Page 56 of Destroyer

The way he looked at her was unlike any man she'd met. Even Archie, devoted friend and once lover, had never regarded her with such intensity. As if Fen was seeing through to the core of her, as if he understood more about Ruellian Delara than anyone else ever could. She couldn’t hold his gaze, it was too open, too honest.

“You don’t have to stay here, you know,” she said, at last, staring out across the courtyard, at the billowing clouds. “The promise you made, about protecting me. I’m home now. I’m perfectly safe.”

“Are you?”

The question rang in her ears. If there were traitors at the palace…

“Fen,” she said, turning to him with a slight frown, “why did you travel with us in disguise? How did you know the guards would turn on us?”

“I didn’t,” he said. “But I suspected. Simon pulled me aside at dinner with a warning. He had noticed guards acting out of character, even members of the court. Ever since the arrival of the Children, he claimed that things were… off-kilter. He asked — no, he ordered me to keep you safe on the journey to the Tower.” Fen’s mouth curved upward in a rueful smile. “He loves you, your brother. And he sees what others can’t.”

“He has the gift of intuition,” said Ru, reeling slightly from this revelation. “But why wouldn’t Simon have told me this directly?”

“He didn’t want you to give away his plan. If the guards had known I wasn’t one of them, had suspected something was afoot, they might not have acted. Had that been the case, it would have been impossible to predict their next move.”

Ru chewed her lip. “But who… why would they betray the regent? Who turned their loyalty? Surely the regent herself wouldn't send us away only to have us attacked on the road.”

“You now know as much as I do,” said Fen, leaning back, hands braced in the grass behind him. “Whoever the guards worked for knows about the artifact, knows you were on your way north with it.”

“But that could be anyone,” Ru said, her voice rising in agitation. “The entire city of Mirith will know about the artifact by now. And my whereabouts. Any power-hungry, murderous madman will be after me.” She reached for Fen thoughtlessly, needing to feel anchored to reality as her thoughts were increasingly unmoored.

Fen took her hand and squeezed it, gently. “I won’t break my promise. I will protect you. If anyone so much as looks at you wrong…” he made a slitting gesture across his throat with one finger.

Despite herself, Ru laughed. “You’ll be after the entirety of the Cornelian Tower, in that case. I suspect everyone has it in for me now. Bringing a dangerous item to the Tower, declaring it magic. I’m practically a pariah.”

It was meant to be a joke, an exaggeration, but Ru knew in her heart that it was partly true. The professors allowed the artifact’s study because the regent ordered it. She was unspeakably grateful that nobody knew the truth of it — that she had just short of begged the regent to let her take the stone back to the Tower.

Regret bubbled in her, threatening to rise like a wave in a storm.

“If I have to fight them all, one by one,” said Fen, half-smiling in the golden light, the planes of his face softened, “then I will.”

“My protector,” Ru said, smiling. She kept her tone light, but the depths of her gratitude were incalculable.

CHAPTER19

When they returned to the Tower, the sun had set and evening fell in swathes of muted blue over its stone walls. Fen accompanied Ru to her rooms. She was silently grateful, the growing shadows and chill in the air raising goosebumps on her arms. Logically, she knew there weren't assassins hiding in every corner, waiting to spring. But there was just enough uncertainty to make her wary, and glad of Fen's presence.

Outside her room, Ru hovered in the open doorway, unsure what to say. She wanted to thank Fen for staying, for distracting her all afternoon and allowing her a much-needed mental rest. But it wasn’t just that. She enjoyed talking to him. He was attentive and interested — she never felt ignored. His presence was innately comforting to her, and somehow since she’d met him, he had become more than a friend. He was a safety net of sorts.

He felt almost like home.

And she realized then, looking up at the dark-haired man who had found his way so seamlessly into her life, that she had hardly noticed the artifact all afternoon. She was struck by the sense of relief that came with this discovery, that she was still Ru, that the artifact didn’t define her. Even so, she probed in her mind and found it there, the thread between them intact.

With Fen, she hadn't needed the artifact; and somehow, it hadn't needed her.

“Remember,” said Fen, smiling, “there could be traitors in our midst. Don’t open the door for just anyone.”

“Not even you?” Ru teased.

“Always open it for me,” he said, catching her with an intense gaze, and Ru tried to ignore the sudden heat that sprang up in her. Then he turned away and ran a hand through his messy dark hair. When he looked at her again, his expression was soft but determined. “That is, if you want to.”

He was so tall and so close that Ru had to crane her neck slightly to meet his gaze.

“Why do I feel like I’ve known you my whole life?” she said. The words fell off her tongue before she could stop them. She tensed immediately, assuming he’d step away, laugh, and brush the comment aside for the nonsense it was.

Instead, for just a brief moment, a desperate sadness passed over his face. And then it was gone so completely that Ru wondered if she had imagined it.

“Ru!”

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