Page 44 of A Chill in the Flame
She made a face. “Because you like to let yourself in whenever you like. Did you even knock? No? Then you have your answer.” It was cruel of her to brush him off like this. He was a good guard with excellent intuition. He had been right to follow whatever sense had led him to her room, but she wasn’t ready for that conversation.
He seemed moderately if unsatisfactorily pacified, until he soaked in her appearance. “You look like hell, Firi. What happened?”
Healing tonics worked well, but they weren’t an instantaneous magical solution. She was glad the long robe covered the wound on her thigh. He was probably only seeing the bruising where she’d smacked her face against the cliff.
“I was getting out of the bath and tripped.”
He looked entirely unconvinced. His hazel eyes were shades of deeper green as they softened, mingled with the browns and golds of his skepticism. “Are you okay?”
“The injury to my ego is worse than the bump to my head. I’ve already taken a tonic. I should probably have a fewmore sent up the next time you see the healer. Now, what do you want? Why are you here?”
He looked a little wounded that she was being so dismissive. “Can I come in?”
The corners of her mouth turned downward. “I’m tired.”
“It’s about Dwyn.”
Her mouth was still tightly closed, but her nostrils flared as she exhaled. She pushed the door open widely enough for Harland to enter.
He made a horrified sound, and she knew her mistake immediately. “Goddess, Firi, what did you do in here?”
She didn’t have to fully turn to know what he’d found. Harland was holding up strip of fabric soaked with blood and crusted with salt and sand.
“You first. Tell me about Dwyn and I’ll explain”—she waved her hand elaborately—“all of that.”
“You didn’t slip in the tub.” It wasn’t a question.
“What can I say—I’m crafty. What’s wrong with Dwyn?”
He wasn’t ready to deflect. He was still holding the bloodied strip a of cloth as he addressed her. “I can’t protect you if you’re still pulling this shit, Firi. How could you sneak out of the castle after all that’s happened? How could you—”
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. For once, her tone wasn’t jaded or defensive. She truly was sorry. She knew that Harland didn’t just speak for her station, or for the kingdom. He cared deeply for her. He’d sworn fealty to her, he’d been her only friend, he’d been her lover, he’d been the closest thing she’d had to family in months. She knew precisely what it would do to her parents if they lost their only remaining child. Caris’s death had torn the kingdom to ribbons. If she passed, there would be nothing left to comfort them. The guard’s expression said all this and more as he searched her apology for sincerity.
Harland sank onto the bed and raked his hands through his hair. “Why must you insist on posing the greatest threat to your own safety?”
It was as if he’d hit her. She spoke with the quiet injuryof the reproach when she whispered, “You loved that about me once.”
He looked up to her with emotion lining his hazel eyes. “No, I’m really asking, Firi. What happened to make you so careless? Is being a princess so terrible? Is being here with your friends and people who care about you so boring that you always need to sneak out and deceive us? Why are you always trying to get yourself killed? Why…” He looked away, running his fingers through his chestnut hair again. He was rife with complex emotions neither of them could unpack right now. He repeated his question more carefully. “Why do you need to cut me out?”
Her eyes tightened as he spoke. His final question betrayed him.
“This is about you, then. You liked that I was an individual. You loved my recklessness. You’re angry because I don’t include you in what I choose to do with my life and my time.” A hand went to her heart as if to soothe the physical wound of his words, gripping it against herself as she spoke her own.
He saw how bruised and scraped her hands were and got up from the bed to fetch the tonic from the bathing room. He was met with more sandy, bloodied clothes and an open bottle of astringent. He returned with a black male tunic. “Was someone in here?”
She bristled against her lie. “No. I used that to wrap my wound.”
Disbelief weighed heavily on his shoulders. He was as tired of her lies as she was of telling them. Their dance was exhausting, yet neither of them would relinquish.
“Seriously.” She parted her robe slightly to reveal her upper leg and watched as his mouth dropped in horror. “I used it to help stop the bleeding. I’ve cleaned it and used the healing tonic.”
“The goddess has a sick sense of humor.”
“Harland—”
Harland disappeared without another word, closing the door behind him.
From the bathing room, Tyr called, “He’s not wrong. You are obscenely reckless.”
