Ashes of Snow

Chapter 14

PERRIN LEADS ME up the servants' passage to his chambers, winding through the bowels of the palace to avoid any run-ins with Theon. We walk up three flights of stairs and down unendingly long halls, all far less luxurious than the main walks of the palace—just simple green carpets and unpainted wood walls and milky white candles on brown tables.

Maids with baskets of linens and errand boys with messages tucked under their arms scurry past, performing the daily tasks that keep a palace functioning. Everyone we pass stops to drop a bow to Perrin, their faces easing from the focus of work to the pleasure of seeing someone they know.

Perrin nods to each of them. "Is your mother feeling better?" he asks a passing maid, who dips a curtsy as she says yes, quite, the doctor worked a miracle. "I hope your brother is enjoying his new post," Perrin says to an errand boy, who beams at the mention and says he is, my lord, he was made lieutenant.

I trail behind, eyebrows rising higher with each brief conversation. He knows all of them. Every single one. And not only that, but he seems genuinely interested in them, remembering not only dozens of faces but also the smallest details about how that back acre of farmland is doing, did the trade with Fleryns go well last week, is your daughter settled with her new husband yet?

We stop in front of a door in the third-floor hall. Perrin turns the knob, moving on like none of the interactions were anything out of the ordinary, and I cast a glance behind us. None of the servants seem to think anything is unusual either. Is he that familiar with them? I can't imagine Theon allows his son to mingle with those "beneath" him.

"Are all royals in Avellia so"—I pause, searching for the right word—"attentive?"

Perrin looks over my shoulder at a chatting group of maids. His eyes drift, just enough that I can tell his thoughts are on a not exactly pleasant memory, and he forces a smile to cover his tracks. "No one else sneaks around the back to get to their rooms as often as I do," he jokes, and before I can ask more, he dives into the room, leaving me to follow.

Tucked beside a bureau, the door opens onto a sitting room just large enough to be spacious but not so large as to be extravagant. A dining table lies on the left while an array of chairs and couches cluster together around a fireplace on the right. The furniture sits atop a thickly woven green-and-gold rug, the colors mimicking the dark shades of the rest of the sitting room. A chandelier hangs over the dining table and paintings of Avellia's lavender fields or vibrant green forests or rivers trickling through yellow prairies line the walls. It's fine yet functional, a place I could picture both a strategic meeting taking place as well as a vicious card game.

"I'll be just a moment," Perrin says as he shuts the door behind us and disappears into the bedroom on the right.

After a moment, the sounds of water splashing into a bowl drift out. I wander around the sitting room to distract myself from the fact that Perrin's bedroom door is open and he's probably a bit more than shirtless now.

Sweet snow, I've never thought about a man being undressed so much in my life. Even at camp with Lucien, I never thought about the fact that he'd be in the bathing tent after me, and he'd be, um...  I mean, maybe I thought about it, but I never got quite so flustered. I press my hands to my cheeks and exhale.

I stop in the middle of the room, hands still on my face, and narrow my eyes. There's a lot of stuff in here. A lot of stuff. More than furniture and decorations. I turn in a circle, surveying the tightly packed space. I was so distracted by thoughts of boy matters that I overlooked the slightly messy, slightly unkempt quality of Perrin's sitting room—all right, the very messy, very unkempt quality.

Framed paintings of every size and shape sit in haphazard stacks around the room, leaning against the bureau and the wall and the chairs, with smaller paintings spread across the tabletop on a thin cotton sheet. Elaborate masks covered in jewels and gold accents dangle from ribbons on the corners of paintings. Books in towering stacks lean against the fireplace and on small end tables, and crowd the bookshelves so tightly I fear the entire structure will burst in an explosion of paper and dust.