Public humiliations and punishments were frequently on the docket.
Winter was panting, both frazzled and giddy with her success, as the dais came into view. Then she saw him and the yearning inside her nearly buckled her knees. She had to slow to catch her breath.
He was sitting with his back to the enormous sundial that stood at the center of the dais, an instrument as useless as it was striking during these long nights. Ropes bound his bare arms and his chin was collapsed against his collarbone, his pale hair hiding his face. As Winter neared him, she could see the raised hatchmarks of the lashings across his chest and abdomen, scattered with dried blood. There would be more on his back. His hand would be blistered from gripping the lash. Self-inflicted, Levana had proclaimed the punishment, but everyone knew that Jacin would be under the control of a thaumaturge. There was nothing self-inflicted about it.
She wondered if Aimery had been the one to do it. He had probably volunteered, and relished in every wound.
Jacin raised his head as she reached the edge of the dais. Their eyes clashed, and for a moment, she was staring at a man who had been beaten and bound and mocked and tormented all day by passing onlookers, and for that one moment, she thought he must be broken. Just another one of the queen’s broken toys.
But then one side of his mouth lifted, and the smile hit his startling blue eyes, and he was as bright and welcoming as the rising sun.
“Hey, Trouble,” he said, leaning his head back against the dial.
With that, the terror from the past weeks slipped away as if they had never happened. He was alive. He was home. He was still Jacin.
She pulled herself onto the dais. “Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been?” she said, crossing to him. “I didn’t know if you were dead or being held hostage, or if you’d been eaten by one of the queen’s soldiers. It’s been driving me mad not knowing.”
He quirked an eyebrow at her.
She scowled. “Don’t comment on that.”
“I wouldn’t dare.” He rolled his shoulders as much as he could against his bindings. His wounds gapped and puckered with that slight movement, and his face contorted in pain, but it was brief.
Pretending she hadn’t noticed, Winter sat cross-legged in front of him, inspecting the wounds. Wanting to touch him. Terrified to touch him. That much, at least, had not changed. “Does it hurt very much?”
“Better than being at the bottom of the lake.” His smile turned wry, lips chapped from the harsh Earthen sun. “They’ll move me to a suspension tank tomorrow night. Half a day and I’ll be good as new.” He squinted. “That’s assuming you’re not here to bring me food. I’d like to keep my tongue where it is, thank you.”
“No food. Just a friendly face.”
“Friendly.” His gaze raked over her, his relaxed grin still in place. “That’s an understatement.”
She dipped her head, turning away just enough to hide the three scars that trailed down her right cheek. For years, Winter had assumed that when people stared at her, it was because the scars disgusted them. A rare disfigurement in their world of perfection. But then a maid had told her they weren’t disgusted, they were in awe. She said the scars made Winter interesting to look at and somehow, odd as it was, even more beautiful. Beautiful. It was a word that Winter had heard tossed around all her life. A beautiful child, a beautiful girl, a beautiful young lady, so beautiful, too beautiful … and the stares that came with the word never ceased to make her want to don a veil like her stepmother’s and hide from the whispers.
Jacin was the only person who could make her feel beautiful without it seeming like a bad thing. She couldn’t recall him ever using the word, or making any such deliberate compliment. It was always hidden behind careless jokes that made her heart pound so fast.
“Don’t tease,” she said, flustered at the way he looked at her, at the way he always looked at her.
“Wasn’t teasing,” he said, all nonchalance.
In response, Winter reached out and punched him lightly on the shoulder—where there weren’t any wounds.
He flinched, and she gasped—ready to apologize—but his eyes stayed warm. “That’s not a fair fight, Princess.”
She reeled back the apology. “It’s about time I had the advantage.”
He looked past her, into the streets. “Where’s your guard?”
“I left him behind. Searching for a monster in my closet.”
With that, the sunshine smile was gone, hardened into exasperation. “Princess, you can’t go out alone. If something happened to you—”
“Who’s going to hurt me here, in the city? Everyone knows who I am.”
“It just takes one idiot, too used to getting what he wants and too drunk to control himself.”
Flushing, she clenched her jaw.
Jacin looked immediately regretful. “Princess—”