The Heart Forger (The Bone Witch #2)(87)

“Mind if I cut in?” a voice to my right interrupted. My suitor wasn’t as fluent in the common tongue, however, and Kalen had to repeat it, this time in Daanorian, adding in a few other words I couldn’t understand. The boy visibly gulped, cast a fearful glance at the tall Deathseeker, and stepped aside.

“Likh and Khalad are off to map the rest of the palace wards,” Kalen advised me. “Zoya thinks Likh can use the seeking stone to overcome the wards’ restrictions and channel enough magic to untangle the threads all on his own.”

“How long will it take them?”

“Most of the night, according to Likh. Zoya told me to come here and tell you in case anything else happens.”

He started to step away, but I grabbed his arms and guided him across the floor, taking note of several women eyeing the Deathseeker. Odalian nobles were oblivious by nature, I decided. “And here I thought you just wanted to dance with me.”

“I can’t dance.” But he didn’t pull away, and we moved slowly to the music while the people around us spun.

“I thought you could do anything.”

“Do you want me to learn?”

I looked up. He was staring at me again in that strange, exhilarating way he had in the woods by Lake Kaal.

I faltered and mumbled at his boots. “Not if you don’t want to.”

We danced for a few minutes without saying anything. A Daanorian woman worked up the nerve to approach us but backed away when I glared at her.

“Angry about something?”

“You do know there are women itching to kill me right now, right?”

His grip tightened. “Did someone compel the people in the palace? The wards are still in place.”

I sighed. “That’s not what I meant. Never mind.” His breath tickled my ear, sending goose bumps along my skin.

“Want to talk about the hanjian instead?”

“Hanjian?”

“Traitor. The emperor decreed that the man who tried to kill me be labeled as such. It’s the lowest form of insult among the Daanorian army apparently. If you don’t want to talk about him, how about the other soldier who died then?”

“You sound exactly like Fox.”

“We’re very similar in a lot of ways.”

“I don’t think you’ve ever forced a guy to kill himself,” I said bitterly.

“There isn’t much difference between forcing him to and running him through yourself. You were looking out for me.”

“I’m no longer certain you’re worth the effort.” I wanted to rile him up, but that only made him laugh.

A familiar song began. Shadi and Zoya were dancing The Fox and the Hare, popular among the kingdoms and a common repertoire in asha performances. Even the crowd, unused to our style of dance, fell silent as they watched the couple sway to the music, flowing to the rhythm with little effort, gliding from one intricate movement to the next.

“Don’t make it a habit of shutting people out,” Kalen said quietly as everyone else watched. “Your brother cares for you. You shouldn’t make him worry.”

“I know. I’ll find him later and apologize.”

“The first time I killed someone, I was thirteen. She was a Tresean soldier.”

I gasped. “She?”

“There’re a lot of women soldiers in Tresea. They fight as well as any man I’ve ever met. This one was a deserter, part of a roving band of thieves and pirates who’d managed to sail into Odalian waters, robbing and setting fire to our merchant ships. I didn’t know until much later that she hadn’t taken part in the raids we’d been tracking. The ship she’d previously been on had floundered, and they’d picked her up only the day before. She felt honor bound to fight with them, I suppose, but I still cried myself to sleep for two nights running.”

“Cry? You?” Kalen had always seemed made of stone. Emotions of any extreme seemed out of place on him.

“I wasn’t always a bastard.”

That made me giggle. “That’s hard to remember.”

“You’re holding up much better than I did.”

I sobered. “I don’t feel guilty. I feel bad that I had to kill both of them, but I also feel bad about not feeling worse about it, as I know I should. What does that make me?”

“That means you have more of a fighter’s temperament than I do.”

I snorted. “Nobody’s more of a fighter than you. You’re the bravest, strongest, most amazing man I’ve ever…”

I stopped. So did he.

“I mean, you’re all right,” I finished feebly, wanting desperately to kick myself.

“Tea.”

I froze. Kalen was looking down at me with a vulnerability I never thought possible with him.

“I think I’m going to take you up on that offer again.”

He drew nearer, and I wondered, in some part of my brain that was still functioning, how I must have looked to him. Did I look shocked? Nervous?

Eager?

“Don’t move,” he whispered. No two words had ever been so hard to obey.

His mouth hovered a few inches from mine, and I overcame the desire to close the distance. But he stopped, and I wondered if I’d misinterpreted his intentions again. But his eyes were fierce and hungry and desiring and a million other emotions all at once, and I could not look away.