Page 72 of Her Cruel Redemption

‘Right,’ I muttered, still not quite able to grapple with this new picture she’d painted in my mind: Leela and Draven in some brightly lit salon, sipping from floral teacups and talking aboutme.

‘So, the magic,’ Leela prompted. ‘Can you really wield lightning?’

A sharp smile stole the confusion as I responded with a wave of satisfaction. ‘Yes.’

Her answering smile mirrored my own, the excitement gleaming in her eyes reminding me what had drawn us to each other in the first place. For all her calm manners and rationality, Leela had offered me her services as a maid because she’d admired my ambition and she had plenty of her own.

‘That’s something I want to see,’ she said. But then she glanced over at Faucher, who was shifting awkwardly from one foot to the other as he seemed to be working himself up to approach us in a second attempt at delivering Esario’s demand. ‘But for now, I think I’d better go and speak with the king of Oceatold.’ She tipped her mug, swallowing down the last of her tea before rising to her feet. ‘I’ll see you soon.’

I watched her follow Faucher out of the tent and wondered what Esario would ask her. If she’d spoken with Draven every day, surely she’d have information to offer, perhaps on his plans, his state of mind. Would Gwinellyn want to speak with her? Would she confirm the accusations the girl had made in our last conversation? That Draven and I had been… I couldn’t apply the wordloversto what we’d been. Even if I had, for perhaps a moment—just long enough for it to hurt—believed myself in love with him.

I sipped my tea without tasting it, considering whether I should go with them to hear what she would say. But I didn’t make a move, just clutched that mug as it grew steadily colder and other people trickled into the tent for food and hot drinks of their own to stave off the weather. Soon, we would march on Port Howl, and then it surely wouldn’t matter what Leela had to report. It wouldn’t matter how much tea she’d drunk with Draven, or how much Gwinellyn suspected of our history, or how long that moment by the door had lasted as he’d slid his hand onto my hip. We would march on Port Howl, and this hideous thing between us would end.

One way or another.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Iopened my eyes to white light, brighter and warmer than any I’d seen the whole time I’d been in Oceatold. It flooded the little tent, washing away all its flaws and severity. There were fingers on my stomach, tracing fairy stories against my skin. And I wasn’t alarmed or afraid. I turned onto my side, already knowing who I’d see. Who I always saw.

‘I’m dreaming,’ I said, taking in the grey of Draven’s eyes. It didn’t look so hard a colour here. The white light rendered them deeper, softer somehow. Less like unyielding steel and more like sombre clouds.

‘Yes.’ He drew his hand up to cup my face, his movements slow.

‘Why don’t I hate you in my dreams?’

‘You don’t hate me when you’re awake. Why would you hate me when you sleep?’

I didn’t answer. Seemed stupid to argue with a dream. Releasing a shuddering sigh, I ran a hand up his arm. Let myself touch him. ‘It’s exhausting to hate you,’ I said, something I would never ever admit to awake. ‘Sometimes I wish I could stop.’

‘Then it’s simple. Stop.’

‘Nothing about you is simple.’ I brushed the hair from his forehead, toyed with the ends of a dark lock. ‘What would you do if I did?’

His eyes creased with a smile. That artless, unguarded smile I’d only seen him wear a handful of times, with a flash of that elusive dimple. I wished it wasn’t the smile he’d wear when I dreamed him. It made him seem like someone I didn’t want to kill. ‘Love you.’

Even here, it hurt. These were words I’d never heard, and never would. ‘Don’t say that.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because this is just a dream.’

He traced his thumb across my cheek, the feather-light touch making something tender and aching rise in my chest. ‘That doesn’t mean it isn’t real.’

‘When I wake, you’ll be gone.’

He leaned in and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to my mouth. I closed my eyes against the sting of sorrow. ‘Then don’t dally in the daylight, my love. Come back to me.’

The white light flared brighter, and then I was blinking my eyes open to a grey morning, to a tent transformed back to its drab austerity. I swallowed down that aching feeling, touched fingertips to my lips, like I was feeling for the ghost of his. The urge to close my eyes again, to go back to sleep, overwhelmed me for a moment. But my fear and my anger had woken with me, hissing and spitting at the knowledge my subconscious had dreamed up such a moment, so I kicked off the covers and sat up, exposing myself to the sharp chill on the air.

Mae was still asleep, so I crept quietly out into the cold morning, where the army was already stirring, breakfast fires casting smoke into the grey sky. I walked through the quiet camp, past those bleary-eyed soldiers already preparing for the battle to come, and climbed the embankment to our flank to glimpse a sight of Port Howl. I’d glared at it for a long while when we’d arrived the day before, trying to imagine how we would approach it. It seemed as miserable as anywhere else in Oceatold. Cold and misty, it was a walled city tumbling into a bay, its furthest point some kind of watch tower sticking out of the ocean itself, connected to the mainland by a spindly bridge. The sprawl of the outer regions of the city hugged the coast until the cliffs became a sheltered harbour, where the busiest port in the three kingdoms was usually choked with ships ferrying goods and people to and from the rest of the world. Or, so I’d been told. No one was coming and going from that port now.

The ocean looked moody today, free of whitecaps but still heaving with swell, rocking the dozens of ships sheltered there. Not the merchant vessels and fishing boats that usually frequented the port. The ships now anchored there had carried our enemies to these shores.

Just a little down the far side of the embankment, I was surprised to find King Esario standing in the grizzly dawn, gaze flicking between the port and a map spread between his hands, flapping in the wind. For a moment, I dithered on whether or not to approach him, but he turned his head, glancing in my direction, eyes narrowing as he caught sight of me before beckoning me over.

‘Good,’ he said as I approached. ‘Just who I wanted to see.’

‘Me?’ That was a surprise. Usually I was thelastperson he wanted to see. I glanced at his map, catching sight of Port Howl rendered from a bird’s eye view.

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