Page 109 of The Chaosweaver's Daughter
“Will you wait for me while I take a bath?” her voice came out so small and pitiful that Kas could do nothing beyond nod. Of course he’d wait for her.
“I think I want a bedtime story.”
“I’ll be right here when you’re ready,” he said as she disappeared into the bathing chamber with her nanny who’d come to help.
It wasn’t even dark out, but the excitement of the afternoon left Della exhausted, and he couldn’t blame her. Kas stalked across the room to close the curtains so the waning daylight wouldn’t keep his niece awake. Then, trapped in the gloom, he paced, impatient to get back downstairs to check on his nephew, to go find Nes and give her a hug. Kas’s heart ached for the boy, for the girl, his sister, his brother-in-law, for Nes who was probably beating herself up in some hidden corner.What horrible luck.
Della re-emerged a short time later, hair plaited into two silvery braids, and wearing her nightgown. Her smile upon seeing him made his impatient pacing and frantic musings worth it a thousand times over. If Ataht was declining, someone from Kas’s staff would have informed him. To be safe, he asked the nanny to check while he tucked Della into bed.
She handed him a slim book calledThe Gilded Queen,and he settled in beside her. The story was short but offered them both a much-neededdistraction. It told of an ancient queen with wild powers who’d saved a realm of tiny faeries from certain demise by smuggling them beneath her skirts, earning her a place in their hearts for all eternity. It was cute.
When he finished, she smiled up sleepily, but past her wide mouth he could see the pain in her big eyes—eyes like Nes’s.
As if she’d read his mind, Adella asked, “Have you seen Miss Kiappa?”
“No. But she came in earlier, right? When we were in the kitchen.”
“No.”
“Are you sure? I know you fell asleep for a bit. Perhaps you missed her, and it was when I was distracted?”
She shook her head, each little movement driving his heart rate higher.
That was unlike Nesrina. He assumed she’d come to check on Ataht, and in his panicked state he’d missed it.
“Is she all right?”
“I’m certain she is. Not to worry. I’m sure she’s in the library.” He tried his best to act collected for Della, but inwardly, panic screamed at him to run.
Nes hadn’t come back. There was no way she’dnotvisit Ataht, no matter how guilty she felt.
“All is well,” he repeated, not at all believing it himself. “Rest up. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Della nodded, and he slipped into the hall, racing away the minute the door closed.
thirty-seven
Nesrina sees stars.
Nesrinaawokewithapounding headache and debilitating exhaustion weighing down her limbs. She hadn’t felt this bad since . . . ever. Not even after having too much whiskey with the duke at the symposium. What had she gotten up to last night? The last thing she remembered was swimming with the twins and Kas in the creek—but that was before the symposium. Confused, she tried to groan, but found it took too much effort. Prying her eyes open also proved impossible. Perhaps she was ill.
As the minutes ticked by, time began to flow nearly correctly again, and memories of the past few weeks drifted aimlessly through her mind as they waited to tie up to a dock.
The queen. The king. Ataht.He got hurt? Where? The palace? Little bits and pieces of moments fluttered about, drifting past one another, swapping positions, until they finally settled, properly moored in Nesrina’s brain. Her heart dropped to the floor.
Everything fell into place,everything.Perhaps a bit more than she’d asked for since she was only aiming to figure out where she was.The summons, the palace, the twins, the tutoring, the dragon, the blades...She breathed deeply and attempted again to open her eyes.Stormhill and the duke... Kas Kahoth. Her Kas.Nesrina struggled to lift her hand, it weighed a million pounds. If she was ill, maybe someone was there, watching over her. She had to let them know she was awake.Kas, dinners,the symposium. The king. The queen. The dresses. The proposal.Her lids still wouldn’t budge, although they wanted to pop open at that particular memory.
Ataht.The prince had been injured, possibly killed. On her watch. Then she’d been attacked.Oh, gods. Someone snuck up on her while she was cleaning up from the dreadful lesson.
I need a plan.
Rather than strain against whatever it was that weighed her down, Nes calmed her breathing, and listened. She was indoors, a fire crackled. Someonewasin the room with her, poking the logs, jostling them about. They didn’t need to know she was awake, not yet anyway.
The longer she lay there, the more she came to her senses. Throbbing pain emanated from her skull, and her forearms burned and ached at the same time. A little part of her wondered if she still had hands.
She attempted to wiggle her little finger, and it worked, brushing against her thigh. Nes tried to lift her arm farthest from the fire and—she hoped—out of sight of her captor. It worked, kind of. She felt restrained, though nothing seemed to be tethering her arms or legs to the bed. She’d been kidnapped, butwhy? Was this connected to the king? To Ataht? Had her captor mistaken her for the princess?She was ridiculously short, after all. Was someone making a move against the Crown?What the fates did she have to do with it, if so?
Nesrina tipped her head a fraction of an inch, and she felt it: a thick, heavy band shackled her neck. On a whim, she tried to summon a bit of chaos to craft a small dagger in her left palm.
