Page 59 of Bound to the Shadow Queen
“No,” she said in a firm voice. “No, he never hurt me.”
She stressed the last word just enough that I knew what she was referring to.
“But you were there, when…” My throat closed around the memory, and I forced myself to continue. “Sometimes I see things. From him.” I lifted my hand, my ring catching the low light of the lanterns. “Dreams? Visions? I don’t know. But I saw you. I saw him?—”
Her pale brows furrowed, a shadow passing over her face. She nodded slowly. “It’s not what you think. He was trying to find you.”
The sincerity behind her eyes and words was almost jarring, all things considered.
“Are you…defending him?”
It was a stark contrast to the last conversation we’d had in these suites, the one on my wedding day, when she was so sure there was a way out of this.
My sister drew in a long, ragged breath.
“I have no desire to defend that frost-loving ass-face for anything he’s ever done, but you don’t know what it was like to wake up and find they’d taken you. In chains.” Her voice trembled, barely, so subtle I might have missed it if not for the rare sheen of tears glossing her eyes.
“I saw from my window as they dragged you through the air in chains, but he had frozen me in the room after he burst in looking for you, so I couldn’t do anything.”
I sucked in a breath. Had he done it so she wouldn’t interfere? So she would be safe? Wynnie was right. I had never considered what happened in the minutes before he emerged from the house.
“I couldn’t get to you. I couldn’t save you.” She swallowed. “Just like I couldn’t save Yorrick.”
All over again, I saw my sister’s husband on their bedroom floor. Saw the Tharnok hovering over him. Smelled the blood…
He was already gone by the time I made it upstairs, but Wynnie had been forced to watch for however long as the monsters turned her husband into a meal.
My throat burned.
“But you saved me before that,” I whispered, trying to summon a smile. “You and that fearsome chair.”
She barked out a sob-laugh. “And I did keep King Frosthole alive long enough to tell him where to find you.”
I stiffened. “You told him?”
“Well, I made him vow not to kill you first. My options were limited.” Her lips tightened, her tone heavy with honesty.
She sighed. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Evy. I can hate him for many things, not least of which is forcing you into this marriage, glorious bathtubs notwithstanding. But I can’t be a hypocrite. I led him to that hideout. And I would’ve tortured them myself if he hadn’t done it first.”
Nothing but raw honesty blazed from her eyes, and it struck me that though Wynnie and I had spent half of our lives together, we hadn’t had the same experiences. Like Draven, she didn’t know what it was to be on the other end of that torture. To fear for your existence.
But then…Wynnie was the closest person in the world to me, and the best person I knew. I thought of the unrelenting panic that had consumed me when the monsters were at her estate.
If someone had taken her, what wouldn’t I have done to get her back?
It was an uncomfortable feeling. Were we all just one tragedy away from being Kyros?
I dipped a basin into the bath and poured warm water gently over her curls. She sighed, closing her eyes as I worked lather into her hair, scrubbing away blood and whatever else had found its way there.
I tried not to think about the night Draven had done the same for me, his hands steady as mine shook, his gentleness so at odds with the frost in his eyes. I tried not to remember how, no matter how many times I scrubbed or drained the tub, I hadn’t felt clean.
“So what happened, then?” I asked, shaking the memory free and rinsing her hair. “How did you get hurt?”
She opened her eyes again, her brow knitting together incredulously.
“Wyverns,” she said, and my mouth fell open.
“You saw them?” I asked, dropping the basin into the tub with a splash.
