Page 122 of Artemysia
“Don’t worry, I’m not attracted to women who fight and talk like men,” he says icily, needle in hand.
I try not to focus on the syringe. “So the women here can’t defend themselves? And if what I saw in the ballroom was the menfighting, I’d say the sexes are equal. No one came to your rescue but me.”
The night air slipping through the curtains pricks my skin. The tiny hairs on my neck stand on end as Toryl scrutinizes me. True to his word, he doesn’t touch me but sits beside me on his bed, his weightsinking both of us deeper into the mattress. He’s lean but quite tall, so I rebalance myself to avoid sliding into him.
He tips toward my right ear. Studying me.
What is he staring at? He’s so close I can feel his hot breath and the heat from his face. He smells like the iceflower trees that sweeten the air in the midst of winter, dropping their three-pointed blooms around my family’s old farm. It’s familiar, nostalgic even, evoking memories of snow-covered florals. Frosty, yet sweet. It strikes me that it must be his soap or cologne, which means he purposely chose the scent. Do they have those trees along this river too?
“Name?” he asks sharply, jolting me back into the moment.
I flinch at the sudden break in silence, and he notices with a raised brow.
“Delphine,” I say confidently, recovering quickly.
He scrutinizes me before tipping backward to inspect my stitched upper back.
“How’d you get that injury? And all those other scars?”
“Syf attacks. It’s common in the Outer Riverlands, but I’m sure you know that.”
His expression doesn’t change, so I know that at least the Syf were truthful about that piece of information.
“Why did you risk your life to stop that Syf, if you’re already injured?”
“It’s what I do. Try to make a difference in the world, one life at a time.”
“Even if it’s your life?” The momentary surprise reveals a boyish face under his ash brown facial hair.
“Even if it’s mine.”
He stares at me as if he can’t comprehend my words. I glower at him in disapproval.
“Stand,” he commands.
The thought occurs to me that perhaps he’s overbearing simply because he doesn’t know what he’s doing. I see it in newer recruits. They overcompensate for inexperience with false bravado. With such men, I pretend to offer power while actually undermining them. They don’t know what hits them.
“High Lord of the North.” I use the title that he seems to love, andhe snaps to attention. “I do not pretend to understand the absurdity of your court. But I certainly applaud your commitment to it.”
It works. A vein in his neck swells. His cheeks color, and he can’t return my gaze.
I look away and stand for him, as instructed.
He drops back behind me, as if staring at my backside, and lingers there long enough so the silence becomes uncomfortable. I have no idea if this is “normal” in this kingdom, but I can’t imagine any modern-day woman being okay with this.
But then I notice that he purposely avoids scrutinizing the front of my body, though from his vantage point on the edge of the bed, I’m certain he sees the peak of my breasts, cold and pebbled.
When I turn over my shoulder and glance down at his trousers, they bulge unevenly up front. My eyes roll. Men. They are the same in any land.
Finally, he says, “You’re not Syf. No wing or tail scars. Ears, normal.”
My temper flares. “Of course not! I just killed one.”Idiot.“It bit me, and I need to clean the wound so it won’t get infected.” I unwrap my ribbon and the strip of dress I’d used as a bandage and shove my arm eye level, exposing my ripped flesh.
He winces. “When I saw your lightning-quick reaction and your shoulder scar, I believed you were one of them. Then you tried to help it instead of killing it right away. We have Syf spies amongst us. Some go as far as cutting off their own wings, tail, and ear points to look more human.”
He returns the syringe to its case and snaps it shut. “We won’t be needing a sedative after all.”
The Artemysian spies that the Syf king sent? They mutilate themselves to spy on North Kingdom? Are they hidden in the courts of South Kingdom too?
