54. Maren
54
Maren
A full day later, in the middle of the night, Kye opened the door to the apartment in his west-wing tower.
I was waiting for him.
Waiting in a room full of miniature candles, the wall sconces dimmed, the windows just cracked enough to invite the sea breeze and set the curtains floating in the air. Waiting with the fireplace lit, the floor freckled with winter rose petals like the night of our wedding. Waiting in a flimsy silver-blue gown that trailed past my feet and pooled over the floor, nearly transparent and shimmering when I moved, its sleeveless bodice leaving my skin raised with both the electricity of the cold air and the anticipation of what came next.
He stopped when he saw me, shoulders compressing in a long, quiet sigh. He wore his signature black: leather pants and jacket lined with dust from the road, a silver-tipped fur laid over one shoulder and arm, and my heart seized at the sight of him, tall enough he had to duck his head through the doorway. I was certain he’d never looked so beautiful.
“Sorry I left without saying goodbye,” I said.
Kye crossed the room in three strides, sweeping his hands under my hair and securing my mouth with his. Rain and mint breezed across my tongue, so fresh and piercing it made me dizzy. “I knew where you went. We discussed it in my meeting. What did Thaan want?”
The blood in my veins stopped. “Thaan?”
“I came into the room and found you standing with him. And then I woke up and you were gone. What did he want? Obviously, something he didn’t appreciate me hearing.”
I had hoped he’d been incanted so fast he wouldn’t remember. That was apparently not the case, further evidenced by the veil of heated metal he was trying to keep weighed down. My teeth sank into my lip. “To tell me we were leaving in the morning.”
Kye pulled back, his brow raised in skepticism. “And he didn’t trust me to hear that?”
“You did open the door and charge at him while reaching for your sword.” He opened his mouth to speak. “Forget about Thaan,” I said quickly, waving the name away with my hand. I grasped his fingers, pulling him with me as my feet began to move. Through the main room and down the hall, across the threshold of his bedroom door, following a passage laid by burning wicks and snowflake petals.
Kye followed slowly, hesitantly, eyeing me with vague concern. “What’s all this?” he asked when we stopped inside, the glass of his bedroom walls reflecting a hundred miniature lights.
“Candles.” Guilt rapped its knuckles against the inner walls of my chest, knocking for the chance to gain my audience, and I locked the bolt. “Don’t think about anything. Just let me talk.”
His hand slid partially out of mine. “If it comes from Thaan’s mouth, I don’t know if I want to hear it.”
“It’s not from his. It’s from mine.”
Golden eyes glimmered at me, buttery soft as the glow that surrounded us.
My heart squeezed with pain and fear, laced into my blood like thread in a needle. “I promise.”
Kye’s thumb coasted across my palm, halting as it hit the hard surface of my wedding band. His eyes shifted down to it, the pad of his thumb gliding over it again as he studied the ring on my finger, his quiet thoughts locked away. “Alright,” he finally said, his voice a whisper in the salty-sea air. “I trust you.”
Relief. Suffocating and foul and not satisfying in the least.
I forced a smile onto my face and rose onto my toes to kiss him. He didn’t pull away, but his mouth moved in a separate cadence from mine. Cautious and unsure. I grasped the collar of his jacket, keeping his mouth when he tried to break away, and felt his hands slide across my waist.
“Just…don’t think,” I said again.
“Fine, then,” he murmured against my mouth. “Just talk.”
Bones chilled to the marrow, I walked him backwards into the chair he’d used to tie me up on our wedding night, guiding his Mihauna -damned giant body down into it and climbing onto his lap. Knees on either side of his hips, I stared into his eyes.
“Talk,” he said.
“Nothing I say can be repeated. At any time. To anyone.”
His breath flamed gently across my nose. “Talk, Leihani.”
“Swear to me.”
His heart pounded as hard as mine, worry lining his eyes. “I swear.”
Releasing a gust of shaky air, my hands traced the sculpted line of his arms to stall for time. I wove my fingers into his. “I made a blood vow to Thaan on the Aspire . One that will kill me if I break it. It’s laced with magic and—”
“Blood vow promising what?”
“Promising to marry you and…” My eyes closed briefly. “And to do something else.”
Kye didn’t move. He let me fidget. Let me lift his hands to his shoulders on either side of his neck where I braced my weight, leaning into him. “What else?”
Mihauna , my mouth was dry. My heart rioted, and each breath branded my lungs with the burn of regret. My lips parted but I paused, gathering my fears and shutting them away.
He watched my struggle, waiting for me to compose myself with quiet patience. “What else?”
“I can’t say the words. They turn to ash when I try.”
“Can I guess them instead?”
Eyes slick, I nodded.
“Something else…to do with me?”
“No.”
“To do with someone else?”
“Yes.”
“Lady Selena?”
“Not her.”
“But someone who lives in this palace?”
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. I couldn’t even nod my head. And I didn’t need to. Kye watched the dread crawl across my face, and sudden understanding ignited in his. The feeling gradually dropped from his limbs as he absorbed my silent confession. His body slackened, his arms suddenly a dead-weight in my grasp. I wrapped my hands around his wrists, ensuring they wouldn’t fall. Molten eyes smoldered, the scintillating flame of them as bright and dangerous as fire.
Don’t panic. Don’t back out now.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured. "You were right. You were right all along."
He flinched, his premonition ring warning him what I’d do. But he must have second-guessed himself, or perhaps refused to believe it.
A resounding click echoed in both our ears.
His eyes widened as I pulled away, leaving his hands locked in iron cuffs wound through the backrest of his chair.
“I’m sorry,” I said again, escaping the blooming cloud of his anger, quickly engulfing us both.
“Leihani.”
“I can’t. I’m sorry. I can’t. I refuse to be Thaan’s pawn.”
“Take these off.”
I shook my head. “Hadrian is safe. He’s headed to Diara’s family estate in Pirou now. Thaan doesn’t know he’s not in the palace. Don’t talk to him, but in case you can’t avoid it, there’s a bowl of shield weed floating in sea water on your table. Keep it in sunlight and eat a little each morning. I’ll be back in a few days.”
“A few days—” Kye left his mouth to hang open, watching me cross the room. “Where are you going? Are you leaving with Thaan?”
“No.”
He tried to stand and quickly fell backward into his seat.
“I nailed the chair down last night.”
His jaw locked. “This is fucked, Leihani.”
“I know it is.” I gathered the gleaming gown, sliding it off my frame with shaking hands and tossing it onto the bed. Then strapped myself into my bralette, pulling a heavier dress over my head instead. One with thick sleeves, quilted against the cold, stitched and sewn for riding.
“Where are you going?” he asked again, nostrils flared, fists clenched as I sat and pulled on heavy boots.
“Somewhere you can’t.” I stood, separating my hair into three strands and braiding them to the ends.
“Leihani.”
I exhaled, glancing anywhere but at him for fear of bursting into tears and coaxing my thunderous heart to be still. This was it. All I could do. It would be foolish to take anything else. I planned to leave it all at the water’s edge, anyway. Still, I let him watch me fit my hands into leather gloves.
“Leihani.”
“I won’t smother the fire because I know it’s safe in the hearth, but I don’t want to leave these burning.” I snapped my fingers, suffocating every candle in the room with the moisture in the air. Darkness fell on us both in an instant. The crackling fireplace bathed Kye’s edges in soft orange. Hurt and fear and outrage glinted from the corners of him, his body so flinty and hard he might have been cast in iron.
“Please don’t leave.”
I turned to face him in the doorway. “I love you.”