Page 84 of Stolen

“I’ll go with you,” Varick said, starting to sit up.

“No!” I lowered my voice and gave him a meaningful look. “I need the privy.”

Understanding lit his gaze. He released me, but a frown formed between his brows. “Don’t be long.”

“I’m only going downstairs. There are guards all over the place.”

His frown deepened.

Laurent’s sleepy voice lifted from the other side of the bed. “Let her go, baby.”

I stood and wrapped a sheet around me.

Laurent turned over, rolling into the divot I’d left in the bed. He wiggled closer to Varick and stuck his feet under Varick’s calves. “I’ll save your spot.”

A smile tugged at my lips. Before I was tempted to climb back into bed with them, I went to the stairs.

“Come right back here,” Varick rumbled after me.

I lifted a hand in acknowledgment and picked my way down the stairs.

No surprise, Laurent’s privy was more luxurious than any other in the palace. After I did my business, I washed in the large basin set in a wooden stand. I sniffed at a bar of soap and then used that, too, scrubbing sweat and sex from my body. I’d left a few of my things in the bedchamber after Laurent and I wed, and I pulled a nightdress and robe from his armoire. After running a brush through my hair, I started for the Rose Room.

The sound of steel on steel stopped me cold.

I turned.

Nothing. Laurent’s darkened bedchamber spread before me, moonlight spilling over the carpets.

My heart pounded, thoughts of Midian rushing through my head. I swallowed hard, the sound an audible gulp in the hushed space.

My vision flickered. Wind stirred my hair. Before me, a ghostly knight strode across the carpet, his cloak fluttering behind him.

A green cloak.

Fear closed its jaws around me. Not real. It had to be an illusion—something Midian was making me see. Except I didn’t feel the demon king in my head. I hadn’t felt anything abnormal since I fled the Thicket.

A man’s muffled shout reached me. More sounds of steel.

No, sounds of a camp. I’d heard it all before, the day Varick and I met Laurent in Wesyfedd. A rhythmic, metallic clang rang out—the sound of someone driving tent pegs into the ground.

Heart thumping painfully, I drifted forward.

And stepped into a sea of green tents.

I stumbled back, dirt crunching under my feet. Laurent’s chamber was gone, and I stood in the middle of the Sithistran army’s camp.

Boots crunched. A shadow flowed over a nearby tent, displaying the silhouette of a knight in full armor.

Nausea burned my throat. If Rolund caught me, he’d kill me.

I clapped a hand over my mouth, tremors shaking me.

The shadow loomed larger, and a knight rounded the tent.

I couldn’t let him find me! Heart thumping, I darted my head around, looking for a place to hide.

The knight kept coming.

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