Page 58 of Silvercloak

“What’s it going to look like?”

She still hadn’t laid eyes upon it. Whenever she reapplied the salve, she stared resolutely at the ceiling.

He didn’t have to ask what she meant. Didn’t even seem surprised at the question.

“Like a dark, angry crust.” He swallowed, not meeting her eye. “It’ll fade.”

The bath chamber was dimly lit with evercandles, and the clouds of steam mercifully obscured the brand, somewhat. She shrugged out of her clothes and hung them on the hook, and as she lowered her aching body into the bath, there was a fresh lick of fire, another poker sizzling against her skin, a pain so fierce and bright that a scream tore loose from her throat.

In an instant she was back at the mercy of Lyrian Celadon, wrists bound and flesh burning—

The door opened with a crash, and Levan’s outline appeared through the steam.

“Are you alright?” he asked, voice gruff.

Saff went to hastily cover up her intimate parts. Shame filled her belly, like she’d been caught masturbating. “Fine.”

“The brand?”

She nodded, fiercely blinking away the tears beading along her waterline. “The heat against it.”

Saints,it throbbed. She had to focus on keeping her breathing steady, on not whimpering like a kicked wolf cub. Levan had already seen her at her weakest, her most broken. She had to maintain some semblance of pride.

Yet she was naked and in pain in front of him, and he made no effort to leave. Instead, he pulled the wand from his cloak pocket and dipped its tip into the bathwater.

“Don corzaquiss.”

The water sizzled and cooled. It wasn’tcold,but it also was not quite so scorching, so reminiscent of the brand. A long breath rattled out of Saffron, and the intense sear of her crusted brand ebbed slightly.

“Better?” Levan asked, the word rough.

“Yes,” she muttered. “Thanks.”

He nodded once and left. She stared after him, trying to reconcile this random act of compassion with the man she’d seen torturing an innocent Brewer and murdering … well, notinnocentWhitewings. But he’d mutilated some and slaughtered others without a hint of remorse.

The kingpin’s son seemed to have a weak spot for her brand. He’d been rattled when she first suggested it in the alley, and he’d looked away while it was happening, offering her a tiny shred of dignity and privacy. In the aftermath, he’d brought her salve and asked if she was alright, and now … this. All signs pointed to the fact that he too had been branded—perhaps young, perhaps against his will. Why else would he show such relative sympathy for her pain, when everything else he said and did was so unrelentingly cold?

I am what most would consider a monster, but I have a code.

Aspar had ordered her to uncover the Bloodmoons’ elusive motive, the bigwhybehind their pursuit of power and fortune. Saff would have to establish herself as a valuable confidante to both Levan and Lyrian if she wanted the answer. And of the two, Levan was much more accessible to her.

The rough edges of a plan sharpened, solidified.

When she was done bathing, Levan and Rasso escorted her wordlessly back to her room. Rasso glowered at her from the threshold, those unnerving white eyes as bottomless as they were blank.

“How do you have a fallowwolf?” she asked Levan, sitting cross-legged on the bed. “I thought they only bonded with Timeweavers, and since the Timeweavers were eradicated, the fallowwolves went feral.”

He paused with his hand on the doorknob. “You know a lot about fallowwolf lore.”

“My old commanding officer was an Augurest.”

Levan tensed like an arrow nocked in a bow, pulled back and quivering with the effort of staying still. “I have a fallowwolf because I have Rezaran blood.”

All the blood rushed to Saffron’s head.

“Impossible,” she breathed. “The whole house was slaughtered a hundred years ago.”

Levan shook his head grimly. “Not the whole house. There was a bastard son nobody knew about.”

---