Page 18 of Ties of Death

“What are you doing?”

He looks at me, brows raised. “It’s late. I’m tired. I want to go to bed.”

Panic has frozen me. I’m tired too, but I can’t carelessly undress in front of him. What if he takes that to mean... What if he expects me to...

As if he can read my mind, his gaze softens. “All I want to do is sleep, Emi. Just sleep. I may be the monster you accuse me of being, but I’m not that kind of monster.”

I suppose I believe him, because the panic inside me subsides.

“Can you”—I gesture at him, and then at my dress—“turn around?”

Obligingly, he faces the door.

Quickly, I finish slipping out of my dress, keeping my eyes on him the entire time. Winds bless Sigrid for giving me a clan dress. I don’t know what I would have done if I had been in the lowland dress in this situation.

I hurry to the shelf where my dresses are stacked neatly, and then I hesitate, but the exhausted part of me just wants to trust that Daenn means his words, so I glanceover myself to make sure the chemise I’m wearing covers enough, and then I work on my hair, pulling out the pins Sigrid tucked into it.

“I’m done.”

Daenn turns, and his eyes darken as he glances over me. Warmth spreads through me as he rips his gaze away, moving to pull his own shirt off.

I suppress a squeak and whirl around, trying to pretend I didn’t see the planes of muscles that rippled as he moved. I can practically feel his faint amusement, even though he doesn’t say a thing.

I forgot that Daenn sleeps shirtless. It’s a detail that didn’t matter when we were children—and it doesn’t matter now, I remind myself sternly. Any muscles he may or may not have don’t have any bearing on the situation, because right now I hate him.

Having taken care of that stern self-talking-to, I move to the bed, hesitating again when I realize I don’t know which side he prefers, and then I force myself to move because it doesn’t matter which side he prefers. That would imply I care, which I don’t. I peel back the covers and lay down, pulling them up to my chin.

Daenn lingers near the doorway, and I try to ignore his existence. I shut my eyes and I turn over to my side, my back to Daenn, careful to keep the covers in place over me.

I hear him moving about the room, and the light behind my eyelids dims.

The weight on the other side of the bed shifts, and suddenly I am intensely aware of his proximity, so present, close enough to touch if I reach out. It’s not a big bed.

“We need to talk.” His voice is barely more than a quiet rumble, and I instantly tense, sitting up and looking at him as I clutch the covers to my chest with folded arms.

He’s pulled on a new shirt, and he swapped his more formal pants for loose, softer ones. For a moment I’m struck speechless by the sight. It’s like I’m fifteen again, and Daenn is the only boy I have ever even thought about marrying. A kind, funny, thoughtful boy. Longing is a punch to my lungs, a nearly unbearable ache for the boy I want to see to be one and the same with the man I do see.

Daenn shifts, hand curling into a fist, and it’s enough to shake me out of my reverie.

He’s still wearing gloves, I absently notice. They’re a quiet reminder he’snotthe boy I want him to be.

“Talk about what?”

“I found something that we can pursue. A way to get rid of the magic.”

His words have my whole attention now. I lean forward.

“There’s a legend about a set of bracers designed by Teletha. She begged the wind spirits to create them for her, to use on her lover, to carry away his magic and, she hoped, his madness.”

My brow furrows as I think.

I know of Teletha. Who doesn’t? She and her lover, Mundil, fill dozens of myths, even in the lowlands. Theirs isn’t a happy story.

“I don’t remember a pair of bracers,” I say—but then, the tales I’ve been hearing for the past eight years have been the lowland versions of the myths, and Teletha and Mundil aren’t star-crossed lovers in those; they are bitter rivals.

“Mundil and Teletha aren’t real,” I add.

“All myths are rooted in fact. Besides, Jakob is confident that the bracers are real; he said he saw one years ago, when he was on a pilgrimage to various lowland temples.”

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