Page 32 of A Court of Masks and Roses
“Yes.” Trace’s lips press together, though his shoulders still shake even as Leaf begins to stitch his wound. Trace’s fingers tighten around the table’s edge, the only indication that he feels anything at all. “Given everything else that’s happened, you must concede the absurdity of it.”
I shudder and turn away, watching the fire until I hear Leaf’s voice.
“You wear a healing crystal.” Leaf cuts the thread and lays a clean linen bandage across Trace’s muscled chest, her eyes fully consumed with her task. “Why?”
“A superstition. Though I hear healing crystals are unkind.”
“An interesting way of putting it,” says Leaf. “When a whisperer properly tunes a healing crystal, the magic transcends the crystal’s shell,” she explains. “That focused magic entering the body is what generates the healing. It is terribly painful for both patient and healer alike. The connection between healer and patient is what classifies healing crystals into the melding family.”
I exhale quietly. If Leaf is rambling about magical theory and classifications, she must be feeling better. And if she is feeling better, I might be able to escape this table and keep from becoming Trace’s entertainment.
“So you’ve no plans of using my own crystal against me?” says Trace with a tinge of sarcasm.
Now it’s my turn to grin. If I know Leaf, that small jest is about to earn Trace an earful.
True to form, Leaf’s face snaps to the guard’s. “Using potent magic without proper training is not a jesting matter. You think living crystals are benign, pretty gems, all safe as light pebbles? That healing crystal around your neck? If tuned, it will produce magic potent enough to kill a patientand break an untrained whisperer’s mind. Stars be thanked that healing hurts, or else fools would be paying with life and limb for their recklessness.”
Though Trace dwarfs Leaf three times over, he has the good sense to lean away from my sister’s wrath. “Yes, ma’am,” he mumbles, this time with no hint of mockery, though a plain sense of relief.
Seeing Leaf nearly finished tending to Trace, I slip off the table and scout my escape route.
Trace’s arm blocks my path. “No you don’t,” he murmurs before raising his voice. “Leaf, your sister is attempting to make a run for it.”
“I will kill you,” I say through my teeth.
Sliding off the table to stand behind me, Trace gently tips my head to the side.His calloused fingers are warm against my skin, which suddenly feels naked. No one but Leaf has been this close to me before outside of combat. My pulse races, my body unsure whether to make a dash for the door or elbow Trace’s gut.
“You are lucky that arrow missed your artery.” His fingers trail from the back of my neck forward, stopping at the top of my collarbone. His quiet voice tickles my ear. “Leaf is right, though—the wound would do better closed.”
“Go away.”
He chuckles, his hands sliding to my shoulders and growing heavy. The bastard is holding me down, and my bloody sister is letting him do it.I grit my teeth.If I die of mortification, I am killing them both,I promise myself as I close my eyes to keep from watching what happens next. As the stinging pain of the needle comes, I feel Trace’s finger tracing a small, soothing circle across my skin.
18
KALI
The following morning, my muscles vibrate with tension as I slip back into Kal’s body and face the training yard. I’ve never worked beside someone who has knowledge of my mission, and I can see exactly why Lord Gapral ensured it so. I feel naked, my identity and secrets hidden only behind Trace’s promise of silence. What will that promise do when it’s time to cross practice blades, when one of the men makes a raunchy jest unsuitable for Lady Lianna’s ears? Will Trace prove capable of carrying the act smoothly? Is he my ally now, or my adversary? Trace. My skin prickles at the memory of his touch along my shoulders, his warm breath tickling my hair, the scent of his lavender soap filling my nose. Maybe it’s me and not Trace I’m worried about.
Stars take me.
The lush green training yard bristles with trainees lining up before the guard master and older guardsmen bringing out racks of practice swords. The air is fresh and sweet with cutgrass. Squinting into the sun, I brace myself to find Trace in our usual spot on the northwest side of the yard.
I find only Luca.
“Trace is busy,” Luca says with a shrug when I ask. “Viva Sylthia assaulted Lady Raza and Lady Lianna while you were farting in bed last night, so there is a massive sweep of the grounds planned.” He settles into a fighting stance. “Let’s hurry up and fight before real work interferes with sparring.”
True to Luca’s prediction, within an hour we are both swept up into a mass search of the palace grounds for lingering threats. To add insult to injury, the bishop’s holy guardsmen supplement the king’s forces, making the woods and corridors bleed scarlet. With Samuels amidst the search parties, it’s like sending foxes to guard the chicken coop.
It’s midday before I finally catch sight of Trace by the front steps of the palace, leaning over a map with other senior guards while wasps buzz above the nearby flowers.
“Might I be of service?” I ask, stepping up to the group on the wasp-free side, my heart speeding.
Trace’s face turns toward me, and I freeze at the cold, dark gaze. There is nothing of the man from yesterday behind those eyes, and I wonder if I only imagined that moment of gentleness last night. “No,” Trace says curtly. “Stay inside the palace grounds with the other trainees. It’s too dangerous to roam the woods just now.”
Heat rises to my face and I turn quickly before the others see the flush in Kal’s cheeks. When I glance back, I find that Trace has shifted his body to efficiently block me from approaching the gathering, as if keeping a child from interfering with the adults’ discussion. Or keeping a woman from joining the men’s.
There is nothing left for Kal but to go, as ordered, to join the amateur trainees making a mockery of a search throughthe palace rooms. By dinnertime, my most useful—and only—accomplishment lies in having read the lips of a few stray roses passing through the palace corridors. The most I glean from them, however, is that the Holy Guard is giving the search their surprisingly full effort and attention. That, and something about prisoners, which I’ve no context for interpreting.
