Page 75 of A Legacy of Storms and Starlight

She nodded, not trusting her voice just yet. Raif took her hand and they followed Jilah into the second dome, the heat washing over them the moment they entered. Zylah just about managed to explain the flowering cycle of the sun lilies to Arnir’s men without slurring any of her words, but the heat was unbearable. They seemed satisfied with the progress, happy to take a good report back to Arnir.

Before Jilah left to see the men out, she heard Raif tell the old man he’d be taking her home for the day. She didn’t have it in her to argue; she’d already sat down on the stone ledge to stop herself from swaying on her feet.

Raif knelt in front of her. “Do I need to carry you back?” A smile pushed at his dimple, his hands resting on her knees.

Zylah huffed a laugh. “No.” She pushed to her feet, reaching for his arm as she swayed a little. “Get me to the grotto and I’ll evanesce us.”

Raif did as she asked, and the moment they were safely inside, out of sight from prying eyes, Zylah evanesced them back to the tavern.

Raif looked around them, his arms still around her. “I thought you’d take us back to my place.”

Shit.She’d been too tired to think about where they were going. She’d never brought him back here. Something about it had never felt right. It was Holt’s place, not hers. And it had always been her safe place. But Raif was her safe place, too. Since the night they got the contract. She shrugged off her clothes, discarding pieces on the floor as she made her way to her bed. Raif may have been holding back these last few weeks, but so had she.

As if he sensed her unease, Raif picked up the worn map she kept beside her bed. “Marking out where all the best plants grow?” he asked, his mouth quirking as he held back a smile.

He knew she wanted to see the world. She’d talked about it often enough. But there was more to it.

“I want to find out where I came from. If I have any family out there.” Zylah climbed into bed in nothing but her underwear, sinking into the pillow and not even bothering to pull the sheet up over her. Raif knelt beside her, lifting the sheet over her shoulders and brushing her hair out of her eyes.

“Whatever you want,” he said softly. “Whatever you need. I’ll make it happen.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead and began to move away from the bed, but she caught his hand.

“Stay with me?” She didn’t know how bad her dreams would be or even if she was too tired to dream, but she knew she didn’t want to be alone when she woke up.

Raif smiled. He kicked off his boots and slipped under the sheet beside her, sitting back against the headboard for her to rest against him. His thumb stroked her shoulder, his other hand finding hers and threading their fingers together.

I care about you a lot. She thought of the way his voice had caught when he’d said it, as if he’d started to say something else.

Whatever you want. Whatever you need. Being with him made her forget everything else. Forget that Arnir was hunting her, that they were plotting to kill him. He made her feel safe, loved, even if it wasn’t that kind of love, not yet.

Zylah rested her head against his chest, but she couldn’t close her eyes. As if he’d sensed her unease, Raif launched into a quiet explanation of how training at the other safe houses had been going, the tasks he’d been taking on each day whilst she was at work.

Dimly, in the back of her mind, she realised he was meant to be doing exactly that right now, instead of sitting here with her. A smile tugged at her lips. She let every worry fall away from her as she listened to Raif, murmuring quiet questions every now and then.

He might not have let his guard down entirely, but he was trying. And lying beside him, just listening to him talk about his work, she could almost pretend that he wasn’t talking about preparing for the uprising. She could almost pretend they weren’t plotting to kill the king.

Almost.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Two weeks passed, with less time spent in the tunnels. Zylah still went every day because it was the only thing that could burn off the unease that had settled into her bones, even for a short while. But she slept beside Raif every night. Or rather, he slept beside her. Some nights they would stay at the safe house, sometimes he would come and find her at the tavern after his meetings, the same weariness Zylah felt in her bones reflected in his eyes whenever he arrived.

She had played over the plan a thousand times in her thoughts, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going to go terribly wrong. That Arnir would recognise her.

As if he could sense her discomfort, Raif had squeezed her hand as they’d walked to the safe house on the first day of the festival, the city bristling with excitement. Vendors had arrived from across Astaria to set up along every street in Virian for the week, many selling flower crowns and corsages, and citizens had already begun wearing theirs to celebrate. None were as beautiful as the Bloom florist’s, and Zylah could already pick out which crowns in a crowd were his from their intricacy.

She found herself staring into Saphi and Rose’s bedroom mirror, questioning the outfit Saphi had picked out for her. The first night of the festival wastheirnight, Saphi had told her. The night the Fae celebrated for themselves, and the dress code was far less formal than the event at the end of the week when Arnir would be in attendance.

Less formal was putting it lightly. Zylah turned to inspect the scrap of fabric Saphi had called a dress, a gold so pale it reminded Zylah of the evening sun through the wheat fields of Eldham, but with something spun into the fabric to make it shimmer ever so slightly. The neckline was almost as low as the blue dress, folds of fabric draping from fine shoulder straps to fit snugly over every inch of her. It ended mid-thigh, and no matter how Zylah tried to adjust it in the mirror, there was no disguising how short it was.

“You’re sure this is appropriate?” Zylah called out to Saphi in the bathroom.

She knelt down to fasten the sandals Saphi had given her. Zylah had accepted a pair with a small heel as a compromise at Saphi’s insistence. As she fastened the golden ribbons around her calves, she made a silent prayer to the gods that she wouldn’t fall over in them.

She’d almost backed out of going to the party that evening. They were only five days away from the attack on Arnir. Five days until all of this was over, and Zylah could live her life with the certainty that she wasn’t going to be followed.Hunted. She hadn’t broached the subject of her leaving with Raif yet, and a selfish part of her wondered if he might go with her.

“Aren’t they wonderful?” Saphi asked, stepping out of the bathroom. “They’re Fae made. All the best things are,” she said with a wink. She wore a dress a few shades darker than Zylah’s, amber coloured, just like her eyes, her jewellery gold to match. The dress crossed tightly at the breasts to wrap around her neck and was as short and tight fitting as Zylah’s. Gold cuffs adorned her arms, and she’d added some length to her hair, longer curls reaching down to her ears. She’d been beautiful before and was now even more so. “You sure you won’t let me change your hair colour, turn you back to natural for the night?”

If Zylah hadn’t been so nervous, she might have laughed.

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