Page 23 of Crowning of the Sword

“Spiders are … little.”

“You must be joking.”

She let out a surprised laugh. “Your spiders are not like our spiders. Thank goodness.”

“It must have come over the wall. The guards have not been vigilant. That will be remedied.”

“And what about the water thing?”

“A type of scylla—a distant cousin of water sprites. There are a lot of them living in these pools. They’re vicious. Not too bright. It was a clever idea, trapping them with your skirts.”

His eyes drifted down to the length of her legs, and even though the blanket concealed every inch of skin, she couldn’t help but blush. She wondered what he was doing there, and why he had even bothered to jump in and save her. He obviously didn’t approve of her. Besides, if he had let her drown, it would have rattled Cole and wouldn’t Ashe do everything he could to upset his rival before the tournament? It was beyond her reasoning. He had almost killed her on Earth, and now he was saving her life.

“I’ll need a new skirt, if that’s alright.” He nodded, and she peeked under the blanket to see a new skirt, similar to the last, covering her lower half. “Thank you.” She swallowed the last of her drink. “I suppose I’d better go back to the training ground. Cole will wonder where I am.”

“No, he won’t,” said Ashe. “He’s focused on Swirl.”

His tone was lazy, and it irritated her. Why wouldn’t Cole wonder where she was? And what would Lissa say to him?

“Nothing captures Cole’s attention for long,” he continued. “He gets, he discards. He’s fickle.”

“Cole cares about me,” she said with conviction. “He told me.”

“I have no doubt. When he’s in the moment, he loves everything he’s doing. But there’s always another moment, always something else to do.”

Offended at his intimation that she was that something, Ember pushed the blanket off her and got to her feet, hoping her knees wouldn’t start shaking again. “Then I’m going back to the castle.”

Ashe raised an eyebrow and got to his feet. “Not hastening to your lover’s side?”

“You just said he was focused on training.” She injected a careless tone into her voice, but it did sting to know that Cole was so preoccupied he might not even notice if she was there or not. “I’d just be in the way. Besides, I have no wish to see Lissa right now. I might push her off a cliff too.”

Ashe smiled. “I believe you would.”

He gave her a courteous bow before pressing the back of her hand to his lips. To her surprise, she felt a languid, mellow warmth spread through her, not a quickening of lust like that inspired by Cole’s touch, but a steady glow that thawed her from the inside like a glass of sweet fae wine.

She snatched her hand away. “Don’t do that.”

He raised an eyebrow and shrugged. “I’ll send a guide.”

He vanished then, and the barrier was gone, the mist falling upon her and making her skirts damp. A yellow ball of light appeared, and she slowly followed it back up the path winding through the cliffs, and back to the castle.

Chapter 21

Lily’s unspoken outrage lasted right through the time it took Ember to have a warm bath and get changed into a fresh outfit.

“I apologise,” Ember said, when Lily had finally tweaked the last lock of hair into place. “I should have called you, like you said. I was just fed up, I guess.”

“You also insulted one of the prince’s mistresses and she threw you off a waterfall,” Lily said. “And then you nearly died after being attacked by a scylla.”

A thought struck Ember, and she said, “Does my behaviour reflect on you?”

To her chagrin, Lily, tight-lipped, nodded. “They’ll say I’m not looking after you properly.”

“And I’ll say you are! Besides, I suppose I’m one of the prince’s mistresses now too, so that must mean something.”

She bent and called to her puppy, which she’d decided might as well be Rufus, and when he darted to her, wagging his little mop of a tail, she buried her face in his soft fur. “I really am sorry, Lily. I’ll tell the prince it was my fault. If he asks,” she added. After what Ashe had told her, she was unsure whether Cole would care.

She played with Rufus for a time, and after he fell asleep in his basket, leaned on her elbows at the windowsill, gazing over the twilight gardens. She would do some painting, she decided. Her nerves still jangled from the events of the day, and she longed to lose herself in the simple art of creation.

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