Page 85 of Hearts on Fire

I started stripping the sheets I’d slept in before, then took out a stack of clean bedding from one of the trunks.

“So much bedding for one person,” Zenada commended.

I nodded. “You’ll be comfortable here.”

I sent Gabrik to get her some food and water. After he’d left, I helped Zenada move to the bed, then sat next to her.

She squeezed my hand. “Thank you, Amber. For everything. I’ll never forget your kindness.”

“You’ve done far more for me.” I waved her off. Finding food for me in the Sanctuary while she was starving had been the biggest kindness anyone had shown me at that point.

She turned away, looking out of the window again. “We were disposable to him. All of us.”

I realized she was talking about King Edkhar and thesalamandras.

“Zenada.” I sympathized with her feelings for the king, but I wasn’t going to sugarcoat the truth to make him look better. “The women received no protection from the king. There was no one to defend them when they were attacked on that mountain. Not a single dragon came to their aid.”

Even Elex had come too late, as he’d been looking for me farther down the mountain.

She exhaled a long breath, looking devastated but not very surprised.

“Where is the king now?”

I bit my tongue.

King Edkhar had met the end he absolutely deserved, in my opinion. But how was I supposed to break the news to the woman who loved him?

Zenada swallowed hard before asking again, “Did he survive the battle?”

He did survive it, but that didn’t change the fact that he was dead now.

I glanced away, unable to meet her questioning stare. “Zenada…”

With a soft whimper, she slapped a hand over her mouth. “He’s dead?”

I nodded. “Elex is the new king now.”

I debated whether to tell her about Isar but decided against it for now. Isar was fighting for her life. I didn’t want to add the worry for her to everything Zenada was dealing with right now. She had a lot to process as it was.

She dropped her head with a quiet sob. A tear rolled down her cheek and dropped onto the blanket in her lap. They said a man had to be a true monster to have not a single woman cry upon his death. King Edkhar was a lucky son of a bitch to have a woman like Zenada shed a tear for him.

“I… I loved him,” she confessed. “I knew I shouldn’t have let that happen. I knew it would destroy me in the end. But for a while there, my love for him was the most beautiful thing in my life. And I couldn’t stop… Ilovedloving him.”

“You have a long life ahead of you. You’ll love again. One day.”

She dismissed my words with a wave of a hand. Finding love again was not on her mind right now. Something else seemed to bother her far more.

“Thank you again, Amber. But I won’t burden you for long. As soon as I’m able, I’ll leave here.”

“What? Why would you do that? Now, when you can finally stay here in comfort? Elex is kind and just. You’ll be taken care of, I promise.”

She shook her head. “No. I can’t stay.”

“But where would you go?”

“Down to the valley, then up the river and into the Northern Mountains.”

“Do you have a family there?” I didn’t recall her talking about a family before. The fact that Zenada was in the Sanctuary in the first place meant that there was no one who cared about her.

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