Chapter 12
Amara
When I feel the heat of the morning sun cross my face, I gasp and bolt upright, my breath tearing from my lungs in a frantic rush.
It takes a moment, just a beat, to find my bearings, to realize I’m in the bed of my prison.
The weight of the invisible collar around my neck presses down on me, its cold grip suffocating.
My eyes widen in sudden horror. My neck.
The blood. I remember the blood seeping through my fingers, the warmth, the sickening thickness.
I reach for my skin, panic flooding through me, my fingers trembling with the dread of what I might find. But there’s nothing. No wound, no blood, no scar to mark the nightmare that clung to me. But it wasn’t a nightmare. I know it wasn’t. I saw it. I felt it.
Desperation claws at me as I check my arms, my breath shallow, praying that my trembling fingers won’t be met with the evidence of my madness. But once again, there is nothing. Nothing but a faint memory of the pain.
No. Please. No. I can’t be going mad. Not again.
“You didn’t imagine it,” a deep voice murmurs from the shadows, its tone a rich baritone that seems to reverberate through the silence of the room. My body jerks upright, heart racing as I scramble against the headboard, drawing my knees tightly to my chest.
The Golden Son is sitting with casual indifference at the chess table, his fingers toying with the white queen, rolling it in slow circles across the polished surface.
His eyes are locked on the board, distant, detached, as though nothing in this room could truly demand his attention, least of all me.
“You’ve been asleep for days,” he continues.
“My throat...” I rasp, the words barely escaping, my voice a rough, jagged whisper. The dry pain of it makes me flinch.
Finally, his gaze lifts, locking onto mine.
Those ice-blue eyes gleam beneath his mask, cold and sharp as a blade forged from glass.
“They healed you, but even so...” The words are measured, reluctant, as though forcing them out costs him something.
He exhales slowly. “I didn’t know if you’d wake up. ”
Then his voice shifts, cutting through the dim light like steel. “What are these tests Anethesis has you performing?”
I find enough strength to scowl. “As if you do not know.”
His fingers tighten around the chess piece, knuckles whitening. “I did not know they were tearing you to shreds.” His voice is steady, but there’s an edge to it, something close to anger.
“Well, now you do.” My tone is sharp, but there’s no satisfaction in it. “What difference does it make?”
His grip on the white queen turns crushing. “It makes all the difference,” he snarls. “That was not our bargain.”
That word. Bargain. Spoken from his mouth, laced with fury, with meaning and, Souls help me, it sparks something absurd in me.
A laugh, hoarse and broken, bubbles up before I can stop it.
At first, I slap a hand over my mouth, but it forces its way out, rolling from my throat, ragged and uncontrollable. I tip my head back and laugh.
The Golden Son watches in baffled silence.
“Bargain?” I spit the word, amusement turning to something bitter. “Do you know nothing of the Fae and their bargains?” I lean forward, eyes narrowing. “You cannot trust the Fae.”
His jaw tightens. “Yet you married one.”
“What does that matter?” I mutter, my voice dull with exhaustion.
“You lay with him,” he presses, voice sharpening, “You carry his child.”
“None of that means I trust him.”
The Golden Son shakes his head, vehement, nearly disgusted. “Then that is not love. There cannot be one without the other.”
I hold his gaze, letting the weight of his words settle.
A slow exhale slips from my lips.
“Love and trust are not the same,” I say, my voice quieter now. “They should be. In a perfect world, maybe they are. But not for me and not for Daed.”
“Then that is not love. That is surrender,” he snaps.
I shake my head. “No. It’s survival.”
He says nothing, but I see it in the rigid line of his shoulders. His refusal to accept it.
“Daed is Fae,” I continue. “And I knew what that meant before I ever let him touch me. He lies when it suits him. He withholds when it’s to his advantage.
His nature is not kindness, nor is it cruelty, because that is what Fae truly are.
The gray between the black and white world we humans live in.
And yet, I know with absolute certainty, if I asked him to fall on a blade, he would.
If my life meant his death, he would not hesitate. ”
The Golden Son scoffs, sharp and disbelieving. “That is your standard for love?”
“No,” I say simply. “That is my standard for him.”
His head tilts slightly, but he says nothing, waiting.
“What Daed and I have, it isn’t built on trust the way you understand it.
It’s built on something else. On knowing exactly what the other is capable of.
On knowing how far the other will go, and where the line is drawn.
You think trust is blind faith.” I shake my head again.
“But love can exist in spite of mistrust. In spite of doubt. It can still be real, even when it’s complicated, even when it’s dangerous. ”
He studies me, his mouth pressing into a thin line.
“If you do not trust him,” he says at last, “then what keeps you by his side?”
“Because he never pretends to be anything other than what he is and in return, I never have to pretend either. There is no illusion between us, no lies to fall into and be broken by. What we have is something deeper than trust.”
A muscle feathers in his jaw. “And what is that?”
I lift my chin. “Certainty. The certainty that no matter how this world tries to tear us apart, we will never be separated.”
Still, the Golden Son remains unmoved, his expression carved from stone.
“Love does not need to be so complicated.”
I glare at him, frustration curling in my chest, perhaps because in my heart I know he is right, though I would rather die than admit such a thing.
“What would you know?” I spit bitterly.
I move to turn away, to put my back to him, but the scrape of his chair against the stone floor stops me cold.
“Of what?” he snaps. “Of love? Of trust? Of certainty? Is that what you're asking?”
He pounds a fist against his chest, the sound reverberating through the room. “Do you think this lump of blood and muscle behind my ribs does not beat? That it does not feel? Do you think you and that fucking Fae are the only two creatures in this world who have ever cared so fiercely for another?”
His jaw clenches, his throat bobs with a hard swallow. “Well? Do you?”
I've seen this man’s rage before. Cold, ruthless, soaked in blood.
I’ve seen the hatred in his eyes just before his boot slammed into my face at the Battle of the Grove.
But this… this is something else entirely.
This fury is raw, primal, clawing its way out from somewhere deeper.
From that lump of muscle behind his ribs that he grips through his shirt like he’s ready to rip it out with his bare hands.
I don’t know what to say, don’t know what he expects me to say. But when I don’t answer, he moves.
I barely have time to gasp before he crosses the space between us, climbing onto the bed, dragging himself toward me where I sit pressed against the headboard.
“I feel,” he snaps, his breath ragged. “More than you know. More than you could imagine.”
His hands go to his collar, gripping the fabric of his shirt. With a harsh grunt, he rips it open, the material giving way to reveal the smooth planes of his chest, the powerful lines of muscle beneath, and the raw, unforgiving ripples of seared skin that scar his left side.
“Feel it,” he snarls, but there is something hollow beneath his rage, something aching, something desperate.
He lunges, grabbing my wrist. I wrench away, kicking at him, but he’s stronger, fueled by something I do not understand. He catches my hand again, rough fingers closing tight, and before I can fight him off, he drags me forward, pressing my palm flat against his chest.
“Feel it!” he demands, his voice a ragged growl.
My heart is pounding so fiercely, so loudly in my ears, that at first, I cannot tell his heartbeat from my own. I squeeze my eyes shut, as if willing him away, but there is no escaping the press of our heavy breaths, the way the silence between us stretches tight as a drawn bowstring.
But then, as my own chest settles, I feel it. The thud beneath my palm. Rapid, unrelenting, as though it might tear free from his ribs at any moment.
Slowly, hesitantly, I open my eyes and when our gazes lock, I nearly flinch. His ice-blue eyes are glassed over, shimmering like water held at bay.
“I am not a monster, Amara Tyne,” he murmurs.
Not Phaedren. Not Daed’s wife. My name, stripped bare, raw on his tongue.
“I am but a man burdened with the fates of my people. I am their champion, but in the dark of night, when I am alone, I feel like their failure. For all I have done is bring them death and despair.”
His grip on my wrist slackens, and I pull my hand back to my chest. He kneels near me, shoulders caving inward, his head hanging low. For the first time, he looks defeated.
“Why are you telling me this?” My voice is barely a whisper.
“Because you and I are more alike than you think,” he says. “We have both lost much to the flames that ravaged the Sundered Kingdoms. We are both orphans of the ashes.”