Page 187 of Feralheart

“Alright,” she said. “I need to do a few things first, but I’ll join you.”

“Promise?”

She met my gaze. “I promise.”

She took the brushes back to her bag and spoke quietly with Lyndie.

I stroked Aristus’s snout. His neck when he lowered his head.

I felt his confusion, and oddly, his shame.

Sorry. Tried.

The thought came wrapped in grief so deep it made my throat close off.

“You didn’t fail anyone.” I stroked the spikes jutting up above his eyes. “I made you fly when you needed to rest.”

His breathing shuddered.

Aristus had known before I had. He’d been waiting with a patience I’d done nothing to deserve for me to stop pretending long enough to see it.

I pressed my forehead to the ridge between his eyes. His breath came slow and steady.

When I lifted my head, I found Selira staring at me.

The dragon held my gaze for a long, unreadable moment before she lowered her head back to the grass, seemingly satisfied with whatever she’d determined.

My shoulder ached.

But Eradin had promised to come and eat with me.

I walked back toward my tent to wait.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

ERADIN

The trial magic had left fingerprints.

That was the only way I could describe the sensation of Fen’s emotions still bleeding through my skin, his fear and his want pressing into me like a brand I couldn’t wash off. I’d felt other people’s feelings before, through Selira and even subtly through the magic in my palms when I was healing. This was different. This lived in my bones.

I grabbed my things and went to the stream, finding an isolated place where the trees grew thick and no one else was around. Stripped, I leaped in. The cold hit, merciless, and when I surfaced, gasping, I started scrubbing. Hair, scalp, and the back of my neck. I worked until my skin was ruddy and my fingers had gone clumsy with cold.

It didn’t help. The ghost of his hand reaching for mine, stroking mine, stayed exactly where it had landed.

When I climbed out, my skin pebbled.

I dried off and pulled on the clean clothes I’d washed last night. Soft leather that didn’t reek. The fabric settled against my skin, and I caught myself smoothing the tunic over my hips.

This was stupid.

We’d survived three trials, but that didn’t erase twenty-seven years of learning exactly what I was worth to his people.

I should eat with Lyndie and Reece. My people. The ones who understood what it meant to be commons in a world designed to erase us. Who wouldn’t look at me like Fen had when the magic stripped us both bare, as if I was someone precious instead of disposable.

I needed to stay away from him.

Dropping to my knees beside the stream, I washed the clothing I’d worn today, my wet hair dangling in my face, sending droplets onto the cold-prickled skin exposed at the top of my tunic.