Tower of Dawn (Throne of Glass #6) - Sarah J. Maas Page 0,157

it was unnecessary, but she had touched his shoulder in thanks anyway. Before taking her seat at the safety of Chaol’s side.

Chaol’s own, separate cause with the khagan … Chaol and Yrene didn’t risk talking about the war—the need for armies. And the Aksara Oasis and well of knowledge, which might be hidden away beneath the palms, regarding why this place had such information on the Valg … Neither of them had come up with a way to manipulate Hasar into bringing them without raising her suspicions. Without risking the princess becoming aware of those scrolls Yrene and Chaol still had hidden in his room.

But Yrene knew time pressed on him. Saw how his eyes sometimes turned distant, as if staring toward a far-off land. Remembering the friends who fought there. For their people. He’d always push himself harder after that—and each inch of movement gained in his legs was as much due to himself as it was to her own magic.

But Yrene pushed herself, too. Wondered if the battles had begun; wondered if she’d ever make it in time to even help. Wondered what might be left for her to return to.

The darkness they encountered when she did heal him, from the demon that had dwelled inside the man who had destroyed so much of the world … They worked through that, too. She had not been dragged into his memories as she had before, had not been forced to witness the horrors of Morath or endure the attentions of the thing that lingered in him, but her magic still shoved against that wound, swarming it like a thousand dots of white light, eating and gobbling and clawing at it.

He endured the pain, wading through whatever that darkness showed him. Never recoiling from it, day after day. Only stopping when her own strength flagged and he insisted Yrene break for food or a nap on the gold couch or just some conversation over chilled tea.

Yrene supposed that their steady pace had to end at some point.

She thought it’d likely be due to an argument between them. Not news from afar.

The khagan returned to the nightly formal dinner, after two weeks away at a seaside estate to escape the summer heat, ensconced with his still-mourning wife. A merry gathering—or so it had seemed from afar. With no further attacks in the palace or Torre, the hushed watchfulness had lifted considerably these last few weeks.

But as Yrene and Chaol entered the great hall, as she read the simmering tension along those seated at the high table, she debated telling him to leave. Viziers shifted in their seats. Arghun, who had certainly not been missed while he’d joined his parents at the seaside, smirked.

Hasar smiled broadly at Yrene—knowingly. Not good.

They got perhaps fifteen minutes into dinner before the princess pounced. Hasar leaned forward and said to Chaol, “You must be pleased tonight, Lord Westfall.”

Yrene kept perfectly straight in her chair, her fork unfaltering as she lifted a bite of lemon-kissed sea bass to her mouth and forced herself to swallow.

Chaol countered smoothly, drinking from his goblet of water, “And why might that be, Your Highness?”

Hasar’s smiles could be awful. Deadly. And the one she wore when she spoke next made Yrene wonder why she had ever bothered to answer the princess’s summons. “Well, if one does the calculations, Captain Faliq should be returning with my brother tomorrow.”

Yrene’s hand tightened around her fork as she tallied the days.

Three weeks. It had been three weeks since Nesryn and Sartaq had left for the Tavan Mountains.

Nesryn would return tomorrow. And though nothing—nothing—had happened between Yrene and Chaol …

Yrene could not stop the sensation of her chest caving in. Couldn’t halt the sense that there was about to be a door very permanently slammed in her face.

They hadn’t spoken of Nesryn. Of whatever was between them. And he’d never touched Yrene more than was necessary, never looked at her as he had that night of the party.

Because of course—of course he was waiting for Nesryn. The woman he … he was loyal to.

Yrene made herself eat another bite, even as the fish turned sour in her mouth.

Fool. She was a fool, and—

“Didn’t you hear the news?” Chaol drawled, just as irreverently as the princess. He set down his goblet, his knuckles brushing Yrene’s where she’d rested her hand on the table.

To any, it might have been an accidental brush, but with Chaol … His every movement was controlled. Focused. The brush of his skin against hers,