Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
RHEA
Under the quiet of the stars, Rhea can breathe.
She sways within the clutches of a hammock, suspended by wire between the main mast and the foremast of the rocking ship—sounds of waves lapping at the hull her only companion this late into the night.
Being outside the bounds of Solaya—away from the quick pace of politics and schemes and agendas—Rhea can finally reflect.
Reflect on what she’s done. On what she might have given Tynan.
She thinks about the seemingly insignificant information she scribed to him just before leaving for the party.
She wonders what Tynan could possibly want with it—with words from an old tongue she couldn’t even decipher.
She even takes a moment to consider the guilt gnawing at her conscience.
Though she is grateful she didn’t extract any information from Finlay the night of the ball, she still worries about the potential role she played in helping Tynan at all.
Even if she doesn’t allow herself to feel guilty—she can’t afford such a luxury as guilt.
As she stares at the stars, swaying in her hammock with her hands tucked behind her head, she thinks of Finlay.
Thinks of the hurt that flashed in his eyes when she allowed him to believe her deepest vulnerability was nothing more than a ruse to extract information from him.
She thinks of how tenderly he comforted her in that corridor.
The way it felt when she rested her head on his shoulder, and he laid his cheek upon her.
She thinks of the way his hand never left the small of her back as he escorted her to the nearest washroom so she could freshen up before returning to the party.
Thinks of the way he wordlessly guarded the door, watching for any prying eyes, determined to give Rhea the privacy she so desperately sought in that moment.
She thinks of the way she pondered what Finlay said to her as she relined the kohl framing her eyes.
It’s hard to feel like you’re enough when the only proof of love you’ve ever had is reliant on what you can or cannot give.
She thinks of how the words stirred something of a kinship in her chest for him. How the feelings only intensified when she reflected upon them.
Yes, Rhea thinks and thinks and thinks.
Of the turquoise filling Finlay’s eyes, the glistening slate of a frozen river. Of the scent of pine clinging to his skin. Of the small braids he wears, proud and dignified. Of the slope of his shoulders. The curve of his lips. The small, rounded tip of his nose.
She thinks of the way he looked at her when she opened her door for him, standing in her ballgown, her deepest insecurities wrapped around her like a second skin. How he had managed to ease them—just a little—with the smallest of assurances.
You really do look beautiful tonight, Rhea, he had said, looking so uncharacteristically shy.
How is she to reconcile that with the cold and pompous asshole he constantly shows himself to be? With the boy who upturned her world? Who looks down on her and shreds her with his words? Who said such cruel things to her in protection of his father?
You are only something because Tynan has made you so.
But then he had also said, I am sorry I told Tynan where to find you. I am sorry I told him about Príth. About your father’s bookshop.
Is that truly all Rhea had wanted from him for all these years?
An apology? Just the smallest acknowledgement of the part he played in taking something so precious away from her?
And now that she finally received it from him…
now what? She no longer feels the same sweep of pleasure when visualizing her daggers going through his flesh. So what does that leave her with?
Rhea sighs, the sound loaded and desperate. She decides she prefers to think no longer. Because when she does, despite all the many reasons not to, her mind seems to insist on considering a future where she doesn’t hate Finlay Fjolla, despite all he’s done.
And Rhea, ever the stubborn thing, has decided that is a future she will not accept. Even in spite of the awakening butterflies that flutter in her stomach when she does.