Page 32 of A Legacy of Storms and Starlight

“Training starts at dawn, unless you’re taking the day off, that is.” He leaned back, resting a hand behind his head for a pillow and closed his eyes.

“Why would I? No, dawn is perfect.” She took one last look at him, at the way his muscles were emphasised in this position, at the square of his jaw.Who sleeps with an arm up like that, anyway?

Zylah rolled onto her side away from Holt, focusing on the sound of his steady breaths until she fell asleep.

She woke once in the night. A dream, or a memory, startled her awake. She was warm. One leg wrapped over one of Holt’s, her head on his chest. His arm wrapped tight around her.Gods above.She’d missed touch a whole lot more than she’d realised. She breathed in his scent and listened to his heartbeat until the memory of the assailant faded.

She played over his words from a few hours before.I’ve lost a lot of friends over the years. I’m not ready to lose another.

Neither was she.

Chapter Thirteen

The sound of the window clicking shut woke Zylah.

Holt had let Kopi in and was leaning against the wall, arms folded across his chest. “Good morning.” He looked as if he’d slept well, and he seemed to be in good spirits.

“Good morning,” Zylah said, with a stretch, wincing when she felt a bruise from the night before.

Holt’s expression darkened. “We don’t have to do this today if you don’t want to.”

There was no way Zylah was going to miss this opportunity. She threw the bedcovers aside. “I absolutely do. Just give me a minute,” she said, padding into the bathroom to look for her clothes, which were nowhere to be found. “Did you break rule number one?”

“Arran’s wife does my laundry. I thought you might prefer to go to work with clean clothes.”

She was about to argue, but then she saw the dents in the side of the bath where he’d gripped it, and all her snappy retorts about him touching her undergarments fell away from her. She frowned at the marks in the metal as she combed her fingers through her hair, replaying the events of the night before.

“Your clothes will be ready by the time we’re back from training,” Holt called out from the bedroom when she didn’t reply.

What would stop the hooded figure from trying to return? Was it one of Arnir’s men? “That’s all well and good,” Zylah mused, “but I’m going to need something a bit more suitable for training in.” She stormed back out into the bedroom and to the chest of drawers, rummaging through to find the shabbiest shirt she could lay eyes on. “Are you particularly fond of this one?” she asked, waving it in front of him.

He shook his head. He’d cleaned up the room. When did he find the time to do all of these things? Perhaps he barely slept at all, but then she remembered waking up wrapped around him in the night, his arm holding her tightly, and willed her cheeks not to flush.

She stomped back into the bathroom, ripping Holt’s shirt into strips to fasten around her chest. Rags were all she’d had as a girl until she’d saved up enough for her bralette—even that she still preferred to wrap tighter when necessity called for it.

What if the intruder had sent a message to Arnir?

She pulled the shirt she’d slept in back over her head, rolling up the sleeves and tucking it in at the waist. She rolled that over a few times too, and the hems of the trousers. There was no escaping the fact she was wearing his clothes, but at least they might stay on her now. Finally, she scooped up her hair into a messy bun; there was no time to braid it, she’d wasted enough time already wrapping her chest.

“I’d have woken you up an hour earlier if I’d known you were going to take this long.”

Zylah felt Holt’s gaze as she stepped back out into the bedroom, wondering if he’d woken up with her wrapped around him. Gods above. “I’m ready,” she said, pulling on her boots and tucking her dagger into one of them.

“After you.” Holt held the door open, and Zylah glanced between him and Kopi. The owl was fast asleep. At least one of them was.

Holt locked the door behind them, pocketing the key.

“I forgot my cloak,” Zylah whispered, in case any other patrons were sleeping in the adjacent rooms. Come to think of it, she’d never seen any of the rooms at this end of the corridor occupied.

“You won’t need it,” Holt said quietly. She followed him soundlessly down the corridor and the narrow staircase, into the tavern, where instead of the door, he turned to the bar.

She didn’t argue as she followed him behind it, just watched as he rolled up a rug, lifted a trapdoor, and waved a hand at a set of steps leading down in the darkness. Anticipation danced along her spine. A smile tugged at Holt’s lips as an orblight flickered on below them, bathing the staircase in a soft light.

Zylah made her way down the steps until she reached a door—locked. Holt pulled the hatch shut above them and followed her, squeezing his way past. He glanced down at her for a moment, his body close to hers, and Zylah wondered if she should apologise for how she’d slept. But what was there to say?Sorry I slept on you?In Pallia’s name. He didn’t look at her that way, he’d made it clear. Holt waved a hand over the locked door and it clicked open.

“You can use magic inside the city without it being traced?” she asked, tilting her head back to look up at him.

He pushed open the door and stepped inside. “The tavern and this area are warded heavily. It’s where I come to train.”

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