Chapter Twenty-Five
I find Ronan in the dining hall in the morning.
He’s dressed for the hunt: a long tan tunic, sturdy trousers for riding, and heavy boots that almost look Nithyrian.
I’m wearing nearly exactly the same thing down to the colors.
We make quite a pair, and I’m sure he notices as well because his eyes light up when he sees me approaching his table at the head of the room.
“Your majesty,” I say, remembering to bow this time.
Quinn, who’s seated a few chairs down to his right, coughs a little. My ears heat at the memory of what she walked in on.
“Did you need something?” he asks.
“A word in private before we head to the temple.” We’ll be stopping at the Temple of Sai for a blessing before the hunt begins, but I’m not sure if I’ll be accompanying Ronan, and even if I am, I doubt I’ll be alone with him to give him the news about Hermes.
Several heads look up at my request. I don’t know how I feel about being at the center of all this gossip, but I suppose it’s just the cost of being with someone like Ronan.
Or, not being with him, per se. Being near him. Being around him. Wanting to spend every waking moment of every single day in his company—
Gods, I’m fucked.
Ronan wipes his mouth with his napkin—his beautiful, perfect mouth that felt so good on mine, not that I’m thinking about it—and gestures to a door at the back of the room.
I walk around the long table and follow him to it, letting him hold it open for me.
I smell the scent of his cologne as I pass him, and it takes me back into his arms. Resisting the urge to reach for him, I follow him through a courtyard and into the small antechamber to the throne room where we met.
He looks around the room and then at me, unsure whether to sit or stand. Unsure of how much distance he should put between us. Without feeling it, I can sense his confusion. Have I brought him here to admonish him for his behavior last night? Or to continue it?
Neither, unfortunately.
“I saw Hermes leaving the party last night, and I followed him. I followed him back to the alley Mery told us about.”
“On your own?”
“No, Stella followed. You ordered her to do so.”
He nods. “She knows where you went? And why?”
“Not why, but she knows I was looking for someone there. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to argue with her and miss the chance.”
“It’s fine; I’ll handle it.” I don’t ask him what he means. I know him well enough to know that it won’t be bad for Stella. “What did Hermes do in the alley?”
“He met someone. Another alchemist. I couldn’t see their face. They went through the door, and then nothing. I followed after them—”
He puts his hand on his face. “On your own? Sylvie—”
“Yes, yes, I know. I shouldn’t have done that. But there was nothing there. Stella came in and had a look as well. Nothing but undisturbed dust. I don’t understand it.”
“Some kind of magic or elixir, most likely, to cover their tracks.”
Again, I find myself wishing my mother were still around to ask.
“I haven’t seen Hermes back yet this morning,” I tell Ronan. “He was supposed to be joining the hunt.”
“He may know you’re onto him. Damn, I hate that we’re leaving the palace today. I need someone to keep an eye out for him.”
I don’t want to say it, but I have to offer. For the sake of the shadow-born. “I can stay. I can follow Hermes if he comes back.” I don’t really enjoy hunting anyway.
“Do you want to stay?” he asks. But the real question he’s asking is, “Do you want to stay away from me?”
And there’s only one real answer to that. “No,” I say, taking a step forward. “I want to go with you.”
“Good,” he says, his shoulders relaxing. “I’ll ask Taran to stay, maybe. He won’t ask questions. Or Stella, since she already knows some of what’s going on.”
Now that I’ve taken care of business, I’m deeply aware of us being alone in the room together again. “Ronan, I—”
“If I let myself talk to you about what happened last night, I’m going to try to pick up where we left off.
And if I do that, I don’t think we’re going to leave this room.
And as much as I want to tell Sai to go fuck himself and his damned hunt, I can’t.
The court has been looking forward to it more than anything else. We have to go.”
“Yes,” I say, inching a little closer. “We have to go.”
“Don’t do that. Stop feeling things at me.”
“What am I feeling?” I ask him, my voice pure innocence.
He groans. He knows he shouldn’t say it. He knows what’s going to happen if he says it.
But he just can’t stop himself.
“Something along the lines of ‘I want you to kiss me, you fucking moron, and then bend me over that table.’”
“And I thought you weren’t a mind-reader.”
“I’m not going to do it.” He shakes his head and avoids looking at me. “I’m not letting them down.”
“Too bad,” I say. I start walking towards the door. “I guess we’ll just have to—”
He crosses to me and slams me against the door with a kiss.
It’s even hungrier than last night. It’s the kiss of someone who has been doing nothing but thinking of kissing me again since we were interrupted.
It’s the kiss of someone who cannot get enough of me, whose hands can’t stand being off of me for even one minute longer.
It's possessive and territorial and demanding. It’s his tongue claiming my mouth, his hands in my hair, pulling and begging and opening me to him.
It’s my arms wrapping around him, pressing him against my body, my hands on his back scratching at his skin beneath his shirt, trying to bring him closer—
And then it’s a touch of light on the back of my head where it hit the door. “Sorry,” he mutters to the side of my mouth as he heals me. He takes a gasping step back and then reaches for the handle.
“Let’s go,” he says, and I can see it takes every ounce of his strength to do so.
“You’re a selfless ruler,” I tell him.
“Don’t fucking remind me,” he says, pinching his brows in disbelief that he has to walk away from this again.
I follow him into the courtyard. He turns to look at me, then he stops to smooth my hair.
“Fuck it, just one more,” he says, and he kisses me again.
This one absolutely thrills me. We’re here in a public courtyard in the light of day. Anyone could see us. He wants me so badly, he doesn’t even care.
I let myself get lost inside of it for a minute, maybe two. Okay, maybe three. And then I finally break away from it because I can tell he’s close to not being able to.
“Come on,” I say. “There’s always the carriage ride at least.”
We share the carriage with Queen Claudia, who does not get the heavy hints Quinn drops to allow us some privacy.
I should have some shame and try to avoid thinking lurid thoughts about Ronan in front of his grandmother, but it seems I’m somewhat shameless when it comes to him.
I spend the entire ride thinking of what I want him to do to me, watching his face as he tries to hide what he’s sensing.
Gods, it’s so fucking hot watching him squirm, watching him shift his legs and twitch his jaw.
Sorry, Queen Claudia. What you don’t know won’t hurt you.
“I hope you’re having fun,” he whispers as we arrive once Queen Claudia has left the carriage. “I’m going to ruin these pants if you don’t stop.”
Fuck. My core is already heated from my own fantasies, but that image sends it molten.
It’s hard to focus on the rites of Sai. They’ve always been my least favorite anyway, although even Kerensa’s beautiful ceremonies would have seemed like a nuisance under these circumstances.
The Temple of Sai is near the northern wall, and this ceremony is my first visit since we’ve arrived.
The practice of religion is quite personal in both Selara and Nithyria.
Some families tend to adhere to one god or goddess over the others, participating in services honoring the others only on significant holidays or occasions like these festivals.
Others devote themselves to all equally, alternating days of worship or even attending services for each on the same day.
We adhered more to Vahlo and Sai than the others, due in part to my parents’ preferences but also their locations.
The temples of Vahlo and Sai are joined in Pyka, the city where I grew up.
I suspect the reason is more logistical than anything else.
Sai’s rites involve fire and blood, and Vahlo’s ash and bone, and those things tend to go together.
Ronan, as the embodiment of Vayla on earth, holds dominion over all the gods and goddesses, and so he performs the rites of Sai along with the head priestess of the temple at an altar draped in rich red fabrics.
It’s a lot of burning wood and pouring blood and ritual incantations, ancient forms of magic that supposedly once opened the doors to the magical abilities that now manifest in each person without such efforts.
I think of the heretical things Ronan has said. About how the schools of magic aren’t as concrete as the Codex says, about how the qualities of people may not align as well as it seems. I think of what my parents said about how the hierarchy was nonsense.
Zara is in the front row just a few seats down from me. She gives me a tiny wave to avoid attracting attention when I meet her eye.
I think of something she said to me once about forbidden forms of magic. About the way she acted like Ronan was a hindrance to her work.
Could she know something about what Hermes was doing with the shadow-born? Could it have been at her request?
“The blood of the fallen,” says a priest as he approaches with a cup. It’s just red wine, thankfully. This was the only part of Sai’s rites that I enjoyed as a child. I remember playing with a little servant boy after the service, pretending we were drunk from a single sip.
I take the cup offered to me and drink from it.