Chapter Fifteen #2
“Come onto Soren? Soren came onto me!” I cross my arms and turn towards the door, a bit too embarrassed to meet his eye.
“Eh.” He leans forward again as though he might reach for me, but then he shrugs his shoulders to cover the motion. “I think it was mutual. I can feel things, remember.”
“How could I forget?”
There’s a long pause that feels uncomfortably tense. I’m terribly aware of how he must be sensing every emotion I’m having, how he’s been sensing them all night. “When did you realize I knew?” I ask, to break the silence more than anything.
“When I told you I’d be able to hear them behind the door. I felt your doubt. I knew you’d guessed how I could tell if anyone was there.”
“Why didn’t you say something then? How could you let me go into that warehouse when your guards were ready and waiting just down the street?”
“I wouldn’t have let anything happen to you,” he says so quietly and seriously that it takes my breath away.
“I didn’t take any pleasure in doing what I had to do tonight.
I didn’t think it would get out of control so quickly.
I thought we could knock them out one by one…
But I couldn’t let something happen to you, and my guards couldn’t know where I was. Not until I could be sure—”
He stops himself. He looks at me appraisingly, and I can tell he’s trying to read something in my feelings. Trying to judge what he can or should say to me.
The answer, of course, is nothing. He shouldn’t trust me, and I’m sure he knows it. But he doesn’t seem to be able to stop himself. It’s as Adria said it would be: he can’t resist me.
There’s something about that I like, in spite of everything. In spite of what I know about him and what we’re planning. In spite of his actions tonight and his deception when it came to posing as Soren.
What can I say? It’s nice to be liked.
He stands, making his decision. Then he crosses to the entrance and opens the door.
“Down the hall,” he says to the guards stationed outside, and I hear the rustle of their movement as he shuts the door again.
He’s sent them away. Not far, but far enough that they can’t overhear.
“Sure of what?” I ask.
“I’ll get to that in a second,” he says, tilting his head towards the guards moving in the hallway. “One of the reasons was that I knew the secret would strengthen your power, and it looks like that worked. Unless you’ve been keeping the true power of your shadows a secret as well.”
“That was new,” I admit.
“A rare gift,” says Ronan, “even among the shadow-born. Light has energy. It can be as harmless as an illusion—” He turns his hand, and a fig appears in his palm.
My mouth falls open in shock. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s like he plucked it straight out of the air.
He takes a bite of it, but his mouth goes straight through it, and it vanishes.
“Or as deadly as the bolts I used against some of their guards. But shadows have no energy on their own. They’re a lack of it, a lack of light.
I’ve encountered a number of shadow-born, both on and off the battlefield, but I don’t remember ever seeing one capable of shaping the shadows into something with form.
I’ve heard of it, but I thought it was a myth. ”
“I don’t know how I did it. Or if I’ll ever be able to do it again.” It would be a very valuable skill to have, but I don’t see why I, of all people, would have it.
“I’m certain that you will. I did want to try one thing, if you wouldn’t mind darkening the room.”
I do as he asks. Then he sends a small ball of light into the air.
It’s bright, surprisingly so. It doesn’t illuminate my shadow, not all of it, but the shadow doesn’t nullify it either. If anything, it looks a bit brighter in the shadow when I lift and lower it to test it. “That’s what I thought. I saw it happen out there. Strange.”
“I didn’t think it would work like that,” I say. “Adria’s flames are weaker in my shadows.” And my shadows can snuff some flames entirely, depending on who’s stronger.
“It doesn’t usually work like that. In fact, I’ve never seen light and shadow work like that. It’s worth asking someone about. Maybe the Guild Mistress. She knows more about the nature of magic than anyone.”
I lift the shadows as he extinguishes the light, standing and crossing the room, then taking the seat next to me on the bench.
I can feel the air change with his closeness. I almost kissed him. I let him touch me, let him hold me; gods, I pressed myself against him, again…
“You told me to tell you what the fuck is going on.”
I did say that, although I didn’t entirely expect him to do so. I wonder what he decided. How much of what he’ll say now is the truth, and how much of it is an invention to get me off his back.
“As I’m sure you can guess, I don’t pose as Soren to keep an eye on what the merchants are doing.”
I’d guessed that, yes. “Go on.”
“And you’ve probably also noticed that you aren’t the only one around here that hates me. Hated me?” He raises one eyebrow, the brow that was his good one when he was Soren.
“Hates you,” I say, but I must not say it very convincingly because he smiles.
“Of course. You aren’t the only person around here who hates me.
In fact, I have many enemies.” He shifts, and the humor drains from his face.
“Information is leaving the palace, but I don’t know how.
I don’t know who it is, but someone within is acting against me.
Revealing my movements, my weaknesses. My plans and edicts before they’re announced. And they’re good at it.”
My pulse races. This is incredibly revealing information. “Why would you tell me this?” Ronan is a self-admitted idiot, but surely he’s not this stupid. He knows how I feel about him.
“Because I know it’s not you. It began long before you arrived. Nithyria may hate me, but you’ve always been open in your disdain. I find it oddly comforting.”
“You find it comforting that we hate you.”
“I mean, I’d prefer it if you didn’t. But you can’t make everyone happy at the same time, and I know you must realize what another rebellion would cost us. What it would cost your own people.”
I had just been thinking of that very thing. Vahlo damn him, he’s getting into my head.
“But there’s someone among my own people who is using their position to undermine me. That’s what my shadow-born are doing. They don’t know why they’re doing it—although apparently some of them suspect more than I’d realized. They keep tabs on my advisors. My friends. Even my own family.”
Ronan had little family left. Did that mean they were tailing his own grandmother?
“You think I’m insane,” he says with an empty laugh.
“I think I am too. I’m going insane, at least. I have no idea who I can trust. Someone is lying to me, and it’s someone that knows me well enough to be able to hide it from me.
” He sighs, and the weariness in it is bone deep.
“I’m tired, Sylvie. I’ve been at war for a decade, and much of the worst of it has been off of the battlefield.
I was delusional enough to think this would be easy.
I thought I knew better than my father. What I told you about him as Soren was true.
He was a good father, but he wasn’t a good king.
There were things he did while he was in charge that made things worse than they had to be. I don’t blame Nithyria for rebelling.”
I’m certain he can sense my shock. And my distrust. He’s telling me everything I want to hear, and that fact isn’t lost on me.
“I know you don’t believe me. I don’t blame you for that, either.
But I thought it would be simple to set things right.
To undo the damage he did, to right his wrongs.
But every change I’ve made has backfired.
Even things I’ve done that I know I’m right about—the changes to indenturing law, for example.
You remember the man in the throne room? ”
How could I forget the man who died in front of me just days earlier?
“Indentured servants had no rights to petition the magistrate, even if they were abused by their masters. That happens often, unfortunately. I gave them those rights. It seemed so obvious. And yet it cost the masters—many of whom are in my own court—greatly.”
“Good,” I say. Someone who abuses their staff doesn’t deserve to keep them.
“I agree, but they’re nobility. I need their support to keep the people fed. To keep commerce flowing. I can’t strip everyone who does something immoral or illegal of their lands and title.”
“Of course you can. You’re the God-King.” He’d managed to do it to most of Nithyria. Why should these Selarans get special treatment? Especially after they’ve abused their position of power.
“I’m trying not to plunge the country into another war. We’re barely recovered from the last one.”
“You said yourself you can’t make everyone happy.”
“You sound a bit like Quinn.”
I bristle at the suggestion. “I’m nothing like her.” In fact, when he’d mentioned someone was betraying him, hers was the first name I thought of.
“No, you’re not, but on this at least you’re agreed.”
“Do you trust her?” I can’t help but ask. Not just because I suspect her, but also because I’m curious about the nature of their relationship despite Zara’s assurances that there’s nothing between them.
My curiosity is purely intellectual, of course. It’s good to know what—or who—I’m up against if I’m trying to ensnare the man.
There’s a burning twinge in my throat almost like jealousy. I resist it at first, but then I think better of it. I lean into it. Maybe it would be good to let him think I’m jealous.
“As I said, I don’t know if I can trust anyone. I’ve had to keep all of this from even Taran, my oldest friend, in case one of the guards is involved. That’s why I went myself in disguise.”
“Do you think you can trust me?”