Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
“What will the wedding be like?” she asks me one night after we’ve eaten. Her fingers tap a frantic rhythm on her thigh. We’re mere days from the Arbinji base, and Mayah has seemed more nervous, eyes constantly scanning the dense trees while we walk.
I don’t know if she’s searching for rebels or Arbinji soldiers.
“Opulent. Majestic. A bit boring, honestly.”
She rolls her eyes. “I mean the ceremony itself. What do I have to do?”
“Walk down an aisle. Say a few vows. Promise to act in the best interests of Arbinj.” I scrunch my eyes, trying to remember. I’ve only attended a handful of weddings—a few noblemen, and the occasional soldier in my command. “And there’s a dance at the reception.”
“Dance?”
“Yeah. Ballroom dance?”
She stares at me blankly.
“You don’t have dancing in Tundrayn?”
“We have dancing,” she huffs, crossing her arms. “The drum dance.” I raise a brow. “Lots of swaying? Stamping in time with drum beats? Swaying hips?”
My lips tick up. “There’s no stamping in a ballroom dance.”
She bites her lower lip, mouth turning down in an irresistible pout that has me yearning to kiss it into a smile. I rise, offering her my hand.
“Here, I’ll show you. It’s easy.”
She doesn’t move, looking up at me from beneath her lashes, so I grasp her hand and pull her to her feet.
“Zev, there’s no music,” she laughs. The soft, tinkling sound brings a smile to my face.
“We’ll manage.” I place her hand on my shoulder, finding the curve of her waist with mine. Fingers intertwined. “Just follow my lead. Step when I step.”
We sway softly, her slight frame pressed against me—far from what would be appropriate in front of the court, but I’m drowning in the sea of her gaze, in the serenity of the night, and I can’t bring myself to care.
“You’re very good,” she breathes. Our gazes lock, her ocean-blue eyes swirling with delight and wonder. Something warm and perfect and right blooms in my chest.
“My mother taught me.”
Mayah steps on my feet often, but I don’t mind at all. After the third time, though, she looks flustered and embarrassed. And I can’t have that.
“Come up onto my feet, Mayah.”
“No, I—”
I grasp her waist and lift her up, until her feet are balanced on my boots. Her hands twine around my neck, chest brushing mine with every breath.
We dance. The world falls away, and there’s no war, no alliance, no politics. Just us, bathed in moonlight, dancing amidst the quiet sounds of the forest.
Skies, she’s so beautiful and strong and good. If I died right now, with her hand in mine, life seeping away as I gazed at her face, I’d be content. My heart thrums painfully in my chest, and I find myself inching closer. My gaze drops to her lips, then back to her piercing eyes.
“Mayah…”
Her soft hand cradles my face, and I swear by the Skies and Thunder and Lightning there’s longing in her gaze, too. Adoration and warmth and—
My eyes flutter shut, and I cover her hand with my own, pressing it harder against my cheek, tracing my fingers over hers.
I freeze.
My thumb brushes over something hard. Cold.
With trembling fingers, I pull her hand from my face, holding it aloft in the moonlight.
My brother’s betrothal ring shines on her finger, its dark gleam sucking the air from my lungs.
I drop her hand.
She’s betrothed to my brother. To fucking Faramir. Shards of ice lodge in my throat, pierce through my heart.
I pull away, heart pummeling my ribs.
“I think you’re ready for the dance.”
We prepare for sleep in silence, but when it’s time to lie down, I force my feet to keep walking past her, toward the other side of the blanket. Her gaze burns into the back of my head, but I don’t let myself turn.
“It’s warm enough now that we can sleep apart.” The words taste like ash on my tongue.
She doesn’t respond. Silence stretches between us, until I think she’s fallen asleep.
“Is your brother a good man?” she whispers, the words carrying on the night air.
Bile churns in my gut, mingled with sharp guilt.
I should tell her what I did. Extinguish whatever flicker of feeling she has for me, however weak. Perhaps, it’ll be easier that way.
“No,” I manage to say. I killed your friends. “But neither am I.”
The next morning, I don’t look at her unless I have to. I don’t speak to her unless it’s necessary. I’m a spineless worm. I can’t meet her questioning gaze.
I’m a skiesdamned coward. It hurts to close myself off this way.
But what hurts more is that she doesn’t ask what’s wrong.
She knows. She must know how I feel about her. And she must have decided it’s best to distance ourselves.
We manage this way, silent and sulking, for a few days before Mayah seems to have had enough.
“Are you going to ignore me the rest of the way?” she demands with a scowl.
A deep sigh is my response.
“Look, the other night. The dance. It—”
I brace myself for her to write it off, to say it meant nothing.
But what she says is worse.
“We can still be friends?” My shoulders tense. “After the wedding. We’ll be family.”
I don’t want to be her fucking friend.
Or her brother-in-law.
Bile burns the back of my throat. I need to confess. Tell her what I did—perhaps this foolish hope in my chest will wither away beneath the heat of her hatred.
She deserves to know the truth of what I did. What I am.
And she deserves to hear it from me. Faramir and my father know enough of that night—if she were to find out from them or piece together the truth on her own…
“I need to tell you something,” I find myself saying, unable to meet her gaze. “And you’ll hate me for it.”
“Bold of you to assume I don’t already hate you.” She smiles brightly, but it only fuels the flames of the self-loathing threatening to set me alight.
I steel myself. If she despises me, it’ll be for the best. Then, maybe my idiot heart will stop yearning for an impossible future with her.
“Your friends. Sura and Tumaas. I killed them.”
She blinks slowly, as if the words didn’t register.
Her lips part with surprise. Or with the urge to swear at me.
Then, her legs buckle, and her knees hit the ground with a condemning thud.
“Mayah!” I fall to my knees in front of her. She doesn’t hear me. Don’t think she sees me either, eyes vacant, shoulders caved in with grief.
She remains kneeling on the ground, her expression almost dazed, hands clenching and unclenching at her sides. A barrage of emotions washes across her face—disbelief, fury, despair.
“How?” she finally rasps.
I swallow hard. “It was after the battle where Lev was killed. I remained at his side until he died, and … Mayah, it broke me. I had never felt such fury. I never did again until…”
Until that arrow pierced her side.
I take a shaky breath. “I—I went alone. Followed that battalion back to their camp. And I obliterated it.”
A choked sob tears loose from her throat.
“Did you kill them the way you did the rebels?” she whispers brokenly.
“Some.” My voice is thick. “But I couldn’t summon that much power for everyone. I called down lightning.” I tear my gaze away in shame. “I still dream of that night sometimes. The screams. The smell.”
She takes a deep, shuddering breath, tears limning her blue eyes.
“Do you regret it?”
The urge to lie is overwhelming—to tell her I regretted it immediately, hated myself for it. But the truth is I was numb.
Still am. Or was, anyway, until I met her.
“A little. But not truly, not until you told me your friends had been there. Now, I wish with every fragment of my broken soul that I could go back and spare you the pain I caused.”
She says nothing, but the tears that keep streaming down her face speak of her grief. Pain that I caused.
“I can’t—I can’t look at you right now,” she whispers, rising on shaky legs. She walks away, leaving me kneeling in the dirt.
For a moment, I’m frozen. It’s what I wanted—for her to hate me.
I thought it’d make it easier to bear her marrying Faramir.
But the sharp pain in my heart is indescribable.
Like a thousand soldiers each took a dagger to my chest in tandem.
My ribs might cave in under the force of the noose wrapped around my chest.
Faintly, I realize there are tears dripping down my cheeks. Not at what I’ve done—at what it’s done to her. I haven’t wept since Lev died.
Mayah’s gait is unsteady, hand bracing against the occasional tree for balance. I wipe the tears from my cheeks with a shuddering breath, then grab our bags and follow her through the trees.
I leave a few feet between us. I’m undeserving to even breathe the same air as her.
Not once does she turn back.
She’s ignored me the entire day. Not even a wayward glance in my direction. I don’t press her—just try to make myself invisible. We sit across the fire, neither of us eating the rabbits I hunted.
“Zev.” Her voice is soft. Zev, she called me. Not Zevayr. Not bastard or asshole or monster or the Dark Commander. My shoulders loosen a fraction. “I should hate you. Tides, I want to.”
Her words land like a blow.
“But I don’t,” she whispers. “I hate what this war has done to us. All of us. So much suffering. So much loss. It’s why—it’s why I have to do this. It’s why I need to marry your brother.”
Anger and regret and longing and fucking helplessness churn inside me. I was unsuccessful—she doesn’t hate me like I intended, but I’ve never been more relieved to have failed.
But her marriage to Faramir … how can I knowingly let her marry that monster?
I swallow hard, nodding stiffly.
Because it’s not my decision to make.
We sleep apart.