Page 24 of A Reign of Roses
My voice rang out, loud enough for them to hear over the snap of the embers and the rumble of the hot springs somewhere deep down below our feet. Wyn’s cheek hovered not an inch above the rocks. “I’ll attend. I’ll be good. Please, juststopthis.”
Octavia slid her eyes to her king.
I did the same, though nausea churned my stomach. I swallowed with a wince.
“How good?” Lazarus asked, one graying brow lifted.
“Whatever you need.”
With a brief, curt nod from her king, Octavia released me and Wyn from our spells and the coals evaporated into mist.
Wyn didn’t look at me as our matching exhales rent the room.
“I know you think yourself very courageous,” Lazarus said, wading through the water to stand from the pool. His chiseled shoulders and powerful, thick legs did not look like they belonged to a man his age. They looked like he could crush me with one hard stomp. “That your prince will come to save you, or like some sword-wielding heroine you’ll surprise us all and save yourself. But whether you grin and take it like a proper queen, bejeweled and draped in Solaris finery, or you’re bound and muzzled in my dungeons like a sow for breeding, youwillbear my heirs.”
His eyes shredded me as he drew near, and I fought the urge to squirm.
“You are no champion. You are no brave heroine. You are no prophesied savior of realms. You, Arwen, are just a womb. That is all you will ever be, until one day, you are dead.”
Octavia hadn’t needed her coals. His words might as well have been a brand.
Somehow, I thought,I will watch you die before that day comes.
But Lazarus said nothing at all. He only slipped into a silk robe held by a kingsguard of his own and strolled out, leaving Wyn and Maddox in his wake, stiff as corpses.
Maddox’s eyes held a carnivorous grin, and my neck and cheeksheated with shame. I looked down at my useless bare body, and my powerless hands, still tingling with lighte.
“Let’s go, womb,” Maddox hissed.
Wyn, still kneeling on the wet floor, said nothing at all.
The easy gurgles of the baths and rush of the water fountains filled my mind, replacing all the anger and self-hatred. All the loneliness and despair. I walked on unsteady legs, slipped my damp, ripped nightgown back on, and followed Maddox up that stone staircase. Wyn limped quietly behind us.
Out in the atrium, Maddox hummed a pleased tune to himself as he strolled past. Beside me, Wyn had slowed to a pace that resembled a crawl. I’d never seen his gait so slow and fitful.
Octavia had known what she was doing when she forced him to kneel. Hot, fresh ire filtered through me.
“I’m sorry,” I said under my breath.
“What could you possibly be sorry for?”
“They used you to get to me.”
Wyn shook his head, every step sending his armor jangling and curls rustling across his face. “I should never have shared with you what I did. Someone is always listening here.”
Those words clanged through my mind.
Lazarus had so thoroughly ignored every single barb I’d flung at him in my thoughts. It wasn’t like him. A man who made a point to show how deep inside your brain he was, and how powerless you were to stop him. I’d never forget how utterly horrifying it had been to be so invaded the first night we met in Siren’s Bay. How even my own thoughts belonged to him.
“He didn’t read my mind today.” I barely murmured the words. Handmaidens and guards passed us as we strolled down the black-and-white-walled halls, and Maddox was only a few feet ahead of us, that incessant tune filtering through his lips.
Wyn shrugged. “Perhaps he didn’t find your thoughts worth listening to.”
I had threatened him. Told him I’d watch him die. He hadn’t even smirked.
Was it possible he was weaker today? Maybe ill?
“Wyn, why does he needmylighte?”
