A Court of Storm and Legacy

After last night

Nyx 

"Did you put up wards around our room?" 

"What?" I glance over at Tate, who's crouched around the overkill pile of supplies Diarmuid supplied us with, filling a small bag. "Of course I did."

Tate's movement stop for a moment, then resume, jerkier then before. 

"So the King just happened to be very perceptive to my shadowsinger abilities?" She asks, voice a pitch higher than normal. 

"I'm not following," I move to stand above Tate. 

"Well, he called me a shadowsinger when talking about the Shadowed Slopes." She speaks with her eyes pointed to the ground, refusing to stop packing the damn bag. 

"He what?" 

"Gods Nyx, did we not just participate in the same conversation?" She finally, finally, turns her gaze up at me. 

"I um, was trying to mentally figure out our best course of action to manage the mountain." That was not what I had been doing. My brain had drifted back to this morning for the thousandth time, and I knew the conversation we were having was important, but I just couldn't get my brain to focus on anything but the way Tate's body had felt wrapped around my own. 

She scoffed, "Well while you were planning a hike in your mind, Diar let it slip that he knows what I am. At first I'd brushed it off, assuming he had ears everywhere, since we are technically in his palace," She gets this sudden serious look, he brows furrow and her lips push together, her index finger curls itself on her top lip, it's adorable. "But when you mentioned wards around the mountain I assumed you would've thought to protect our own quarters with some, therefore blocking any wandering ears of the king." 

She starts to pace the floor, clearly lost to her train of thought. "How the hell did he know I was a shadowsinger? It's not really public knowledge since I've been on an island almost every year of my life, not to mention I never use my abilities–" 

I place my hand on her shoulder and she jerks away suddenly. 

"Sorry I just– I was just trying to–" 

"No touching rule, remember?" She won't look at me again. Gods this female makes me want to throw my head through a portrait. 

"You're really sticking with that? Even after–"

"This morning wasn't intentional," her words come out crisply. Would this female just let me finish a sentence so I can properly explain myself without her jumping to conclusions? I examine her, she looks like she's approaching a wounded animal. It's a look strangely similar to pity, and it triggers my anger, which ultimately gives off the impression of impassiveness. 

My hands retreat to my pockets, and the strange urge to strike her the way she thinks she's striked me, overcomes me. 

"Right. Cauldron forbid I thought after last night," I emphasize the word with a pause, slowly watching as her cheeks flush, "that we had moved passed this coldness between us and actually became friends."  

After another moment of silence on her end, I continue, "Silly me of course." 

Before I have to suffer another torturous moment of staring into her hazel eyes, I grip onto her wrist, pulling her towards me. I catch only a brief flicker of surprise in her gaze before I winnow us to the base of Mount Feall. 

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Tate tears her wrist from my grip, stumbling forward before catching herself on a rock.