Chapter 53
Chapter
Fifty-Three
EVIE
“ T hey must have ridden through the night.” I barrelled into the lavish room, ripping the fur-lined coat off me and throwing it onto the enormous bed.
As soon as Meryck had left and everyone had scattered to their own rooms, The Dragon and I had simply wandered into his bedroom.
No signal, no agreeing, simply guided by instinct.
This new predicament needed to be discussed in private, so that’s what we did. It felt as natural as breathing, pride and hesitation forgotten–on my part, at least.
He was still a damn icicle, standing there all composed while I turned redder with outrage.
“Yes,” The Dragon said calmly, looking out the window at the mountains beyond, arms crossed at the wrist behind his back.
“When did they have the time to plan this?” I went on. “We decided to leave the Capital only hours before.”
“They sent them after us.”
“What game are Banu and Valuta playing?”
“That’s what we need to find out.”
I threw my hands in the air. “How can you be so calm?”
“You panic first, I’ll take the second shift.”
“This is serious.”
He tilted his head to the side. “You think I don’t know that?”
“It’s unnerving to lose my mind by myself.” Especially since I didn’t feel a damn thing from him except a lone echo.
“You’re looking at it the wrong way. This is an opportunity.”
“To get us used to dangerous surprises?”
“Now who’s not being serious?”
“Zan–” I clenched my jaw. “I don’t like this.”
“The guards are here for a reason. Their presence means the advisors are getting desperate. Find the reason, tear them down. And if some of the guards don’t return to the Capital, well…” He shrugged. “It’s a long journey, accidents are bound to happen.”
“You can’t just kill them.”
“Obviously. First I’ll let Adara sharpen her daggers on their miserable bones and find out what we need. Then I’ll kill them.”
“I don’t like that either.”
He finally turned. There was nothing calm about the storm raging in his eyes. “The guards who came here are not good men and women. They can’t be if they’re willing to play the advisors’ games. Nobody in Malhaven will cry over them.”
I knew he was right, but all I could think about was Loryk, a young boy who had no business aligning himself with the advisors, yet he had. “There has to be a better way. A less bloody one.”
“Fine. I’ll tell Adara to break their bones without spilling any blood.”
I sighed. “Dragon–”
“Stop calling me that.”
I froze, looking at him as if he’d sprouted five heads. “Excuse me?”
He began walking toward me, each step punctured with a word. “Stop. Calling. Me. That.”
I shook my head, completely lost. “It’s your title.”
“It is.” He stopped in front of me. “Let the others use it. Not you.”
“Why?”
“Because people have wanted me for my title all my life. You didn’t.”
I scoffed. If anything, his title had been a deterrent. “Of course not.”
“Why are you using it now?”
“Because calling you a bastard doesn’t have the same ring to it.”
Silence beat at us. I began to fidget, but his gaze didn’t let me go.
“Names are important,” I said. “It feels wrong to say your name now.”
“Why?”
“I haven’t forgiven you.”
And, honestly, I didn’t see how I ever could without understanding what had happened.
I had to do something to understand.
“It reminds me of the last time I said it before the wedding,” I went on, the words now tumbling past my lips. “And all the hopes and dreams I had in my naive little heart and the future I saw together with you. It reminds me of the shock. It reminds me of the disappointment. It reminds me of the pain and how my heart ripped into a million pieces.”
“I will live the rest of my life trying to make up for that.”
“There are better uses for your time.”
“None more important than you forgiving me.”
I sighed. “You do what you want.”
He took a determined step closer to me. “I don’t want a divorce. Technically married, not married, I don’t care. I don’t want to break away from you. Ever. I want to be by your side until the gods take us to the heavens and beyond. Until that happens, I want to breathe you in every single day, feel your heart beat against mine, and marvel at the way your mind works. I want us to face this life together, forever, and make everything and everyone that comes after us tremble at our feet. I want to sleep next to you, have you at night, and raise stubborn children with you, who’ll have so many infuriating Vegheara aunts and one deranged uncle. I want us to protect and love them fiercely, as neither of us were by our parents. If the gods are truly merciful and we both grow old in this world, even when this body that made me feared throughout Malhaven will be frail and useless, I won’t care because I’ll be sitting on the throne next to you. That is what I want. What do you want?”
“I want to know why . I don’t want to forget. I don’t want to pretend. And the most painful thing is I also want everything you said, the smiles and the embraces and the loud family. All of it. But you betrayed me and we both have to live with that. I won’t betray myself as well, and we have to live with that, too.”
“You wouldn’t betray yourself by forgiving.”
“Wouldn’t I? I’m supposed to accept the oath and Kaya and just move on. It’s all about what we’re willing to do for love, and I am not going to trample myself for anyone, not even you. I would be doing just that if I can’t trust or forgive you.”
“It’s all about what you’re willing to do for love,” he muttered, eyes glazing over.
The shift in his energy was swift and concerning. I no longer felt the fight in him, only acceptance.
“Evie.” My name sounded like a caress on his lips, even as he began to breathe harder. “The oath I made with Kaya...”
My heart thudded painfully. “Don’t.”
“We did it–”
“Don’t! You’re killing yourself.”
“You need to know. I should have found a way to tell you that–”
“Stop!”
“I promised–”
“NO!” I roared and raced out the door before he uttered another word.
I ran through the inner courtyard of the house, passing Adara and Anya sitting on the veranda without a word.
“Where are you going?” Adara called after me.
I didn’t answer. I just kept running, past the magnolia trees, past the wrought iron gate and up the steep cobbled street. I only stopped when I reached a small bench hidden underneath a swaying willow tree, my lungs sore and my heart racing.
He was insane. Completely insane, playing with his life like that.
He was willing to die for me to reveal the truth. My heart broke and soared at the same time, still undecided and fighting me.
I crumbled on the bench, not daring to distance myself further from the house while Frostfall Reach was crawling with guards, and hid my face in my palms. My right knee fidgeted out of my control, trying to ease the tension boiling inside of me.
The soft breeze cooled the sweat that had pooled at the base of my neck, but did nothing to calm me down.
What in Xamor’s name was I going to do?
When The Dragon had left for war, everything had seemed simpler. I’d been so focused on revenge, the pain all-consuming. But that rage had quieted down, leaving only confusion and sadness behind, and I didn’t know which thread to pull to unravel the constant knot of doubt.
I was just…lost. Tearing at the edges because I didn’t know which way to go.
For weeks now, I’d been hiding behind my indecision. It was time I found the courage to face all these swirling emotions inside of me and free myself from this unrest.
With three deep breaths, I quieted the tremors in my body and leaned my elbows on my knees.
This was another problem to be solved. I’d bested the advisors’ schemes, I could do it to my own thoughts, too.
A part of me wanted to forgive and stay with him, that much was obvious. The other wanted to run and forget about the pain.
I huffed a hollow laugh. Hadn’t that always been the case with me? I’d left the mountains, but I’d brought the emotional scars along with me.
I’d changed so much since leaving that decrepit cabin, but apparently not enough.
Forgiveness was impossible without understanding, no matter how many times he apologized or how much he tried to prove he was a man I could trust.
My stubborn heart and mind simply didn’t work that way.
No matter how I danced around the issue or dissected it, that was the crux of it.
I wouldn’t allow The Dragon to bleed out to tell me the truth. I’d refused that before the wedding and I wasn’t accepting it now.
Maybe he was willing to die for me, but I would not let him.
There had to be another way.
There just had to be–because I wanted it.
Gods help me, but I didn’t want to leave, either. Not just because I’d formed a life in the Capital and found my real self in the enemy Clan–I was sure he’d allow me to remain in Phoenix Peak even if we separated.
I didn’t want to leave him.
But I couldn’t stay without trusting him.
I couldn’t trust him without forgiving him.
I couldn’t forgive without understanding.
I couldn’t understand without knowing the real reason.
That didn’t even touch the issue of the bond potentially influencing my feelings. That was a problem I could solve after this bigger one.
By the time the sun had set behind me and the dome lights turned purple, I still hadn’t found a solution.
I needed more time to think, more patience to face my own thoughts, grim and hopeful alike, more knowledge about this oath between him and Kaya–
My head whipped up.
Kaya.
Kaya had taken the oath as well.
Not that I wanted to murder the girl by prying, but on the bridge she’d said her heart belonged to someone else.
Had she been lying about that?
If this person existed, what if they knew more about this oath than me? If they didn’t, how could they accept the situation?
Only one way to find out.
I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to tame the strands which had escaped from underneath my crown. It was instinct more than conscious thought. Next to Kaya, we all looked like beggars, so it was a useless endeavor. One I still itched to do anyway.
I passed the stables Zorin and Madrya slept in and the tall building filled with The Dragon’s warriors, and rushed back to the house.
Just like my own home, the building stretched on two levels, surrounding a front courtyard. Only this one had been carved straight into the unforgiving cliff, with only the veranda jutting out of the rock, the room doors opening straight into it. A house built for visitors; judging by the golden foil on the pillars, only for visitors deemed important enough.
The closer I got, the more I felt his presence.
The paved courtyard was empty, lit up by lazy floating orbs, Adara and Anya long gone into their own rooms. The warm light made the mountain cliff above seem even more looming in the shadows.
I raced up the steps to the left side of the house, where Kaya and Vexa had retreated into the second Meryck had left.
A hazy candle glow flickered through the window drapes as I approached the door and raised my hand to knock. It still felt so strange to have all these vases of flowers in a stronghold built in a frozen land that–
My arm froze.
A roar erupted in my ears.
In the dim shimmer, I could barely make out two shadows in the room.
Kissing.
One of them was definitely Kaya, there was no mistaking that slender neck she’d sadly inherited from Valuta.
But the other…one of the warriors?
No.
Whoever that was, they were too short and blonde and–
Vexa.
Kaya was kissing Vexa, like their lives depended on it, fingers wound through hair and nails scraping down shoulders.
My mouth opened as everything clicked in my mind.
A shiver raced down my spine as a gasp of surprise bubbled to the surface.
Before it could escape and break the stillness in Frostfall Reach, a hand covered my mouth and dragged me back into the shadows.