Page 117
The first thing Elarian noticed was the hunger.
It crawled through her veins before consciousness fully returned—a slow-burning ache beneath her ribs that twisted and pulled until even the deepest reaches of her mind could no longer ignore it. Her stomach clenched painfully as she shifted under the silk sheets, empty despite having eaten well the day before.
She frowned.
That was impossible.
She had consumed her fill that morning, then again upon Lucan’s insistence before departing for Lord Kyare’s apartments.
With her next breath came the lingering taste of blood. The sharp sweetness of it, metallic against her tongue, saccharine and intoxicating. The gentle warmth of Lucan’s lips beneath hers. The copper scent that clung to the air long after Lord Kyare’s corpse had grown still.
The memory should have filled her with disgust.
Instead, her body answered with another violent pull of hunger.
Elarian’s eyes opened.
For several heartbeats, she remained motionless beneath the black silks, staring at the dark canopy above Lucan’s bed. The shadows danced along the carved wood like living things, shifting with the faint glow of the dying embers in the fireplace.
She waited for the shame to come.
It always did.
Melistra had taught her that the soul was a blade—a blade dulled by comfort, by desire, by every indulgence willingly embraced. Every weakness demanded another whetstone, another sacrifice. A blade existed for one purpose; anything beyond that was decay.
Yet as Elarian lay in Lucan Valmere’s bed, the memory that haunted her most was not the blade entering Kyare’s heart. It was the way Lucan had looked at her afterward, as though he had seen something monstrous and found it beautiful.
The Knight-Saint had never looked upon her with such reverence.
Her fingers curled as she pushed away the silken sheets.
The movement drew the golden collar across the tender skin of her throat. Once, the weight of it would have felt like a brand. A mark of humiliation. A reminder that she had allowed herself to be captured by the very creatures she had spent centuries hunting. Now she barely noticed it; barely registered that it had never been exchanged for iron and that the chain linking her to Lucan’s wrist had been removed.
Thirst clawed at her mind.
Elarian reached for the tray waiting beside the bed, thoughts tumbling over each other until her head swam. Still warm from the tea inside, she slowly wrapped her fingers around the cup.
The steam curled toward her face, carrying the familiar scent of herbs and flowers. For a moment, she let herself remember the Evermist. The moss-covered paths beneath the decaying stumps. Bone splintering beneath her boots as she walked. The weight of Aela curled beside her beneath the moonlight. Every quiet morning in that forgotten land before everything became duty, blood, and sacrifice.
No, she told herself. That life died.
She reached for the bread, breaking off a small chunk before biting into it.
The taste of ash and rot consumed her.
Elarian froze.
The bread turned to paste upon her tongue, foreign and lifeless. She forced herself to chew, shoving down every instinct screaming that something was wrong. Perhaps something had spoiled. That had to be the case. Exhaustion now played tricks on her mind, a fortnight and more spent with fire in her veins, melting her thoughts until she willingly crawled for Lucan.
Lucan.
His name wrapped around her heart like barbed wire, pain winnowing through her body as she forced down the ashen food in her mouth. She reached one hand up to the bite marks at her collarbone, prodding at the tender flesh. Could his bite have something to do with the taste of ash in her mouth?
Elarian had always known hunger. As a child, reared by fey wolves and the endless mists, she fed on bloodied hearts and raw meat, the blood dripping down her naked chest until she wore crimson. She ran beside the pack for days without food as they hunted.
This was different.
A deeper, incessant need.
