Chapter 30
Itilt my head to the sky, soaking in the harsh sunlight as I walk across the deck. My hand brushes over my pocket—empty after I excused myself to the lavatory so I could hide the emerald in my room.
Elayne lifts a brow at me as I pass, and I study her hands. Like Celia, they’re also unbound.
“I know where Inez is,” I sign.
Her eyes brighten, and she sits up straighter. But knowing where to find Inez is only half of the battle. Convincing Kressa to help me recover her is another story.
I swallow, focusing my attention on the captain’s door, rather than the eyes watching me cross the deck. Nicole, Julian. Thea and Celia and Elayne. Rita and the women we brought aboard. They all watch me, their stares like weights on my shoulders.
Shadows from the helm crest over me, and I stop before Kressa’s door, raising my fist.
The door swings open before I have a chance to knock, and Kressa fills the doorframe. “Took you long enough.”
“You told me you’d be waiting, not how quick I had to come.” I step around her into the captain’s quarters.
She pushes the door shut and slides the lock into place.
The hairs lift on the back of my neck. “Why’d you lock it?”
She strides to the desk in the corner and lifts a dagger, pressing the tip into the wood. Twirling it with her fingers, she looks up at me. “So we wouldn’t have any interruptions.”
My brows pull together. The boat rocks in the waves, but she doesn’t so much as stumble—almost as if she’s been at sea as long as I have. Her eyes hold mine and she scoffs, abandoning the blade as she steps closer.
She tilts her head, studying me. “When the guard found us, why did you run back into the servant’s corridor?”
“I panicked.” I shrug. “We took off at the same time, and I thought you were going to follow me.”
Her attention flicks down at my hands. “And the glove? When I first saw the flames, I thought you had taken them off on purpose. But it appears you lost one entirely.”
“It slipped off as I was running. And it was too dark in the corridors to find it.”
She takes a step forward and leans closer, hovering her lips over the shell of my ear. “Then where did you get that sheet of rhodium wrapped around your palm?”
My throat constricts. It was easy enough to come up with an explanation as to where the glove went, but rhodium is hard to come by, and even more so in fabric. She leans back far enough for our eyes to meet.
“Rita had some,” I whisper. “She found me in the courtyard after the castle caught on fire, and she managed to get me back to the safe house and had some on hand.”
Kressa hums, the vibrations sending a chill over my skin. She inches closer, forcing me to take a step back. I press against the wall, and a chill from the wooden wall seeps through my clothes.
She tilts her head. “Awfully convenient, don’t you think? For someone to have such a rare fabric?”
“I’d say it’s incredibly lucky.” My voice is breathy—strained from her proximity.
Each of her inhales presses her chest against mine, and her pupils widen as she traces the bow of my lips down to the arch of my neck.
Her scent washes over me, and she reaches between us, cradling my hand.
My breath catches, and she grabs hold of one edge of the rhodium fabric, unfolding it from my skin.
“What are you doing?” I whisper.
“Doing everything I can to hold back.”
I swallow. “Is it working?”
Her gaze flicks up, pupils swallowing the edges of her molten irises. “Does it look like it’s working, Briar? Do I look in control?”
My breath shudders, and as the rhodium fabric falls from my hand, warmth billows in my core, braiding through the vertebrae of my spine.
“Why are you doing this?” I whisper, my thoughts muddled—thick with heat. My skin buzzes, as if the very existence that holds me together urges me toward her.
The breath that comes from between her lips wafts over me, and her eyes drop to my lips. “I couldn’t see straight when I was sitting in the rowboat and saw the castle burst into flames. I knew it was from you, and I thought they had caught you—were hurting you.”
I stare into her eyes, the golden flecks that weave through them. There’s a depth there—one I could spend lifetimes exploring. “I was never in any danger.”
She lifts a hand and drags it over my bottom lip.
“You’ve always been a terrible liar.” Her body presses against mine, and she lifts my gloved hand, loosening the fabric off my middle finger.
“I thought you weren’t coming back, and I couldn’t breathe.
All I could think about was that if you came back to me, I couldn’t lose you again. ”
The glove falls from my hand and my mouth dries. “But my power. I can’t control it, I—”
“You can’t control it because we’ve been trying so hard to stay apart.” Her eyes glaze over, and she lifts my hand to her mouth, hovering her lips just over my knuckles. “It’s so painful, forcing myself away from you.”
An aching pain stabs my sternum, and I wince against it.
“That’s what it feels like for me, every second of the day.”
It’s as if my chest bone is being torn apart—cleaved in two. “What can we do to stop it?”
Well, we can’t kill each other, she says into my mind. A strangled breath comes from her, and she lifts a hand to the hinge of my jaw, leaning closer. So, this.
Her lips crash to mine, dousing the flames building in my chest. She’s like a salve to the pain—erasing it with one fell swoop of her tongue against the sharp edges of my teeth. A low moan comes from her throat, and she tilts my head back, deepening the kiss.
I trail my fingers up her arm, but she wraps a hand around my wrist and pins it to the wall over my head.
Let me touch you, she says.
My body melts into her, and she pulls away, planting a row of kisses down the slope of my jaw. My pulse races as she tilts my chin sideways and drags her nose over the space beneath my earlobe, sucking at the skin.
I press against her, my core tightening as she dips her head and traces her mouth along the dip in my collarbone. My free hand fists the fabric of her shirt, and I pull her closer, silently begging.
She laughs into the crook of my neck. So eager.
Narrowing my eyes, I tighten my hand on her hip.
A lazy smile lights her face, and she drags a finger across my lips. You’re so pretty when you’re needy. Parting my lips, she presses a finger into my mouth. I close my lips around it, sucking, and her eyes darken. So, so pretty.
She hooks her finger against my bottom teeth and pulls me closer, dropping her hand as our lips meld together. It’s a slower, deeper kiss than before—our tongues brushing each other, unhurried. The warmth in my core twists, entirely different from the searing blaze of her power.
Releasing her hold on my wrist, she palms my waist, and our kisses grow hungry, frantic. She dips a hand under my shirt and sighs against my lips as she drags it up my waist.
I’ve missed you, Briar.
Her hand halts in its path, and her lips go still. She jerks back, and my eyes flutter open. Emerald and sapphire lights emanate from our chests and glow through the dim space, like green waves dancing on the wooden walls.
She clears her throat and retreats a step. “I’m sorry. I—I don’t know what came over me. It’s the bond.”
“Kressa,” I whisper, stepping closer.
Dropping her gaze, she shakes her head and scoops my rhodium glove from the ground. She presses it onto my palm and turns on her heel, striding toward the desk.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” I say, my voice edging on a plea. “We’re meant to be together, it’s—”
“The only thing I’m meant to be is a ruler.” She rips open the top drawer in her desk and yanks out a rhodium glove. “And without my emerald, it isn’t possible.”
She tosses the spare glove at me, and I barely catch it.
My throat tightens as she crosses toward the sweeping window—staring out at the open sea.
After everything she’s done, and the way I’ve betrayed her, I shouldn’t want the taste of her lips on mine.
I shouldn’t be dreaming of a world where she can cradle my heart in her palms.
And yet.
I shake my head. It’s a futile fantasy—a cruel joke from the fates. There is no world in which we can be together.
“I’ll do everything in my power to spare you,” she whispers, her back to me.
Sliding the gloves over my hands, I pad closer. “You will?”
In the glass, I barely make out her reflection as she crosses one arm over her middle, holding her elbow.
“I wasn’t lying when I said I couldn’t breathe at the thought of you in danger.
” She turns, and her gaze bores into me.
“It’s the same I felt in the third trial, when you were balancing on the cage and I took an arrow for you.
After I found out who you were and what you did, I thought my feelings for you would harden over. ”
Her voice trails off, and I tilt my chin. “And?”
She looks away. “And they haven’t. No matter how desperately I try to ignore it, there’s a space in my chest that you’ve carved out. I’m tired of trying to fill it.”
Voices filter in from the gap at the bottom of the door.
I swallow. “What do we do, then?”
A shrug. “When we return, I’ll speak to my father. I can’t promise anything, but I’ll do everything I can.”
My heart rattles in my chest, and my ribcage grows tight. If she’s going to speak with her father, I have to tell Isolde not to come. An invasion from her would ruin everything. I swallow my panic and manage, “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. It’ll be hard, considering I’m returning home without the emerald.” She sucks in a cheek. “You didn’t hear anything about its whereabouts, did you?”
A stone settles in my gut. I could tell her the truth and hand it over, but there’s no telling whether this is a test. And if she finds out how I obtained it, or questions why I didn’t return it right away—
I can’t do anything until I have my compass back.
I shake my head. “But I think I know where Inez is. If we get her, maybe she’ll have an idea of where the emerald could be.”
Kressa gnaws on the inside of her cheek. “And where is she?”
“The prison overlooking the sea.”
She curses under her breath. “You know what that place does to people. What it almost did to you.”
“And you knew what the cell in the mirror could have done to Elias.”
Her lips press into a thin line. “I’m not entirely sure we can get close enough to help her. Those waters are heavily guarded and charmed so any vessel can’t go against the tide.”
“Well thank goodness you’re on board with the Queen of the Sea.”
She shakes her head. “Absolutely not. The last time you took your gloves off, you nearly burned a castle to the ground. If you do that to the ship, we won’t even have a vessel to rescue Inez on.”
“I’ll be careful.” I step closer, until only a foot separates us.
“We can have Julian stand guard and subdue my power if it gets out of control. And even if it is guarded, we’re not trying to sneak around anymore.
” Cassio’s words filter through my mind, tending to the fire licking in my chest. “This is a war, Kressa. We can’t win if we’re worried about heavily guarded waters.
If we want to gain any kind of advantage, we have to show our strength. ”
Her head tilts as she studies me.
“What?” I say.
She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter.” Blinking, she shifts around me toward the door. “We’ll go try and recover Inez. And what just happened? Between us? It won’t happen again.”
My chest deflates, and I wring my hands. “I hope it helped ease your pain.”
Her shoulders tense, and her footsteps slow as she pauses. “It did.”
“Then if it must happen again for the sake of your comfort, so be it.”
She’s silent for a moment, and the ship rocks as I make my way toward her. Her elbows remain close at her sides, hands curled into loose fists, like she can’t quite trust herself not to reach out and touch me.
“An agreement,” she whispers. “I’ll let you know if it becomes unbearable.”
“And so will I.”
Glancing at me over her shoulder, she offers the barest hint of a smile. It’s weak, but the brightness in her eyes takes the weight from my chest. For now.
“And Kressa?” I say.
She wraps her hand around the knob. “Yes?”
“Why did you take the cuffs off Celia and Elayne?”
Her lips quirk. “If they’re important to you, they’re important to me.”