between his sheets.

I avoid Sundar all afternoon, knowing he’ll chastise me for not using Anton’s attraction against him—knowing, too, that he might be right and I could be bypassing an opportunity we can’t afford to miss.

Instead I make a trip to the gardens on a lower tier of the mountain in search of more of those strange, glowing bulbs. I’m running low on the shimmering cream I had made. Luckily, I find them easily enough, and I gather them into a sack I made. Even so, my head pulses painfully, my skin flush and far too warm.

I’m almost done collecting bulbs when I see the willowy figure clothed in rags not unlike Illian’s, there by the fountain.

A Shadow.

And yet she’s familiar. White-blond hair falling limply down her back, tall in stature. A purse to her lips. My heart skips a beat, even as I blink, sure I’m hallucinating. But as I watch her, I know for certain.

Aesir.