Текст книги "Queen of Shadows"
Автор книги: Sarah J. Maas
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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 38 страниц)
27 
The creature rose, its black stone body cutting through the water with hardly a ripple.
The Valg commander knelt before it, head down, not moving a muscle as the horror uncoiled to its full height.
Her heart leaped into a wild beat, and she willed it to calm as she took in the details of the creature that now stood waist-deep in the pool, water dripping off its massive arms and elongated, serpentine snout.
She’d seen it before.
One of eight creatures carved into the clock tower itself; eight gargoyles that she’d once sworn had … watched her. Smiled at her.
Was there currently one missing from the clock tower, or had the statues been molded after this monstrosity?
She willed strength to her knees. A faint blue light began pulsing from beneath her suit—shit. The Eye. Never a good sign when it flared—never, never, never.
She put a hand over it, smothering the barely perceptible glow.
“Report,” the thing hissed through a mouth of dark stone teeth. Wyrdhound—that’s what she would call it. Even if it didn’t look remotely like a dog, she had the feeling the gargoyle-thing could track and hunt as well as any canine. And obeyed its master well.
The commander kept his head lowered. “No sign of the general, or those who helped him get away. We received word that he’d been spotted heading down the southern road, riding with five others for Fenharrow. I sent two patrols after them.”
She could thank Arobynn for that.
“Keep looking,” the Wyrdhound said, the dim light glinting on the iridescent veins running through its obsidian skin. “The general was injured—he can’t have gotten far.”
The creature’s voice stopped her cold.
Not the voice of a demon, or a man.
But the king.
She didn’t want to know what sort of things he’d done in order to see through this thing’s eyes, speak through its mouth.
A shudder crawled down her spine as she backed down the tunnel. The water running beside the raised walkway was shallow enough that the creature couldn’t possibly swim there, but … she didn’t dare breathe too loudly.
Oh, she’d give Arobynn his Valg commander, all right. Then she’d let Chaol and Nesryn hunt them all into extinction.
But not until she had the chance to speak to one on her own.
It took Aelin ten blocks to stop the shaking in her bones, ten blocks to debate whether she would even tell them what she’d seen and what she had planned—but walking in the door and seeing Aedion pacing by the window was enough to set her on edge again.
“Would you look at that,” she drawled, throwing back her hood. “I’m alive and unharmed.”
“You said two hours—you were gone four.”
“I had things to do—things that only I can do. So to accomplish those things, I needed to go out. You’re in no shape to be in the streets, especially if there’s danger—”
“You swore there wasn’t any danger.”
“Do I look like an oracle? There is always danger—always.”
That wasn’t even the half of it.
“You reek of the gods-damned sewers,” Aedion snapped. “Want to tell me what you were doing there?”
No. Not really.
Aedion rubbed at his face. “Do you understand what it was like to sit on my ass while you were gone? You said two hours. What was I supposed to think?”
“Aedion,” she said as calmly as she could, and pulled off her filthy gloves before taking his broad, callused hand. “I get it. I do.”
“What were you doing that was so important it couldn’t wait a day or two?” His eyes were wide, pleading.
“Scouting.”
“You’re good at this, aren’t you—half truths.”
“One, just because you’re … you, it doesn’t entitle you to information about everything I do. Two—”
“There you go with the lists again.”
She squeezed his hand hard enough to shatter a lesser man’s bones. “If you don’t like my lists, then don’t pick fights with me.”
He stared at her; she stared right back.
Unyielding, unbreakable. They’d been cut from the same cloth.
Aedion loosed a breath and looked at their joined hands—then opened his to examine her scarred palm, crisscrossed with the marks of her vow to Nehemia and the cut she’d made the moment she and Rowan became carranam, their magic joining them in an eternal bond.
“It’s hard not to think all of your scars are my fault.”
Oh. Oh.
It took her a breath or two, but she managed to cock her chin at a devious angle and say, “Please. Half of these scars I rightly deserved.” She showed him a small scar down the inside of her forearm. “See that one? A man in a tavern sliced me open with a bottle after I cheated him in a round of cards and tried to steal his money.”
A choked sound came from him.
“You don’t believe me?”
“Oh, I believe you. I didn’t know you were so bad at cards that you had to resort to cheating.” Aedion chuckled quietly, but the fear lingered.
So she peeled back the collar of her tunic to reveal a thin necklace of scars. “Baba Yellowlegs, Matron of the Yellowlegs Witch-Clan, gave me these when she tried to kill me. I cut off her head, then cut her corpse into little bits, then shoved it all into the oven of her wagon.”
“I wondered who killed Yellowlegs.” She could have embraced him for that sentence alone—for the lack of fear or disgust in those eyes.
She walked to the buffet table and pulled out a bottle of wine from inside the cabinet. “I’m surprised you beasts didn’t drink all my good alcohol these past months.” She frowned at the cabinet. “Looks like one of you got into the brandy.”
“Ren’s grandfather,” Aedion said, tracking her movements from his spot by the window. She opened the bottle of wine and didn’t bother with a glass as she slumped onto the couch and swigged.
“This one,” she said, pointing to a jagged scar by her elbow. Aedion came around the couch to sit beside her. He took up nearly half of the damn thing. “The Pirate Lord of Skull’s Bay gave that to me after I trashed his entire city, freed his slaves, and looked damn good while doing it.”
Aedion took the bottle of wine and drank from it. “Has anyone ever taught you humility?”
“You didn’t learn it, so why should I?”
Aedion laughed, and then showed her his left hand. Several of the fingers were crooked. “In the training camps, one of those Adarlanian bastards broke every finger when I mouthed off. Then he broke them in a second place because I wouldn’t stop swearing at him after.”
She whistled through her teeth, even as she marveled at the bravery, the defiance. Even as pride for her cousin mingled with the slightest tinge of shame for herself. Aedion yanked up his shirt to reveal a muscled abdomen where a thick, jagged slash plunged from his ribs to his belly button. “Battle near Rosamel. Six-inch serrated hunting knife, curved on the tip. Rutting prick got me here”—he pointed to the top, then dragged his finger down—“and sliced south.”
“Shit,” she said. “How the hell are you still breathing?”
“Luck—and I was able to move as he dragged it down, keeping him from gutting me. At least I learned the value of shielding after that.”
So they went on through the evening and the night, passing the wine between them.
One by one, they told the stories of the wounds accumulated in the years spent apart. And after a while, she peeled off her suit and turned to show him her back—to show him the scars, and the tattoos she’d had etched over them.
When she again reclined on the couch, Aedion showed her the scar across his left pectoral, from the first battle he’d fought, when he’d finally been able to win back the Sword of Orynth—her father’s sword.
He padded to what she now considered his room, and when he returned, he held the sword in his hands as he knelt. “This belongs to you,” he said hoarsely. Her swallow was loud in her ears.
She folded Aedion’s hands around the scabbard, even as her heart fractured at the sight of her father’s blade, at what he had done to attain it, to save it. “It belongs to you, Aedion.”
He didn’t lower the blade. “It was just for safekeeping.”
“It belongs to you,” she said again. “There is no one else who deserves it.” Not even her, she realized.
Aedion took a shuddering breath and bowed his head.
“You’re a sad drunk,” she told him, and he laughed.
Aedion set the sword on the table behind him and slumped back onto the couch. He was large enough that she was nearly popped off her own cushion, and she glared at him as she straightened. “Don’t break my couch, you hulking brute.”
Aedion ruffled her hair and stretched his long legs out before him. “Ten years, and that’s the treatment I get from my beloved cousin.”
She elbowed him in the ribs.
Two more days passed, and Aedion was going out of his mind, especially as Aelin kept sneaking out only to return covered in filth and reeking to Hellas’s fiery realm. Going to the rooftop for fresh air wasn’t the same as going out, and the apartment was small enough that he was starting to contemplate sleeping in the warehouse downstairs to have some sense of space.
He always felt that way, though—whether in Rifthold or Orynth or at the finest of palaces—if he went too long without walking through forests or fields, without the kiss of the wind on his face. Gods above, he’d even take the Bane’s war camp over this. It had been too long since he’d seen his men, laughed with them, listened to and secretly envied their stories about their families, their homes. But no longer—not now that his own family had been returned to him; not now that Aelin was his home.
Even if the walls of her home now pushed on him.
He must have looked as caged as he felt, because Aelin rolled her eyes when she came back into the apartment that afternoon.
“All right, all right,” she said, throwing up her hands. “I’d rather have you wreck yourself than destroy my furniture from boredom. You’re worse than a dog.”
Aedion bared his teeth in a smile. “I aim to impress.”
So they armed and cloaked themselves and made it two steps outside before he detected a female scent—like mint and some spice he couldn’t identify—approaching them. Fast. He’d caught that scent before, but couldn’t place it.
Pain whipped his ribs as he reached for his dagger, but Aelin said, “It’s Nesryn. Relax.”
Indeed, the approaching woman lifted a hand in greeting, though she was cloaked so thoroughly that Aedion could see nothing of the pretty face beneath.
Aelin met her halfway down the block, moving with ease in that wicked black suit of hers, and didn’t bother waiting for Aedion as she said, “Is something wrong?”
The woman’s attention flicked from Aedion to his queen. He hadn’t forgotten that day at the castle—the arrow she’d fired and the one she’d pointed at him. “No. I came to deliver the report on the new nests we’ve found. But I can return later, if you two are busy.”
“We were just going out,” Aelin said, “to get the general a drink.”
Nesryn’s shoulder-length night-dark hair shifted beneath her hood as she cocked her head. “You want an extra set of eyes watching your back?”
Aedion opened his mouth to say no, but Aelin looked contemplative. She glanced over her shoulder at him, and he knew she was assessing his condition to decide whether she might indeed want another sword among them. If Aelin were in the Bane, he might have tackled her right there.
Aedion drawled to the young rebel, “What I want is a pretty face that doesn’t belong to my cousin. Looks like you’ll do the trick.”
“You’re insufferable,” Aelin said. “And I hate to tell you, Cousin, but the captain wouldn’t be very pleased if you made a move on Faliq.”
“It’s not like that,” Nesryn said tightly.
Aelin lifted a shoulder. “It would make no difference to me if it was.” The bare, honest truth.
Nesryn shook her head. “I wasn’t considering you, but—it’s not like that. I think he’s content to be miserable.” The rebel waved a hand in dismissal. “We could die any day, any hour. I don’t see a point in brooding.”
“Well, you’re in luck, Nesryn Faliq,” Aelin said. “Turns out I’m as sick of my cousin as he is of me. We could use some new company.”
Aedion sketched a bow to the rebel, the motion making his ribs positively ache, and gestured to the street ahead. “After you.”
Nesryn stared him down, as though she could see exactly where his injury was groaning in agony, and then followed after the queen.
Aelin took them to a truly disreputable tavern a few blocks away. With impressive swagger and menace, she kicked out a couple of thieves sitting at a table in the back. They took one look at her weapons, at that utterly wicked suit of hers, and decided they liked having their organs inside their bodies.
The three of them stayed at the taproom until last call, hooded so heavily they could hardly recognize one another, playing cards and refusing the many offers to join other players. They didn’t have money to waste on real games, so for currency they used some dried beans that Aedion sweet-talked the harried serving girl into bringing them.
Nesryn barely spoke as she won round after round, which Aedion supposed was good, given that he hadn’t quite decided if he wanted to kill her for that arrow she’d fired. But Aelin asked her questions about her family’s bakery, about life for her parents on the Southern Continent, about her sister and her nieces and nephews. When at last they left the drinking hall, none of them having dared to get inebriated in public, and none of them too eager to go to sleep just yet, they meandered through the alleys of the slums.
Aedion savored every step of freedom. He’d been locked in that cell for weeks. It had hit an old wound, one he hadn’t spoken about to Aelin or anyone else, though his highest-ranking warriors in the Bane knew, if only because they’d helped him exact his revenge years after the fact. Aedion was still brooding about it when they strode down a narrow, foggy alley, its dark stones silvered with the light of the moon peeking out above.
He picked up the scrape of boots on stone before his companions did, his Fae ears catching the sound, and threw out an arm in front of Aelin and Nesryn, who froze with expert silence.
He sniffed the air, but the stranger was downwind. So he listened.
Just one person, judging from the near-silent footfalls that pierced through the wall of fog. Moving with a predator’s ease that made Aedion’s instincts rise to the forefront.
Aedion palmed his fighting knives as the male’s scent hit him—unwashed, but with a hint of pine and snow. And then he smelled Aelin on the stranger, the scent complex and layered, woven into the male himself.
The male emerged from the fog; tall—maybe taller than Aedion himself, if only by an inch—powerfully built, and heavily armed both above and beneath his pale gray surcoat and hood.
Aelin took a step forward.
One step, as if in a daze.
She loosed a shuddering breath, and a small, whimpering noise came out of her—a sob.
And then she was sprinting down the alley, flying as though the winds themselves pushed at her heels.
She flung herself on the male, crashing into him hard enough that anyone else might have gone rocking back into the stone wall.
But the male grabbed her to him, his massive arms wrapping around her tightly and lifting her up. Nesryn made to approach, but Aedion stopped her with a hand on her arm.
Aelin was laughing as she cried, and the male was just holding her, his hooded head buried in her neck. As if he were breathing her in.
“Who is that?” Nesryn asked.
Aedion smiled. “Rowan.”
28
She was shaking from head to toe, and couldn’t stop crying, not as the full weight of missing Rowan crashed into her, the weight of these weeks alone. “How did you get here? How did you find me?” Aelin withdrew far enough to study the harsh face shadowed by his hood, the tattoo peeking out along the side of it, and the grim line of his smile.
He was here, he was here, he was here.
“You made it clear my kind wouldn’t be welcome on your continent,” he said. Even the sound of his voice was a balm and a blessing. “So I stowed away on a ship. You’d mentioned a home in the slums, so when I arrived this evening, I wandered until I picked up your scent.” He scanned her with a warrior’s unflinching assessment, his mouth tight. “You have a lot to tell me,” he said, and she nodded. Everything—she wanted to tell him everything. She gripped him harder, savoring the corded muscle of his forearms, the eternal strength of him. He brushed back a loose strand of her hair, his callused fingers scraping against her cheek in the lightest caress. The gentleness of it made her choke on another sob. “But you’re not hurt,” he said softly. “You’re safe?”
She nodded again and buried her face in his chest. “I thought I gave you an order to stay in Wendlyn.”
“I had my reasons, best spoken somewhere secure,” he said onto her hood. “Your friends at the fortress say hello, by the way. I think they miss having an extra scullery maid. Especially Luca—especially in the mornings.”
She laughed, and squeezed him. He was here, and he wasn’t something she’d made up, some wild dream she’d had, and—
“Why are you crying?” he asked, trying to push her back far enough to read her face again.
But she held on to him, so fiercely she could feel the weapons beneath his clothes. It would all be fine, even if it went to hell, so long as he was here with her. “I’m crying,” she sniffled, “because you smell so rutting bad my eyes are watering.”
Rowan let out a roar of laughter that made the vermin in the alley go silent. She at last pulled away, flashing a grin. “Bathing isn’t an option for a stowaway,” he said, releasing her only to flick her nose. She gave him a playful shove, but he glanced down the alley, where Nesryn and Aedion were waiting. He’d likely been monitoring every move they made. And if he had deemed them a true threat to her safety, they’d have been dead minutes ago. “Are you just going to make them stand there all night?”
“Since when are you a stickler for manners?” She slung an arm around his waist, unwilling to let go of him lest he turn into wind and vanish. His casual arm around her shoulders was a glorious, solid weight as they approached the others.
If Rowan fought Nesryn, or even Chaol, there would be no contest. But Aedion … She hadn’t seem him fight yet—and from the look her cousin was giving Rowan, despite all of his professed admiration, she wondered if Aedion was also wondering who’d emerge from that fight alive. Rowan stiffened a bit beneath her grip.
Neither male broke their stare as they neared.
Territorial nonsense.
Aelin squeezed Rowan’s side hard enough that he hissed and pinched her shoulder right back. Fae warriors: invaluable in a fight—and raging pains in her ass at all other times. “Let’s get inside,” she said.
Nesryn had retreated slightly to observe what was sure to be a battle of warrior-arrogance for the ages. “I’ll see you later,” the rebel said to none of them in particular, the corners of her mouth twitching upward before she headed off into the slums.
Part of Aelin debated calling her back—the same part that had made her invite Nesryn along. The woman had seemed lonely, a bit adrift. But Faliq had no reason to stay. Not right now.
Aedion fell into step in front of her and Rowan, silently leading the way back to the warehouse.
Even through his layers of clothes and weapons, Rowan’s muscles were tense beneath her fingers as he monitored Rifthold. She debated asking him what, exactly, he picked up with those heightened senses, what layers of the city she might never know existed. She didn’t envy him his excellent sense of smell, not in the slums, at least. But it wasn’t the time or place to ask—not until they got to safety. Until she talked to him. Alone.
Rowan examined the warehouse without comment before stepping aside to let her go in front of him. She’d forgotten how beautifully he moved that powerful body of his—a storm given flesh.
Tugging him by the hand, she led him up the stairs and into the great room. She knew he had taken in every detail, every entrance and exit and method of escape, by the time they were halfway across it.
Aedion stood before the fireplace, hood still on, hands still within easy reach of his weapons. She said over her shoulder to her cousin as they passed, “Aedion, meet Rowan. Rowan, meet Aedion. His Highness needs a bath or I’ll vomit if I have to sit next to him for more than a minute.”
She offered no other explanation before dragging Rowan into her bedroom and shutting the door behind them.
Aelin leaned against the door as Rowan paused in the center of the bedroom, his face darkened by the shadows of his heavy gray hood. The space between them went taut, every inch of it crackling.
She bit her bottom lip as she took him in: the familiar clothes; the assortment of wicked weapons; the immortal, preternatural stillness. His presence alone stole the air from the room, from her lungs.
“Take off your hood,” he said with a soft growl, his eyes fixed on her mouth.
She crossed her arms. “You show me yours and I’ll show you mine, Prince.”
“From tears to sass in a few minutes. I’m glad the month apart hasn’t dimmed your usual good spirits.” He yanked back his hood, and she started.
“Your hair! You cut it all off!” She pulled off her own hood as she crossed the distance between them. Indeed, the long silver-white hair was now cropped short. It made him look younger, made his tattoo stand out more, and … fine, it made him more handsome, too. Or maybe that was just her missing him.
“Since you seemed to think that we would be doing a good amount of fighting here, shorter hair is more useful. Though I can’t say that your hair might be considered the same. You might as well have dyed it blue.”
“Hush. Your hair was so pretty. I was hoping you’d let me braid it one day. I suppose I’ll have to buy a pony instead.” She cocked her head. “When you shift, will your hawk form be plucked, then?”
His nostrils flared, and she clamped her lips together to keep from laughing.
He surveyed the room: the massive bed she hadn’t bothered to make that morning, the marble fireplace adorned with trinkets and books, the open door to the giant closet. “You weren’t lying about your taste for luxury.”
“Not all of us enjoy living in warrior-squalor,” she said, grabbing his hand again. She remembered these calluses, the strength and size of his hands. His fingers closed around hers.
Though it was a face she’d memorized, a face that had haunted her dreams these past few weeks … it was new, somehow. And he just looked at her, as if he were thinking the same thing.
He opened his mouth, but she pulled him into the bathroom, lighting a few candles by the sink and on the ledge above the tub. “I meant it about the bath,” she said, twisting the faucets and plugging the drain. “You stink.”
Rowan watched as she bent to grab a towel from the small cabinet by the toilet. “Tell me everything.”
She plucked up a green vial of bath salts and another of bath oil and dumped in generous amounts of each, turning the rushing water milky and opaque. “I will, when you’re soaking in the bath and don’t smell like a vagrant.”
“If memory serves, you smelled even worse when we first met. And I didn’t shove you into the nearest trough in Varese.”
She glared. “Funny.”
“You made my eyes water for the entire damn journey to Mistward.”
“Just get in.” Chuckling, he obeyed. She shrugged off her own cloak, then began unstrapping her various weapons as she headed out of the bathroom.
She might have taken longer than usual to remove her weapons, peel off her suit, and change into a loose white shirt and pants. By the time she finished, Rowan was in the bath, the water so clouded she could see nothing of the lower body beneath.
The powerful muscles of his scarred back shifted as he scrubbed at his face with his hands, then his neck, then his chest. His skin had deepened to a golden brown—he must have spent time outdoors these past weeks. Without clothing, apparently.
He splashed water on his face again, and she started into movement, reaching for the washcloth she’d set on the sink. “Here,” she said a bit hoarsely.
He just dunked it in the milky water and attacked his face, the back of his neck, the strong column of his throat. The full tattoo down his left arm gleamed with the water sliding off him.
Gods, he took up the entire bathtub. She mutely handed him her favorite lavender-scented soap, which he sniffed at, sighed in resignation, and then began using.
She took a seat on the curved lip of the tub and told him everything that had happened since they’d left. Well, mostly everything. He washed while she spoke, scrubbing himself down with brutal efficiency. He lifted the lavender soap to his hair, and she squeaked.
“You don’t use that in your hair,” she hissed, jolting from her perch to reach for one of the many hair tonics lining the little shelf above the bath. “Rose, lemon verbena, or …” She sniffed the glass bottle. “Jasmine.” She squinted down at him.
He was staring up at her, his green eyes full of the words he knew he didn’t have to say. Do I look like I care what you pick?
She clicked her tongue. “Jasmine it is, you buzzard.”
He didn’t object as she took up a place at the head of the tub and dumped some of the tonic into his short hair. The sweet, night-filled scent of jasmine floated up, caressing and kissing her. Even Rowan breathed it in as she scrubbed the tonic into his scalp. “I could still probably braid this,” she mused. “Very teensy-tiny braids, so—” He growled, but leaned back against the tub, his eyes closed. “You’re no better than a house cat,” she said, massaging his head. He let out a low noise in his throat that might very well have been a purr.
Washing his hair was intimate—a privilege she doubted he’d ever allowed many people; something she’d never done for anyone else. But lines had always been blurred for them, and neither of them had particularly cared. He’d seen every bare inch of her several times, and she’d seen most of him. They’d shared a bed for months. On top of that, they were carranam. He’d let her inside his power, past his inner barriers, to where half a thought from her could have shattered his mind. So washing his hair, touching him … it was an intimacy, but it was essential, too.
“You haven’t said anything about your magic,” she murmured, her fingers still working his scalp.
He tensed. “What about it?”
Fingers in his hair, she leaned down to peer at his face. “I take it it’s gone. How does it feel to be as powerless as a mortal?”
He opened his eyes to glare. “It’s not funny.”
“Do I look like I’m laughing?”
“I spent the first few days sick to my stomach and barely able to move. It was like having a blanket thrown over my senses.”
“And now?”
“And now I’m dealing with it.”
She poked him in the shoulder. It was like touching velvet-wrapped steel. “Grumpy, grumpy.”
He gave a soft snarl of annoyance, and she pursed her lips to keep the smile in. She pushed down on his shoulders, beckoning him to dunk under the water. He obeyed, and when he emerged, she rose from the tiles and grabbed the towel she’d left on the sink. “I’m going to find you some clothes.”
“I have—”
“Oh, no. Those are going right to the laundress. And you’ll get them back only if she can make them smell decent again. Until then, you’ll wear whatever I give you.”
She handed him the towel, but didn’t let go as his hand closed around it. “You’ve become a tyrant, Princess,” he said.
She rolled her eyes and released the towel, turning as he stood in a mighty movement, water sloshing everywhere. It was an effort not to peek over her shoulder.
Don’t you even dare, a voice hissed in her head.
Right. She’d call that voice Common Sense—and she’d listen to it from now on.
Striding into her closet, she went to the dresser in the back and knelt before the bottom drawer, opening it to reveal folded men’s undershorts, shirts, and pants.
For a moment, she stared at Sam’s old clothes, breathing in the faint smell of him clinging to the fabric. She hadn’t mustered the strength to go to his grave yet, but—
“You don’t have to give those to me,” Rowan said from behind her. She started a bit, and twisted in place to face him. He was so damn stealthy.
Aelin tried not to look too jolted by the sight of him with the towel wrapped around his hips, at the tan and muscled body that gleamed with the oils of the bath, at the scars crisscrossing it like the stripes of a great cat. Even Common Sense was at a loss for words.
Her mouth was a little dry as she said, “Clean clothes are scarce in the house right now, and these are of no use sitting here.” She pulled out a shirt and held it up. “I hope it fits.” Sam had been eighteen when he died; Rowan was a warrior honed by three centuries of training and battle.
She pulled out undershorts and pants. “I’ll get you proper clothes tomorrow. I’m pretty sure you’ll start a riot if the women of Rifthold see you walking down the streets in nothing but a towel.”
Rowan huffed a laugh and strode to the clothes hanging along one wall of the closet: dresses, tunics, jackets, shirts … “You wore all this?” She nodded and uncoiled to her feet. He flicked through some of the dresses and embroidered tunics. “These are … very beautiful,” he admitted.
“I would have pegged you for a proud member of the anti-finery crowd.”
“Clothes are weapons, too,” he said, pausing on a black velvet gown. Its tight sleeves and front were unadorned, the neckline skimming just beneath the collarbones, unremarkable save for the tendrils of embroidered, shimmering gold creeping over the shoulders. Rowan angled the dress to look at the back—the true masterpiece. The gold embroidery continued from the shoulders, sweeping to form a serpentine dragon, its maw roaring toward the neck, the body curving down until the narrow tail formed the border of the lengthened train. Rowan loosed a breath. “I like this one best.”
She fingered the solid black velvet sleeve. “I saw it in a shop when I was sixteen and bought it immediately. But when the dress was delivered a few weeks later, it seemed too … old. It overpowered the girl I was. So I never wore it, and it’s hung here for three years.”
He ran a scarred finger down the golden spine of the dragon. “You’re not that girl anymore,” he said softly. “Someday, I want to see you wear this.”
