Chapter 27
Her blade’s a cool slit across my throat—sturdy.
Poised.
One wrong move and I’ll be dead. Of that, I’m certain.
Sitting on my heels amongst the furs, I keep my hands steady at my sides as I look at Raeve’s blown pupils and fail to see a lick of recognition. The second time in as many daes that she’s launched at me and put a blade to my flesh. Only this time, it’s different.
Her defensive body language … the chasm between us … the vacant resignation that iced her eyes right before she jerked back her leg, snatched the blade from inside her boot, and launched forward with a snarl on her lips …
She thinks I’m somebody else.
“Moonbeam. It’s me.”
Her gaze flickers.
Slowly, I lift a hand, settling it over hers. She flinches, scanning my features like flurried brushstrokes.
“It’s Kaan.”
The hardness melts from her face. She pulls a swift, shuddering gasp, eyes widening on the blade still clenched in her hand.
All the color leaves her cheeks.
She whips back, tossing the weapon like it’s made of fire. It skitters across the floor, all but forgotten about as she stares at me, unblinking. Unbreathing.
I reach forward—
She leaps off and stalks to the washroom, disappearing into the depths of it … leaving the door wide open.
Invitation enough for me.
The faucet squeals, the sound of gushing water flooding the room as I edge off the pallet and make for the washroom on deliberately loud steps, not wanting to jolt her into my untimely assassination.
I lean my shoulder against the doorframe and cross my arms, seeing her craned over the stone basin, hands perched on the edges. Her tousled hair curtains her face, making it impossible for me to so much as glimpse her features.
Silence stews. Something I’d be happy to weather until she’s ready to speak, except she’s scratching the already ravaged flesh at the sides of her nails.
“Raeve—”
“When we were in Dhomm, you said Elluin bound to somebody … else. Correct?”
My heart stops, like the words swung around and punched me in the chest.
Has she remembered Tyroth? Is this the moment she looks me in the eye and says the same words she once scrawled on a lark? The words I already know in my heart—that I’ll never be good enough for her. Strong enough.
Enough.
“That’s correct.”
She’s quiet for so long it’s like I’m lying on a rack, having my limbs stretched to their limit, my pulse pounding so hard and fast my head starts to spin.
“Moonbeam, talk to me. Please.”
She pushes her hair back over her ears and cups some water, splashing her face. The excess is still beading off her nose as she straightens a little, meeting my gaze in the ornate mirror above the vanity, as though bolstered by it. Something I struggle to appreciate, so gutted by her icy orbs.
There’s a world of torment in those eyes.
“She still loved you, Kaan.” Her voice catches at the end. Like it caught on a hook that also slides through my chest, punctures my heart, and rips it from my rib cage. “You should know,” she grinds out past trembling lips, “with every bit of her heart, she loved you.”
The words are still echoing as I look at the floor and close my eyes, certain that no words have ever torn me so clean open.
Have ever bled me so fucking dry.
I take a moment to calm the rapid beat of my heart and compose myself into something deserving of her admission. Only when I finally feel like the ground isn’t crumbling beneath my feet do I clear my throat, again meeting her reflection. “You … remember?”
The faintest line forms between her brows before she looks down at the water swirling in the basin. “Not much. The moment was fleeting. More a feeling than anything.”
The lie spills off her tongue so easily, but it’s the way her body closes that contradicts her statement—shoulders peeling in, chin dipping a little. The way she breaks our eye contact before delivering the words like a spoon of sweet syrup.
I don’t take it to heart. Move forward until I’m standing right behind her, reaching around to turn the faucet off. Then I take her hand in mine.
I tug, but she doesn’t move.
So I do it again.
This time, she comes—walking with me back to the pallet, where she lays on her side, facing away from the window. Something I find strange, given how much she likes the snow.
I take off her boots, settle behind her, then ease her so close to my chest I can track each slow breath she takes, enveloping her with my arms and body. Though she softens against me, tangling her legs with mine, a heavy silence crowds the room.
“Do you want to talk about—”
“It’s already gone,” she says, voice monotone. Like a tree stripped of its bark.
Gone …
The statement digs its claws deep.
Again, I close my eyes, taking a moment to recompose myself before kissing the top of her head. Realize that telling her the truth about her past is moot when she appears to be drudging it up herself. Perhaps swallowing one barely digestible truth at a time, just enough so she doesn’t choke.
Instead, I hold her tighter than I ever have, singing “Song of the Silent Sun” as snow batters the windowpanes, the cold shadows in the room appearing darker than they did before. Like they’re closing in on us.
Or perhaps it’s not the shadows at all, but the revelation that she still loved me. Something the lark she left banging around in my suite failed to iterate.
She. Loved. Me. Yet she returned to The Shade.
Bound to my brother.
Consummated.
There’s only one answer to this riddle, evident by the way she broke our eye contact before she lied to me just now, softening whatever she unearthed into something she deemed more palatable.
Elluin’s lark was a lie I too easily believed, intended to protect me from something she obviously considered worse than breaking both our hearts. The lesser of two evils.
So what was it?
The haunting thought knots my insides as exhaustion finally wears through the jitung berry Roan dosed me with and drags me under.