Page 42 of Ashborne Phoenix

I also didn’t know what to say.

I could feel the crawling in him. The abhorrence. The disgust. And I understood it—the idea that he’d touched that darkness, that his mother had tried to use it against him, turned my stomach.

And yet… he’d been protecting me.

It was only short minutes later that he slowed and lifted his free hand, turning his head to let me see the gesture for silence.

I squeezed his other hand and concentrated on my feet, making certain I wouldn’t catch his heel with a toe.

A soft glow emanated from a handful of small holes in the wall ahead—peepholes, I assumed. I’d become familiar with several of the secret passages and routes through this castle in the weeks before I was Chosen by Koa.

He leaned into one of those small pinpoints of light, then blew out a heavy breath. When he straightened, a shudder ran down his spine. I frowned. But he’d slowed almost to a stop, his free hand now sliding on the wall. Moments later there was a click and the door—a panel hidden behind a large painting in the room that opened a couple of feet from the floor—opened. He dropped my hand to crawl through, then turned to slide his hands under my arms and lift me over the mantel like a child.

I would have protested, but I was still dressed in the heavy gown and would have struggled to step high enough in the heeled boots, let alone move through the gap with those skirts.

When he had set me on my feet again, he turned, leaned into the dark passage and looked both ways, before going still for a moment.

I was about to ask what he saw, when he gave another full-body twitch, then straightened and closed the large panel.

‘Don’t speak yet. I’m going to block the peepholes, and make certain this door is blocked from this side, just to be safe. I don’t think this passage has been used—it was full of dust.’

I nodded. But as he moved along the wall to block the peepholes—exchanging a tapestry for a painting, pulling a heavy dresser along the wall, and moving books on one of the shelves—I frowned.

‘If there’s dust in the passage, they’ll see which way we came if they follow… won’t they?’ I asked hesitantly.

He shook his head, but his brows drew down. ‘I obscured our passage—our trail dies out at the turn we took where another passage went north.’

Delighted that he’d managed that kind of feat without my noticing. ‘How? I didn’t see—’

“I used the power, Grace,” he muttered. He gave me one glance over his shoulder, then moved to examine the rest of the walls and whatever hiding places he’d clearly discovered in this room before. I stared.

His shoulders crawled higher and higher toward his ears as he moved in the dim silence.

The warm light I’d seen emanating from the peepholes was a fire he must have lit hours earlier. It still burned. Large logs turning black and silver on the hearth. But the rest of the room was dark—and full of strange, white shapes.

It wasn’t until I followed his path around the room that I realized this was a small guest suite that had been closed up. The furniture was covered in sheets—except the bed.

The bed, a large four-poster, had thick curtains drawn on all three visible sides.

I caught Voski’s glance as he made it halfway across the room, and went back to staring at him.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said quietly—not angrily. Fearfully.

“Like what?” I whispered.

“Like you’re afraid of me.”

“I’m not. I’m afraid of… all of this,” I said earnestly. “And frankly, your mother is terrifying.”

There was the barest flash of humor in him—there and gone like a pebble thrown into a deep pool to disappear from sight. He sent me another measuring glance over his shoulder, but then returned to his task. A minute later his concerns were clearly soothed, because he stopped tiptoeing around the room and straightened with a sigh. It took another beat before he turned to face me, though.

“You’re right not to reveal weakness in front of her,” he said without preamble. “But you can be honest with me now: Did she touch you with it? Did she hurt you—even something minor could be important. An ache, or a sting on your skin? A joint that—”

“I’m not hurt, Voski.” I swallowed. “But… why do you sound so stiff? Why won’t you meet my eyes? Why… why are you staying over there, away from me?”

He drew up, his expression going blank, but at least he met my eyes and held my gaze then. “I wasn’t sure if you… if you wanted me to touch you after… after I did that.”

“That?”