Tower of Dawn (Throne of Glass #6) - Sarah J. Maas Page 0,54

coloring. Whoever it was … I think they were looking for me.”

“Why?” he asked again, scrambling to sort through all she’d said.

“Because what I was reading last night, about the potential source of the power that injured you … I left some books about it on the table. And when the guards searched the area, the books were gone.” She swallowed again. “Who knew you were coming here?”

Chaol’s blood chilled despite the heat.

“We did not make it a secret.” It was instinct to rest his hand on a sword that was not there—a sword he had chucked in the Avery months ago. “It wasn’t announced, but anyone could have learned. Long before we set foot here.”

It was happening again. Here. A Valg demon had come to Antica—an underling at best, a prince at worst. It could be either.

The attack Yrene had described fit Aelin’s account of the remains she and Rowan had found from the Valg prince’s victims in Wendlyn. People teeming with life turned to husks as if the Valg drank their very souls.

He found himself saying quietly, “Prince Kashin suspects Tumelun was killed.”

Yrene sat up, any lingering color draining from her face. “Tumelun’s body was not drained. Hafiza—the Healer on High herself declared it was a suicide.”

There was, of course, a chance the two deaths weren’t connected, a chance that Kashin was wrong about Tumelun. Part of Chaol prayed it was so. But even if they were unrelated, what had happened last night—

“You need to warn the khagan,” Yrene said, seeming to read his mind.

He nodded. “Of course. Of course I will.” Damned as the entire situation was … Perhaps it was the in he’d been waiting for with the khagan. But he studied her haggard face, the fear there. “I’m sorry—to have brought you into this. Has security been increased around the Torre?”

“Yes.” A breathy push of sound. She scrubbed at her face.

“And you? Did you come here under guard?”

She threw him a frown. “In plain daylight? In the middle of the city?”

Chaol crossed his arms. “I would put nothing past the Valg.”

She waved a hand. “I won’t be heading alone into any dark corridors anytime soon. None of us in the Torre will. Guards have been called in—stationed down every hall, in every few feet of the library. I don’t even know where Hafiza summoned them from.”

Valg underlings could take bodies of anyone they wished, but their princes were vain enough that Chaol doubted they’d bother to take the form of a lowly guard. Not when they preferred beautiful young men.

A collar and a dead, cold smile flashed before his eyes.

Chaol blew out a breath. “I am truly sorry—about that healer.” Especially if his being here had somehow triggered this attack, if they pursued Yrene only because of her helping him. He added, “You should be on your guard. Constantly.”

She ignored the warning and scanned the room, the carpets, and the lush palms. “The girls—the young acolytes … They’re frightened.”

And you?

Before, he would have volunteered to stand watch, to guard her door, to organize the soldiers because he knew how these things operated. But he was no captain, and he doubted the khagan or his men would be inclined to listen to a foreign lord, anyway.

But he couldn’t stop himself, that part of him, as he asked, “What can I do to help?”

Yrene’s eyes shifted toward him, assessing. Weighing. Not him, but he had the feeling it was something inside herself. So he kept still, kept his gaze steady, while she looked inward. While she at last took a breath and said, “I teach a class. Once a week. After last night, they were all too tired, so I let them sleep instead. Tonight, we have a vigil for the healer who—who died. But tomorrow …” She chewed on her lip, again debating for a heartbeat before she added, “I should like you to come.”

“What sort of class?”

Yrene toyed with a heavy curl. “There is no tuition for students here—but we pay our way in other forms. Some help with the cooking, the laundry, the cleaning. But when I came, Hafiza … I told her I was good at all those things. I’d done them for—a while. She asked me what else I knew beyond healing, and I told her …” She bit her lip. “Someone once taught me self-defense. What to do against attackers. Usually the male kind.”

It was an effort not to look at the scar across her throat. Not to wonder if she