So Yrene didn’t dare object. Didn’t let herself so much as hesitate before Hasar’s piercing eyes. “As long as you don’t mind me wearing the same dress from the other night,” she said as casually as she could, plucking at her oversized shirt.

“No need,” Hasar countered, smiling broadly. “I have something already selected.”

19

Chaol kept moving his toes long after Yrene had left. He wriggled them inside his boots, not quite feeling them, but just enough to know they were moving.

However Yrene had done it …

He didn’t tell Nesryn when she returned before dinner, no sign of the Valg to report. And he’d only quietly explained that he was making enough progress with Yrene that he’d like to put off tomorrow’s visit to her family until another day.

She’d seemed a tad crestfallen, but had agreed, that cool mask slipping back over her face within a few blinks.

He kissed her when she’d walked by to dress for dinner.

He’d grabbed her by the wrist and tugged her down, and kissed her once. Brief—but thorough.

She’d been surprised enough that by the time he’d pulled away, she hadn’t so much as laid a hand on him.

“Get ready,” he told her, motioning to her room.

With a backward glance at him, a half smile on her mouth, Nesryn obeyed.

Chaol stared after her for a few minutes, shifting his toes in his boots.

There had been no heat in it—the kiss. No real feeling.

He expected it. He’d practically shoved her away these weeks. He didn’t blame her at all for the surprise.

He was still flexing his toes in his boots when they arrived at dinner. Tonight, he’d ask the khagan for an audience. Again. Mourning or no, protocol or no. And then he’d warn the man of what he knew.

He would request it before Yrene’s usual arrival—in case they lost time. Which seemed to be an occurrence. It had been three hours today. Three.

His throat was still raw, despite the honeyed tea Yrene had made him drink until he was nearly sick. Then she’d made him exercise, many of the movements ones she had to assist him with: rotating his hips, rolling each leg from side to side, rotating his ankles and feet in circles. All designed to keep the blood flowing to the muscles beginning to atrophy, all designed to re-create the pathways between his spine and brain, she said.

She’d repeated the sets over and over, until an hour had passed. Until she was swaying again on her feet, and that glassy look had crept over her eyes.

Exhaustion. For while she’d been rotating his legs, ordering him to move his toes every now and then, she’d sent tingles of her magic through his legs, bypassing his spine entirely. Little pinpricks in his toes—like swarms of fireflies had landed on him. That was all he felt, even as she kept trying to patch up those pathways in his body. What little she could do now, with the small progress she’d made hours ago.

But all that magic … When Yrene had swayed after his last set, he’d called for Kadja. Ordered an armed carriage for the healer.

Yrene, to his surprise, didn’t object. Though he supposed it was hard to, when the healer was nearly asleep on her feet by the time she left, Kadja supporting her. Yrene only murmured something about being on his horse again after breakfast, and was gone.

But perhaps the luck he’d had that afternoon was the last of it.

Hours later, the khagan was not at dinner. He was dining in private with his beloved wife, they said. The unspoken rest of it lay beneath the words: mourning was taking its natural course, and politics would be set aside. Chaol had tried to look as understanding as possible.

At least Nesryn seemed to be making some headway with Sartaq, even if the other royals had already grown bored with their presence.

So he dined, so he kept wriggling his toes within his boots, and did not tell anyone, even Nesryn, long after they’d returned to their suite and he’d tumbled off to bed.

He awoke with the dawn, found himself … eager to wash and dress. Found himself eating breakfast as quickly as he could, while Nesryn only raised her brows.

But she, too, was off early to meet Sartaq atop one of the palace’s thirty-six minarets.

There was some holiday tomorrow, to honor one of the thirty-six gods those minarets each represented. Their sea goddess, Tehome. There would be a ceremony at sunrise down by the docks, with all the royals, even the khagan, attending to lay wreaths into the water. Gifts for the Lady of the Great Deep, Nesryn had said. Then a grand feast at the palace come sundown.

He’d been indifferent about his own holidays back in Adarlan, found them outdated rites to honor forces and elements his ancestors could not explain, and yet the buzz of activity, the wreaths of flowers and seashells being raised within the palace to at last replace the white banners, the scent of shellfish simmering in butter and spices … It intrigued him. Made him see a bit clearer, brighter, as he wheeled through the busy palace toward the courtyard.

The courtyard itself was a melee of arriving and departing vendors, bearing food and decorations and what seemed to be performers. All to beseech their sea goddess for mercy as the late summer gave way to annual violent storms that could rip apart ships and entire towns on the coastline.

Chaol scanned the courtyard for Yrene, flexing his toes. He spotted his horse and her mare alongside it in the few pens by the east wall, but … no sign of her.

She’d been late yesterday, so he waited until a lull in the deliveries before he motioned the stable hands to help him mount. But it was the guard from yesterday—the one who’d aided him most—who came forward when the mare was brought over. Shen, Yrene had called him; she’d greeted the guard as if she knew him well.

Shen said nothing, though Chaol knew every guard in this palace spoke an assortment of languages beyond Halha, only offering a nod of greeting. Which Chaol found himself returning before he silently mounted, his arms straining with the effort to haul himself upward. But he made it, perhaps easier than yesterday, earning what he could have sworn was a wink of approval from Shen before the guard sauntered back to his post.

Shutting out what that did to his chest, Chaol buckled the straps on his brace and surveyed the chaotic courtyard and open gates beyond. The guards inspected every wagon, every piece of paper that confirmed a royal order had been placed for the goods they bore.

Good. Regardless of whether he’d spoken to the khagan personally, at least someone had warned the guard to be careful—perhaps Kashin.

The sun drifted higher, raising the heat with it. Still Yrene did not come.

A clock chimed deep in the palace. An hour late.

The mare turned skittish, impatient beneath him, and he patted her thick, sweaty neck, murmuring.

Another fifteen minutes passed. Chaol studied the gates, the street beyond.

No word of alarm had come from the Torre, but staying still, just waiting here …

He found himself snapping the reins, tapping the horse’s flank to launch it into a walk.

He’d marked the path Yrene had taken yesterday. Perhaps he’d run into her on her way over here.

Antica was crawling with vendors and people setting up for tomorrow’s holiday. And those already toasting to the Lady of the Great Deep, filling the taverns and eating rooms lining the streets, musicians playing at each one.

It took him nearly twice as long to get to the Torre’s owl-adorned gates, though part of that slowness was due to his scanning for Yrene on every crammed street and passing alley. But he found no sign of the healer.

He and his horse were sweating when they rode through the Torre gates, the guards smiling at him—faces he’d marked from yesterday’s lesson.

How many times had he seen such a greeting in Adarlan? Taken it for granted?

He’d always ridden through the black iron gates to the glass palace without hesitation, without really doing more than noting who was stationed there and who wasn’t looking up to snuff. He’d trained with those men, learned about their families and lives.

His men. They had been his men.

So Chaol’s own answering smile was tight, and he couldn’t stand to meet their bright eyes for more than a passing glance as he rode into the Torre courtyard, the scent of lavender wrapping around him.

But he paused a few feet in, wheeled his mare around, and asked the guard closest, “Has Yrene Towers left today?”