Page 48 of A Throne of Blood and Ice

I’m not sure what is worse: Gunter suggesting that I might have developed romantic feelings for the girl I’ve been torturing, or his implication that she’s the first girl I’ve ever developed feelings for.

There’s something about the truth of that notion that makes me feel twelve years old again. I know it’s not fair to pass such judgment upon myself. It’s not as though I am free to visit the village any time I desire. Not as though I’ve spent much time around women, other than the queen.

Other than the ones I’ve slaughtered.

“Are you offering a recommendation?” I ask him.

Gunter opens his mouth to say something, but he must reconsider it, because he rises from his chair and leaves, patting my shoulder on the way out.

CHAPTER14

BLAISE

The weathered parchment of the grimoire I’m holding shivers as the pages flap together underneath my shaking hands.

Words skitter across the page like ants, and hard as I try, I can’t chase them.

The wet blotches made by a handful of tears that spot against the page aren’t helping either.

I let out an aggravated shudder, clenching my fists against my knees and willing my body to get a hold of itself, willing my eyes to focus for once, when the key rattles in the lock.

Before I have the chance to jump, Nox and his dreadfully silent feet enter the room. Pages rustle as I rifle through them in an attempt to hide the fact that I’ve soiled a centuries-old manuscript with my tears, but given I’m also attempting to wipe my face clean of the evidence, all I manage to do is drop the grimoire. It lands pages-first, splaying across the stone floor, as if it’s aiming to punish me in the most masochistic way possible.

I leap off the dais to scoop it up, but Nox is already there, kneeling before it.

Our hands brush as we both reach for the book. A shiver sends the hairs on my arms standing up, and when I meet his gaze, he’s examining my face, probably the blotches smattered all over it courtesy of my meltdown.

Hiccups have the tendency to launch their assaults at the most inconvenient of times, and this is no exception. The sound that bursts from my lips is sharp and loud and echoes off the stone walls.

I yank the grimoire from his hands before he can examine the damage I’ve done too closely, and turn my back to him, setting the grimoire on the counter and rifling through it, like I’m trying to find my place.

As if I have any idea where I left off.

But then a presence draws near to me from behind, and I feel the warmth of his chest brush against my back. With a slowness that is altogether agonizing, he slides his fingers down the length of my forearms and places his hands on mine, prying my fingers from the grimoire.

I clutch my fists, making like I’m fighting him for control, but my heart isn’t in it, and he turns me to face him with ease.

He’s watching me again, calculation stirring in those pale blue eyes of his. While I expect him to ask me what’s wrong, he doesn’t. Instead he simply says, “Reading is difficult for you,” with the same matter-of-fact tone that he might use when stating, “Cryostone combusts when it reaches freezing temperatures,” or when he repeats Gunter’s assertion, “There are a multitude of binding agents in this realm, but blood is the most potent of all.”

My voice is still trembling when I answer. “Typically I’m used to it, but I figure I must be under stress for some reason.”

A kind smile brushes his mouth, the edges of his eyes. “Can’t think of why that might be.”

“I know how to read,” I feel the urge to divulge, to convince him of. “I’m not illiterate. The words—they just get away from me sometimes. It gets worse the longer I stare at the page.”

Nox cranes his head to the side and examines me. I don’t miss the fact that he’s still got my hands in his, and he’s tracing his thumbs over the backs of my knuckles absentmindedly.

When he doesn’t say anything, words start pouring out of my mouth unprovoked. “It probably makes me seem dumb, I know. But I promise I’m listening when you tell me all about the interactions in potions.” I rattle off a list of interactions Gunter explained to me just yesterday, my cheeks heating with embarrassment the more I talk and betray how desperate I am to prove to this male I’m not stupid.

His gaze lingers on my burning cheeks for a moment before he steers his eyes back to mine. As if reading my mind, he says, “I don’t think you’re stupid.”

The laugh that escapes my throat is rather unflattering, more of a strangling noise than anything. “Well, you and my tutors would disagree then.”

A shadow seems to flash over Nox’s face, but the glaze over my vision obscures it; it’s gone by the time I blink away the tears welling in my eyes.

“My friends were always holed up in books,” I say, thinking of the girls whose company I kept before Clarissa entered my life. “I never quite got the point. Seemed like an agonizing waste of time, and not worth the headache.” I furrow my brow as my head, indeed, pounds.

Nox pulls away from me, and the absence of his touch hurts, because I’m afraid he’s seen right through my defenses. That they come across as the poorly formed excuses of a lazy girl who never worked hard enough to learn what came so easily to everyone else.

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