Twenty-One
DAYS TURNED INTO weeks as the ship sailed south with the Calerans trapped in its belly. It was hard to keep track of time in the brig. There were no windows in the long, rectangular cage that spanned half the length of the ship. Moldy mattresses and thin, rough blankets were scattered about, and there was a privy pail and a small table with two chairs bolted to the floor.
Charis estimated they’d been down there for nearly three weeks. They had to be getting close to making port in Calera, and the chasm that had opened within her the night of the invasion felt large enough to swallow her whole. Every hour that passed seemed to tighten the pressure in her chest, until her heartbeat was frantic, feverish.
She would see her kingdom again.
And then she would die.
At least she’d be with her parents again soon. But before that happened, she had to be sure Nalani had the information about what the Rakuuna were after and why, and about how to use the poison. And, seers curse him, the only person in the brig she was sure the Rakuuna queen didn’t plan to kill was Tal.
King Alaric might not have rescued his youngest son, but even the Rakuuna must understand that murdering the son of the man you hope to extort jewels from was a poor strategic decision.
That meant that Charis and Tal needed to have a conversation, something she’d been avoiding at all costs. However, ignoring him because she didn’t want to appear vulnerable was one thing. Refusing to talk to him when he could help her keep her promises to her people would be foolish.
As most of the crew settled onto their mattresses for yet another period of rest—they had no idea if it was dark outside—Charis forced herself to approach Tal and say quietly, “Would you join me at the table?”
Instantly he was on his feet and moving toward the small table, where an assortment of discarded objects were strewn. Bits of fishing net, wire hooks, torn burlap sacks, and a few rusted tools—nothing helpful. The satchel Reuben had returned to her with its small amount of moriarthy dust was the only useful weapon in the entire brig.
She settled into a chair, expecting Tal to sit opposite her. Instead he leaned against the table itself, just to her left.
“We should reach Calera soon,” she said, her tone as impersonal as she could manage.
“I owe you an explanation.”
She stiffened. “That’s not what I asked you here to talk about. Nothing you can say will change what you did.”
“I know.”
“So what’s the point of discussing it?” She pressed her hands against the table as if to stand and walk away, her mouth suddenly dry.
“Afraid you might not be able to stay mad at me?” He threw the challenge at her and waited.
“No.”
She’d yet to walk away. He didn’t waste any time.
“I was ordered by my father to become a spy in the Caleran palace because I have an ear for languages and could speak with a flawless northern Caleran accent and because having spent my life around royalty, I knew how to behave.” He swallowed as though it was difficult to force himself to speak the entire truth. “I suspect that my father expected me to get myself killed, which would save him the trouble of dealing with the son he’s always hated.”
She sniffed and looked away.
“I was supposed to get as close to the royal family—your family—as possible. Father wanted information that would help him bring the war to an end.”
Her eyes narrowed. “And the information you gave him inspired him to destroy an entire farming village despite the fact that there were no soldiers present?” She turned on him. “You remember Irridusk, don’t you? You visited the refugee camp there. You met the survivors—old women, a few children—and heard how the rest of their families were slaughtered like animals.”
His voice shook. “I didn’t have anything to do with that. I’d only been your bodyguard for a few weeks at that point, and I hadn’t passed on any information other than that you were driven to be everything your mother expected you to be and that removing the queen wouldn’t give my father an easier road to victory as he’d assumed.”
“And I’m just supposed to take your word for that?” Her chin rose, and she pointed a finger at him. “You’re a liar.”
“I became a liar.” He sounded like he was in agony. “I had to be if I wanted to survive. I was simply following orders.”
“If that’s supposed to make me feel better—”
“You would have done the same thing if you were in my place. Why can’t you see that?”
She glared at him. “Because it isn’t true.”
He threw his hands in the air. “If your mother had ordered you to go undercover as a spy in my father’s keep, you would have done it. No hesitation.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“It’s not—I was following orders! Just like you would have done.”
“Did you really follow orders?” She stood, a strange energy vibrating through her, and Tal rolled to the balls of his feet as if anticipating an attack. “Or did you improvise? Because I’ve met Alaric, and I don’t think he has the imagination to design the kind of betrayal you—”
“What would you have had me do differently?” Now he was the one taking a step forward, frustration practically humming off him. “Disobey my father—my king? Become a traitor to my kingdom and my family and end up with my head on a pole? Or maybe you think your mother was the only parent in this equation who demanded absolute obedience. Charis, trust me, if you’d been sent to spy on me in Montevallo, you’d have done whatever it took to fulfill your mother’s expectations.”
“I wouldn’t have taken your heart.” Her words sliced through the air, tipped in agony, bleeding regret. He looked as though she’d struck him.
“I tried.” Pain filled his voice. “I expected to see you as nothing more than Calera’s formidable, warmongering princess. And you lived up to those expectations beautifully for a week or two. But then... then you weren’t eating or sleeping well. You were having nightmares when you did sleep. You were taking care of everyone else at the expense of yourself, and it became increasingly clear that you cared deeply about your kingdom and about stopping the war.”
She opened her mouth to argue, then snapped it closed and watched him warily. He ran a hand through his hair and leaned against the table as if suddenly exhausted.
“I thought it would be all right to be your friend. Someone needed to watch out for you the way a friend does, and I told myself it was my job. That, somehow, I could be what Father expected of me and also be what you needed.” He scrubbed his hand over his face and looked at the floor. “I didn’t realize how far gone I was until I learned about your betrothal to Vahn.” His lips twisted. “I stood there in the war room near you, my heart bleeding in my chest like the fool I am as you announced what you’d done to secure a treaty.”
She was quiet for a moment as she sorted through his words, hunting for lies. Finally she said, “You stopped talking to me for nearly two weeks after that.”
“I was terrified.” He met her gaze without flinching, though she could see that baring his heart like this was costing him. “I should have been excited and happy about the treaty. My people would finally have port access. No more starvation or being forced into the army to risk their lives fighting Calera. I would be able to go home and resume my normal life again.”
Slowly she sank back into the chair, still watching him as though at any moment he might make a sudden move.
He hesitated, and a faint pink flushed his cheeks. Then he said, “I didn’t feel happy. I felt like you’d just reached into my chest and cut out my heart.”
The silence that followed his words was punctuated by the mast creaking and the dull slap of water against the boat.
“You should have either told me the truth or walked away,” she said quietly.
“I know.” He looked into her eyes, and she couldn’t find any deception. “I was selfish. I wanted to stay at your side, and I kept convincing myself I had more time before I told you the truth. If I’d just trusted you with it instead—”
“You’d probably be dead.”
“It’s a good possibility.”
“If Mother had learned of it, it’s the only possibility.”
“I never intended to hurt you. I might have hidden my true identity from you, but I never hid myself.” He let his hands fall to his sides. “You know me better than anyone else, and so someday I hope you look beyond my name and my job and see my heart, because in there, I’m exactly who I’ve always been—just a boy in love with a girl he knew he could never have.”
His words settled between them, and she waited for him to ask her for more. For forgiveness, for understanding, or at the very least for an explanation of her own feelings, but he didn’t. Instead he gave her a sad, crooked smile and sat across from her.
“You called me over here for a reason. What do you need?”
For the next hour they strategized, and it was infuriating how easy it was to fall back into old patterns. She could still finish his thoughts. He could still anticipate hers. They could fill in the gaps between words with a single look.
By the time she was ready to rest, she was certain that if she was unable to get a message to Nalani herself, Tal knew exactly what to say. The armada would know how to use the poison, and Tal’s time spent helping in the sick bay had given him insight into exactly the kind of desperate situation the Rakuuna queen was facing, which Nalani could use to pressure the queen into taking whatever deal Alaric offered once Nalani agreed to marry Vahn.
Maybe Charis couldn’t trust Tal with her heart again, but she could trust him with this. He’d traded his own life for the safety of her people. This asked far less of him.
Three days later, the boat slowed noticeably. A flurry of hushed conversation erupted throughout the brig.
“We must be entering Arborlay’s harbor,” Tal said as he and Holland approached Charis.
Her knees threatened to give out.
All this time, she’d been running toward vengeance because saving her kingdom was all she had left. Now, faced with the real possibility that she’d done everything she could to keep her promises yet wouldn’t be alive to see it through, pain spread through her, tender and raw.
She’d never see the streets of her city lit for the Sister Moons Festival again.
She wouldn’t have children she could nurture like Father had nurtured her.
She’d never dance again, kiss again, sink her teeth into a ripe summer peach and let its juices run down her chin.
But maybe, if her last act was to make sure her people and their allies could drive the invaders from her land, she would be remembered as the young queen who gave everything she had to Calera.
She rolled her shoulders and craned her neck, trying to loosen knots of tension.
“What’s the plan for meeting the Rakuuna queen?” Tal was watching her carefully, and she stopped trying to release the knots in her shoulders.
“I’ll do what I can to appeal to her desire to have power in Calera and to save the Rakuuna who are sick.” She couldn’t resist stretching her stiff neck once more. “If I can manage it, she’ll honor you for being Alaric’s son, and you can do what we discussed.”
“Would you like me to help with that?” Tal gestured toward her neck.
She lifted her chin, ignoring the angry pull of her muscles. “Absolutely not.”
“I mean no disrespect. I just thought perhaps you’d want to look more... royal when you arrive.” He glanced once more at her. Heat flushed her skin as she realized he’d been talking about her wild mess of tangled hair.
“He’s right.” Holland gave her a long look. “You’ve been without a handmaiden for quite some time, and it shows. Let him help you at least look like the queen you are. I’m going to go make sure the others know that if they reveal the truth about the poison, I’ll gut them where they stand.”
Charis met Tal’s gaze, and the heat beneath her skin spiraled into her belly.
Somehow the thought of him doing her hair was even more daunting than the idea of him rubbing her neck, but he and Holland had a point. She didn’t want to meet the invader queen looking like a vagabond who’d never seen a hairbrush.
“I’m ready to be of service. Unless you’d rather Holland try his luck.” He quirked one eyebrow, and she sighed.
“Fine. It’s not like you can do much anyway. There are no supplies in the brig.”
“Hmm.” He was already hunting through the small stash of fishing gear on the table, muttering under his breath.
Moments later, Charis was seated, with Tal standing behind her, an assortment of objects strewn at his feet. As he began gently tugging his fingers through her snarled curls, untangling them bit by bit, she checked and double-checked her nails as if it was the most important thing in the world, despite the fact that she’d already cleaned them as much as was possible in her current situation.
If she closed her eyes, she could almost be back in her chambers in the palace, seated at her vanity, while Tal undid whatever monstrosity of a hairdo her older handmaiden Mrs. Sykes had given her. Laughing at his jokes. Leaning against the solid warmth of his chest. Feeling something deliciously fizzy spread through her veins as he whispered against her ear.
She wanted to tell herself those moments were lies. The callous game of an expert spy.
But if she believed Tal’s story of accidentally falling in love with her, then those moments were real and precious and gone forever.
She wasn’t sure which was worse.
Her eyes stung with unshed tears, and the table blurred as she tried to blink them away. Behind her, Tal stilled, his hands wrapped in her hair, and then he said quietly, “Do you remember when Mrs. Sykes put your hair up in that awful bun? You looked like someone’s grandmother. The kind that smacks your hand if you reach for a cookie.”
She drew in a shaky breath and said nothing. He began scooping her curls toward the top of her head.
“Or that time when I still hadn’t admitted to myself how much I wanted to be with you, and you wore that dress, and I walked into the bath chamber, took one look at you, and forgot how to talk in complete sentences?”
“I don’t want to do this.” She’d meant to sound firm and commanding, but her voice wavered with grief.
“I’m almost done.” He bent to grab some things from the floor and then resumed work on her hair.
“I meant... I don’t want to remember.” The table blurred again, and she blinked furiously before any tears could fall.
He was silent for a long moment as he worked on her hair. Then, letting his hands rest on her shoulders, he said softly against her ear, “And I don’t want to forget.”
His breath warmed her neck, and his fingers traced a gentle pattern against her skin. Something warm unfurled in her belly and spread, leaving a trail of heat in her veins. A slight tip of her head, and she could lean against him. A small turn of her chin, and her mouth would be next to his.
“Charis.” He whispered her name, his lips grazing her earlobe, and she tilted her face toward him.
For a long moment, his lips hovered a breath away from hers. Nothing existed but the heat of his skin and the delicate ache of longing within her.
Then Holland barked an instruction to Grim, and Charis was suddenly, exquisitely aware that she had an audience and that she’d nearly made the foolish choice to give in to her attraction to Tal.
She leaned away from him. Before she could figure out what to say, he stepped around to face her, looked her over with a critical eye, and said, “It isn’t the fanciest updo I’ve ever managed, but it will do.” His cheeks were pink, and he sounded out of breath. The warmth in his eyes as he looked at her sent another spiral of heat through her veins.
Quickly, she reached up to pat her hair and found her curls arranged beneath a small length of fish net and secured with hooks bent into coiled hairpins. Casting about for something, anything, that would steer the conversation into safer territory, she said, “If being a spy doesn’t work out, you could always be a hairdresser.”
He leaned toward her and said with sudden ferocity, “You aren’t going to die today, Charis Willowthorn. You’re a force of nature. You’re faster, smarter, and stronger than anyone who comes against you. Don’t you dare walk into that palace thinking you don’t have options.”
He wrapped his hand around hers and squeezed. “There are always options. Always one more strategy that you can see, even if no one else can. When you meet their queen, remember who you are. The only person who should be terrified today is the invader sitting on your throne.”
The ship bumped up against the pier with a jolt. Above them, the door opened, and the slap of a Rakuuna’s steps echoed from the stairs.
The chaos within her steadied as she held Tal’s gaze. He believed in her, and despite how much pain it brought her to admit it, he knew her best. “Thank you,” she said before she lost the courage to allow him to see that his words had helped.
As a Rakuuna opened the brig and ordered the humans to leave the ship in a single file line, Charis raised her chin and strode toward her destiny.