35. Sybilla
Chapter 35
Sybilla
“ H e’ll calm down. Don’t worry,” Elsedora assured me.
Strong rays of afternoon sun beat down on us—summer here was oppressively hot, though my body was adjusting. I’d grown to love the lighter fabrics of the fashion here and the way all the clothing billowed off my body. Much better than the tight cuts of heavy velvet, wool and corsets of Luz.
Krait was nowhere to be seen after his temper tantrum over El throwing a knife at my face. So touchy.
“ What is his issue?” I mused to Elsedora.
She smirked. “He knows we are running out of time, and you are not near ready to face Caym if his Reverist power returns on the next black moon. I suspect that scares him.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “ Whose fault is that? He has me playing with toy swords and then holds back if I wobble even a bit. I saw him hesitate after hitting me.”
He hadn’t faltered every time . I had the bruises to prove it. But every other.
“I do not disagree,” Elsedora said before she took a swig from her canteen. “But we hoped to find you sooner—not with only a few years to spare. We know so little about what the prophecy actually means. He’s anxious.”
“That makes two of us,” I mumbled.
Since I’d been sick, Krait had returned to that frowning, clipped-conversation asshole that I’d first met. Whatever softness and warmth I’d witnessed the morning he had carried me into the baths had melted away.
He’d only need to be my husband, not my friend.
It seemed he was setting his line in the sand.
I still hadn’t decided what to do or say about the prophecy, and his failure to bring it up made my blood boil. As though he’d just changed his mind after four centuries. It was his immortality to sacrifice—his power to give up. Maybe he had truly changed his mind. In his situation, I might have. I shook away my empathy.
All I could do was keep getting stronger, keep preparing for whatever threat came first.
“What is happening in Helos?” I asked Elsedora as we exited the amphitheater and I adjusted my silk scarf to cover my shoulders from the sun.
“Mattock has lost the support of many lords in the rural regions around Helos—most were excited about the return of magic and its impact on their crops and livelihoods. His own people are turning against him. He is alone up in that castle of nightmares.”
Since Emmerick and Bringham had decreed that no Source-wielders could enter their Corridors, Elsedora had acted as an easy loophole. She was from the Sahlms but not a Source-wielder. And so she kept dropping in unannounced, hopeful that she’d learn something about how the Death Origin was controlling Emmerick.
“Has force been considered to unseat him?”
Elsedora stopped short and turned to me. “You want to take the North by force? Go to war with your Emmerick?”
“Whoever sits on the throne right now is not my Emmerick. That isn’t him.”
My friend might be angry at me—but he wouldn’t turn against Asterie and Fenris for no reason like that. He would not use a grudge to drive a wedge between himself and the rest of the realm, and he would not jeopardize the safety of the people of any court.
My Emmerick was good to the fucking bone. And that deathmark and Caym’s influence tore away at that goodness .
“There’s been another development.”
“What is it?” I raised a brow.
“Your cousin Haward…he is missing.”
My hand found my throat, trying to ease the constricting feeling there. “For how long?”
I tried not to let the indifference I felt show. No one should be excited to hear of their cousin’s potential demise and yet…he’d never given me a reason to not be excited about his demise.
“It is hard to say—the Castle of Helos isn’t exactly keen on sharing.”
“He could be an envoy,” I mused as we veered down a narrow street bustling with mule-led carts of produce from the greenhouses. It seemed every vendor was preparing for the night markets, and the streets were a maze to navigate.
Elsedora nodded. “He could be. Until we know where our threats come from, you must understand—it isn’t safe for you to attend any more meetings. Not even with your sworn allies. Fen and Asterie are handling things beautifully, trust me.”
“Trust you?” I asked with a smirk.
Elsedora huffed a laugh. “You don’t?”
“I would have trusted you more had you told me your King wanted me to bear his heir and then leave me for dead.”
I did trust Elsedora—Luz was in good hands. I even trusted her not to kill me when she threw daggers in my direction. But she was biased when it came to her King.
“That isn’t what he wants, you know,” Elsie said. “He is a broken man, but he needs you just as much as you need him. The fact that you two haven’t figured that out yet is painful to watch.”
What an amusing point of view.
I snorted as we passed a bustle of people decorating doorways with colorful fabric banners and setting out large barrels.
“I need no one. But speaking of needing things, it’s grown so dry. One of the maids told me this morning that it looks like the first summer rain is on the horizon. Is that what these preparations are for?”
“Oh, yes!” Elsie took my hand and bounced over to the bridge’s railing to look out at the main canal outside of Umber House. We had a good view of the sprawling city of Sahlmsara, and it was lined with colorful banners and people setting up tents all the way down to what I assumed was the riverbed area Krait had led me to that first night in the city.
“We celebrate by the river and collect as much rainwater as possible,” she continued. “Hopefully the rain will fall soon. The first storm marks the beginning of monsoon season. There’s a festival—it’s a good time. Lots of wine. Fun clothing with lots of fun ties.” She winked.
I rolled my eyes. “Your mind only thinks in terms of its next romp, doesn’t it?”
“When you’ve lived as long as I have, you have to work really hard to entertain yourself.” Elsedora pulled me along to show me the other side of the canal, where tealight candles lined the edge.
Despite the growing threats, the buzz of eagerness for something to celebrate filled me.
I knew Krait would be in his hole —likely there to brood.
There would be no apologies because El was right. He was coddling me. It didn’t matter if I wobbled; it didn’t matter if I was tired. I needed to be pushed to my limits.
The Death Origin would not go easy on me, and someday, I would go up against him.
Approaching the small door beneath the eastern stairwell, I whispered, “In the Shadows we trust.”
Met with dim light and cool air wafting from the underground room, I let out a sigh. I pulled the silk scarf off and tossed it over a coat hook at the top of the steps.
“What are we reading today?” I called down before descending into the book-lined room. Our first day back to “normal” and he was already annoyed with me, but I hoped that he would still read to me from the texts. With the full prophecy revealed to me, there was more I longed to know.
“I thought you might like to skip reading today.” Krait was stretched out on the chaise. I crossed the room and sat beside him at his hip. Pulling one leg beneath me, I faced him. His personal reading choice caught my eye, and I plucked it from his hands, turning over the leather-bound book.
“Are you reading… The Great Romances of the Old World ?”
He met my question with a scowl and a grunt as he quickly snatched the book back. “Love is often used against rulers in war. Why not study it?”
Which story was it? I peeked over the spine.
Ah, the one about a princess in endless sleep and the knight whose true love’s kiss woke her.
I’d read those stories as a girl. They were nothing to study—pure unabashed and unrealistic tales of love at first sight. Who was I to judge him?
“Of course,” I mused, too politely it seemed because it earned me another scowl. “We need to discuss my training—”
“Sybilla,” he warned as he ran one hand down his face and sat up on his other elbow.
“I’ll be hunted...” I said, and his hand dropped to his side, inches from my fingertips. “Caym knows I am a threat to him, that our future child will be a threat to him. So I will be hunted for the rest of his days. He’s already gotten to me once here. What happens when he grows stronger, when we come face-to-face? It is bound to happen.”
He shifted to give me more space, and a crease formed in his brow. He cleared his throat. “That’s fair. But you were bedridden a week ago.”
“It doesn’t matter. I am fine now, and you need to push me harder.”
Our gazes locked.
“No,” he said.
Sources be damned, I couldn’t win with this man. “Elsedora said you’d say that. She also said you’d see reason eventually, but I’ve got my doubts on that part.”
“The two of you will be the death of me.”
The death of him. I very well could be.
“Who wants to live forever anyway?” I teased.
“You have something against immortality?”
I tilted my head, thinking about that. “Well, yes, I do. It sounds like a shit way to spend your life. What is the meaning if there is no end? To have all the time in the world and yet little motivation to live to the fullest—it’s ridiculous. What inspires an immortal to do today what they can do tomorrow? Or a hundred years from now?”
He laughed. It shook the chaise below us, and I couldn’t help but match his smile.
“What is so funny?” I squinted as the dim lamplight illuminated every hard line of his face. His facial hair had grown out a bit. Sources, when he smiled, he was even more attractive.
“I agree. I’ve just never heard someone put it so beautifully frank before.” He flipped the book face down in his lap.
I smirked. “Here lies Sybilla Wymark: She was ‘beautifully frank’ with a grumpy King.”
His expression sobered as his eyes traced my face and then fell to my lips.
“You’re beautifully something,” he said and swallowed hard.
I became acutely aware of how close I was to him.
“What?” He raised a brow.
“Well, I just about died from you paying me a compliment again. You better be careful. I may start to think you actually like me.” I mockingly fanned myself with one hand.
“I’ve complimented you plenty.”
I snorted. “Oh, yes. Ever the romantic,” I teased. He grunted a reply and folded his hands on top of the book.
“What will it be like...being married to you?” I asked.
“I don’t want to talk about this,” he ground out.
“Well, we are. So answer the question.”
“I’ll make shit company.”
“Obviously,” I replied.
“I’ll be no comfort to you.”
“You don’t need to be good company or good comfort to be good at conceiving an heir though. Do you?”
His jaw tensed in that telling way—I’d pissed him off already. “What exactly are you worried about, Sybilla?”
“Are you…” I could feel my face growing hot as I spoke. “Are you interested in the physical side of our marriage?”
His distance since having told me of the prophecy, his shortness and his abrupt departures from the bedchamber each morning as I lay pretending to still be asleep—had he changed his mind?
Why did that disappoint me?
He took a deep breath before he carefully said, “I am…”
The prick trailed off.
“Why do I feel there is a ‘but’ following that?” My eyes narrowed at him sprawled there on the chaise, looking far too comfortable, while my cheeks grew hotter and hotter.
He lifted further up onto his elbows and drew nearer. I hadn’t realized I’d leaned down toward him. “ But that would require you being ready for such a tryst,” he said, his eyes going dark but his face remaining all hard lines and tension.
My temper spiked. “You drop the news on me that I’m destined to have your child and then avoid me—avoid fighting me about it. Now you’re questioning my readiness as I proposition you? You really are a—”
“Sybilla,” he snapped.
Instead of pulling away, I leaned further down, bracing one hand on the shelf behind his head. The book slid from his lap and fell with a thud. Warm spice tickled my nose, and the mingling of our breath made my arm tremble. Before I could think of another insult, his Shadows wrapped around my torso.
I gasped out, “What are you—”
“Sybilla. Shut up.”
How endearing.
Then cool Shadows tugged, and I was drawn up to straddle his waist. All my anger melted into a molten feeling in my core.
“I’ve thought about taking you just like this since you climbed onto my lap here over that game board.”
His lips were inches from mine, our bodies touching in the most torturous places. I’d allowed myself to wonder what he’d be like as a lover more times than I was proud of.
A good husband and a good lover were two separate things. I only needed the latter. I desperately tried to convince myself of that. I knew what he needed from me, and while it scared me senseless, the act of taking Krait to bed? That part didn’t seem at all horrid.
“I never imagined sharing anything more than a child with the Last Daughter of Isleen. I’d married another—she was my destiny, even she would have allowed me that. I never considered anything else. I never considered that you would be at the end of this prophecy. I don’t fear mortality. I don’t fear giving up everything.” Krait breathed out between us.
Another inch closer.
“I fear that you’ll regret it.” The words he didn’t say out loud snuck into my head as he added, “I fear the way that I can’t sleep without hearing your snoring.”
“I don’t sno—”
He cut me off. “I said shut up. You question the wrong things. I see the way you look at Fen and Asterie—and that isn’t a life that I can ever give you. I had that life. Sex is easy. I’m plenty willing for that. But would that be enough for you? ”
Another inch closer, and now our noses touched.
I opened my mouth to speak again, but I didn’t trust myself. I’d tell him anything he wanted to hear to keep him exactly like this—hungry, wanting, between my thighs.
“If you say one more word, then I will have my Shadows set you aside,” he warned. “I’ll walk right out of here. No questions asked. We can go back to pretending like we don’t want to rip each other’s clothes off. The choice is yours—you’re the one who ‘propositioned me’ after all.”
I sat there, silent.
Staring at the hard lines of Krait’s face, I internally scolded myself for the slick anticipation between my legs and the desire to close the distance to kiss him.
My mouth fell open but no sound came out. Krait’s gaze seared me as he waited for me to break the silence.
I didn’t say a fucking word.
Because if I did, he would stop, and I very much did not want him to stop whatever we were doing.
I closed the last inch between us. His Shadows pulled me flush against him, and his lips met mine in a hard kiss that felt like the heady buzz after the burn of amber liquor slid down one’s throat.
Fury. Bliss. Rage. Pleasure.
I honestly didn’t know where one emotion began and the next gave way.
His fingers dug into my thighs, and I couldn’t help but roll my hips against him. It felt frenzied, like we were both trying to keep up with the other. The chaise knocked up against the shelf—books fell with heavy thuds. When his tongue ran along the inner seam of my lower lip, I was so lost in the moment that the ground could have crumbled beneath us and I wouldn’t have noticed.
All of his hard edges melted into passion.
Cool wisps of dark vines surrounded me. They snaked over my back, around my stomach and between my thighs. I gasped into his mouth, and he swallowed it with a groan that made my toes curl.
He was touching me in so many places that I almost didn’t notice his hardened length pressed against the thin silk and linen between us. He pushed my hips down against him and thrust up against my core. The sensation elicited a moan.
Fucking blasphemy. A King shouldn’t be that well-endowed. I’d thought his badder-than-all personality was merely compensating for something.
I was wrong .
I hooked a thumb in the waist of his pants and tried to push down.
I would let him take me.
“Tell me to stop, and I will,” he groaned between us.
I shook my head and tried to recapture his lips. I would tell him no such thing.
One moment I was above him, the next I’d been flipped onto my back. Dark vines peeled my breeches from me, and I gasped. I felt exposed and my hands moved to cover myself, but his Shadows were faster. They pinned my arms to the chaise cushion.
“Open your legs, Sybilla,” Krait commanded.
I’d never followed an order so fast in my life.
He hooked a finger in my undergarments and pulled them to one side and let out a satisfied hum when he saw the evidence of my arousal, slick against my thighs. I panted and watched him kneel in front of the chaise before he placed my legs over his shoulders.
My brain no longer had the reins. Instead, every nerve hummed for his touch. I saw his intent to taste me in his eyes as he took me in and pushed up my tunic with one hand. His gaze roved up to my breasts before trailing back down to where I burned for him most. He licked his lower lip.
“Krait,” I gasped. “That isn’t how heirs are made.”
He smirked and said, “This is exactly how heirs are made. And if you insist on opening your mouth still, then all I want to hear is you screaming all those filthy words you love so much.”
Then his mouth was on me. His tongue parted my seam and worked against my sex as though it were an instrument he was skilled in playing. I cried out, unable to stop my hand from grabbing a fistful of his dark hair.
No duty to the world edged me onward now. All I could think of was how good I felt as he pressed two fingers inside of me, how frantic I was to have even more of him.
My back arched, and my hands clawed at the leather cushions as he continued to work me until I was cursing as he’d told me to.
Sources. I’d never reached a peak this quickly.
“Fuck, Krait. I’m going to…”
Krait answered by curling his fingers and sucking, and then my eyes snapped closed, head thrown against the chaise. The noise that left my body didn’t sound human as my release reached a crescendo.
I felt light. I could’ve floated to the ceiling as I pulsed around his fingers. He returned my feet to the floor with gentleness and nipped at the skin just above my navel. The weight of his head rested below my wildly beating heart, and I felt a contented growl rumble in his throat.
A feminine gasp from the stairway interrupted us, and I crashed down from the height of my pleasure.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,” Elsedora repeated with each hurried footstep she took back up the stairs.
“She saw us…she saw. Oh, fucking Sources. Get up,” I demanded, though my body made no move against him. He didn’t budge at first, remaining still with closed eyes and a feral sort of drunken expression. When he moved off me and sat on the chaise beside me, I quickly pulled up my breeches. He leaned back against the bookshelf and gently banged his head a few times as though scolding himself.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
The weight of his internal panic and guilt alarmed me.
Elsedora had already ascended the steps, and we were left there alone—panting, wanting. He was still aroused; the evidence of his need bulged in his linen pants. And he hated himself for it.
Finally, he stood and looked down at me. “How many filthy thoughts have gone through that head of yours in the last few minutes?”
Too out of breath to answer, I gaped up at him. He roiled with self-loathing over what we’d just done, and that caused a shameful feeling in my gut. What did he blame himself for? Then it hit me.
Freya.
He felt responsible for her death and being intimate with me was eating away at his conscience.
I was too stunned to speak.
“You do not need to worry about whether the physical parts of our marriage are something that I want,” he concluded.
And then he walked up the stairs like nothing had just transpired.
I stood there, feeling so tightly wound that I could snap.
Sources save me.