Page 43 of Twin Crowns

“Wren and Shen,” Rose mused. “What a funny little rhyme.”

“Oh, it’s a lot funnier than you think,” he muttered, before returning his attention to the cliff face.

Rose was about to press him on his sudden furtiveness when the wind picked up in a gust, scattering sea foam across her cheeks and casting her hair into her eyes. Her cloak twisted, the clasp pressing against her throat. She tipped backward, losing her footing.

“Shen, the cloak!”

Shen was behind her in a heartbeat, planting his hands on either side of her arms and pinning her to the cliffs with his body. He rested his head on her shoulder, his breath warm against her ear. “Don’t move, all right?”

Rose squeezed her eyes shut.

With one hand, he deftly unclasped the cloak and pushed it off her shoulders. He let it flutter to the ground, but Rose didn’t dare look to see where it dropped. She felt obscenely exposed now, stuck to the side of a cliff face, practically straddling a rope in just her nightgown as the wind whipped around her, threatening to tug it loose.

She wasn’t sure if it was the absence of heat or the nearness of Shen’s body that made her start to tremble. “How much farther? I’m still trying not to look.”

“Halfway there.”

“You said that last time!”

“Well, this time I mean it. I was worried if I told you the truth the last time that you would have climbed right back up.”

“Are wereallyhalfway there?”

Shen pressed his cheek against the cliff face so she could see him without having to turn her head. “I promise.”

“You keep promising me things, bandit. It’s not a good idea to break a promise to a princess.”

“I always keep my promises.” His gaze lingered on hers, until the wind came rushing back with a fierce howl.

Rose clung to the rope ladder.

“One step at a time,” he said calmly. “You can do it.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Why are you being so nice to me all of a sudden?”

“Because you need me right now.” Shen’s smile was slow and lazy. “And I’m enjoying it.”

“You are truly the most insufferable person I’ve ever encountered.”

“I’m also the person getting you down these cliffs in one piece.”

Rose bit back a smile. “Shh. Let me concentrate.”

With the taste of seaweed on her tongue and the wind nipping at her cheeks, Rose continued her slow descent. Her hands ached, the muscles in her legs were screaming—and oh, she wasstarving—but there was a strange new fire kindling inside her—urging her onward, telling her not to give up. Shen stayed with her every step of the way, coaching her through the steepest parts of the cliffs and shielding her from the fiercest winds.

Toward the bottom of the Whisperwind Cliffs, the rock jutted out from the cliff face in a series of steep ridges. With her body flush against the stone and her footsteps slow and careful, Rose found that she could release the ladder and walk well enough.

After a while, a strange buzzing filled the air.

She whipped her head around. “What is that sound? Is the cliff moving?”

Behind her, Shen chuckled. “The sands shift, but these cliffs are the bones of Eana. Even the wind can’t rattle them.” He gestured past her, to a rocky plateau. “That sound you hear is the Ortha honeybees. They build their hives in the cliffside.”

Rose gaped at what she saw. They had beehives in Anadawn, too, but they were wooden and orderly, tucked safely away in the mews by the orchard. The royal beekeepers wore hats and nets when they went near, but here, there were hundreds of hives just dangling from the cliff. “We’ll get stung!”

Shen made a barrier of his arm, as though he was afraid Rose would leap from the cliffs in horror. “They won’t bother you if you don’tbother them, Princess. They’re a bit like the witches in that way.”

Rose threw him a withering glance before seizing her courage and inching onward. She hadn’t come so far only to fail now.

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