Chapter 36
This small study between Blood and Void House was beautiful in a dark, inviting way, but it didn’t provide nearly enough room for pacing. I did my best, though, striding from bookshelf to desk and back, listening to the tap of my boots and the rustle of my skirts.
Like many rooms in Mistei, this one combined elements of the two nearest houses.
Tapered candles the hue of fresh blood cast a soft glow over reddish-brown rosewood furnishings.
The curving legs and polished surface of the desk were inlaid with jet, and the top held pens, baskets of blank paper, and a single red-black rose in a glass vase.
Two armchairs upholstered in ebony velvet flanked a red-tiled fireplace, and a sinfully soft black fur rug stretched before the crackling hearth.
My reflection moved in the mirror over the fireplace.
I hadn’t been thinking about dressing to reflect my new alignment with Void House, but perhaps the choice had been subconscious.
The bloodred satin was topped with a black pattern that resembled ornate metalwork.
Small ruby pendants hung at the tip of each dark curlicue, hooked into the fabric so they trembled with every movement.
My mask was silver to match Caedo at my wrist.
The other silver piece of my attire—the whisper-thin chain promising peace—was in my pocket. Considering the faeries wishing for my death, I didn’t like wrapping it around my hand until I absolutely had to.
The door to the sitting room opened. I spun, raising my fists instinctively, but the figure that slipped inside was familiar, and my pulse accelerated for a different reason.
Kallen looked decadent in his masquerade outfit.
His long-sleeved tunic was silk damask, soft and shining, with dark gray swirls and stars shimmering across the black background.
A more structured fabric lined the front and extended into stiff shoulders, and engraved silver buttons held the garment together.
He wasn’t wearing his sword, since tonight was a silvered event, but his belt held two ornamental daggers tied into their sheaths.
His black enamel half mask was the one part of his attire I didn’t like. He was good enough at concealing his emotions without anything assisting in the task.
Kallen cast a shadowy ward over the door, and I saw he wasn’t wearing his chain yet, either. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” he said. “Hector and I were strategizing.”
I’d sent a messenger to tell the others what had happened at Light House, then asked Kallen to meet me here. We needed to discuss the choice I would be making later tonight.
His eyes wandered from my ruby-dotted hair to the hem of my dress, and I was painfully aware that we were alone in a small room with a ward blocking any sound that might escape. “You look beautiful,” he said.
I cleared my throat. “As do you.”
He shook his head slowly. “Not like that.”
The heat in his gaze made my stomach clench. “Take the mask off,” I said, unlacing my own and sliding it into the deep pocket of my dress.
He hesitated, then raised his hands to tug at the ties behind his head before setting the mask aside.
“Much better,” I whispered.
He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. When he looked at me again, his face was impassive. “So Light House fell at last.”
“As you expected.”
“Yes, though you claimed an unexpected victory by taking in those who escaped.”
The approval in his voice went to my head faster than any wine. Needing something to occupy my hands, I reached for the rose displayed on the desk, toying with the thorny stem and velvety petals. “What will happen tonight?”
“Nothing, I imagine.” When I glanced his way, I found his focus on my fingers.
I paused, then lowered my hand to stroke the vase from base to rim.
He made a soft, inarticulate noise, then looked away.
“Torin and Rowena are unlikely to announce their victory,” he said, addressing the fireplace.
“Better to pretend the threat was never serious.”
I hadn’t summoned him here to discuss Light House. “I want to tell you something,” I said, taking a step towards him.
His shoulders stiffened before he faced me. His expression was icily composed, but I wasn’t fooled. “Oh?”
My pulse was tapping too quickly. I straightened my spine and raised my chin, knowing I was about to set Mistei on an irreversible course. “I’m choosing Hector as king.”
His lips parted. Shock and then relief swept over his face, wiping away the ever-present tension.
“Kenna, I—” He broke off, then strode towards me, and I gasped when he hauled me into his arms, hugging me tightly.
His lips found my forehead as he rocked me back and forth.
“Thank you,” he murmured against my skin. “Thank you.”
I melted into his hold. When I wrapped my arms around his waist, a shudder raced through him. He pulled away, gripping my shoulders to hold me at arm’s length. “What made you finally decide?” he asked, eyes flicking between mine.
He was trying to put distance between us again. I curled my hands around his forearms, wishing I had claws to sink into him. “Drustan did. We had a…conversation.”
I told him about the confrontation in the study. Kallen was deathly quiet throughout, but by the end, the blue of his irises had swirled into Void black. “You were afraid,” he said.
“Yes,” I admitted. “I don’t think he would have actually hurt me, but at the time…I wasn’t sure.”
“Someday Drustan will learn what real fear feels like,” Kallen said with such chilling fury it sent a shiver down my spine.
I liked that a bit too much, but where would hatred lead us? Back into the same cycle of destruction. “He’s damaged, too,” I told Kallen. “He lost someone he loved, just like Hector. Doesn’t that change everyone?”
When people died, they took pieces of us with them. Our dreams, the stories we told ourselves about the future, the best parts of our hearts. The illusion of who we were shattered, too, because we’d relied on that love to give shape to our existence. Without it, what was left?
Drustan had used his grief to fuel a rebellion, as Hector had. That was the good—the purpose —that could come from loss. But now that he’d tasted power, I worried that Drustan would crave more and more, because nothing else had come close to filling the hollowness inside.
“I do understand him,” Kallen bit out. “But I will not accept anyone treating you like that, no matter what losses they have experienced.”
And there it was. The emotion at the core of everything, the one I was still trying to understand in all its vastness and complexity. The real reason I’d summoned him here, if I was being honest with myself. “Why, Kallen?” I asked softly. “Tell me why you won’t accept it.”
A muscle in his jaw ticked, but he didn’t answer. He released my arms and stepped back.
“No,” I said, moving forward to close the distance. “You don’t get to run away again.” I grabbed his tunic, snagging my fingers in the gap between two buttons. “Tell me why you’re angry with Drustan.”
“You know why,” he gritted out, eyes still black as night.
“Because you care about me.”
“It’s more than that.”
My heart was racing. “Then tell me what it is. Don’t be a coward.”
He made a pained sound. Then his hand shot out to curve around the nape of my neck, beneath my loose hair.
“Do you have any idea what you do to me?” he demanded.
“What I would do for you, how many people I would kill? I wake up thinking about you, and I fall asleep thinking about you, and on the rare nights the universe offers me some mercy, I dream about you, too. I’m sick with this wanting, and it just gets worse and worse. There’s no end to it.”
I was shaken by the fury in his voice, the depth of his need. “Why deny it? Why deny us when I want you, too?”
“Because I don’t know how to do this!” The words exploded out of him. “The kindest thing I could possibly do for you is stay away, and that’s the one thing I can’t manage. You should be running from me. I don’t understand why you’re not.”
“I’m not going to run,” I told him, pulse hammering. “Why would I?”
His groan was anguished. “Because you deserve so much better. Someone with cleaner hands who deserves to touch you. Someone who won’t hurt you.”
“You do deserve to touch me. I want you to touch me. And you won’t hurt me.”
“I’ve only kissed one other person, and then I killed her!”
It took a moment to process the horror of what he’d said. Then I gasped. “What?”
Naked pain filled his expression. “That’s who I am, Kenna. I’ve spent my entire life learning how to break people. I’ll break you, too, even if I don’t mean to, and I won’t be able to bear it.”
“No,” I said firmly, reaching up to cup his face, my fingers sliding into his soft hair. “You won’t break me.” Whatever gruesome story was in his past, I knew Kallen. He wanted to punish Drustan for frightening me—he would be even harsher on himself.
“You can’t know that.” His eyes were still pitch dark with suffering, but he wasn’t pulling away. “Were you even listening? I killed someone I cared for. Only the worst kind of monster would be capable of that.”
That was fear pulling his expression into agonized lines, not just self-hatred. He was trying to drive me away because life had taught him to be terrified of loving anything, lest he watch it be destroyed. “I’m not leaving,” I told him stubbornly. “Tell me what happened.”
He was quiet for a while, breathing through parted lips and staring at me like I was both poison and antidote. “A long time ago,” he finally said, “I met a girl from Illusion House.”
“How long ago?”
“We were both teenagers.”
I made a soft noise of protest. “You were just children.”
“I told you, I don’t think I was ever that.”
Because Osric had forced him to kill starting at age nine. Even if he didn’t believe he’d been an innocent child, worthy of care, I did. “Did you love her?” I asked, keeping my voice gentle.