Twenty-Eight
“YOU CAN’T GO pick a fight with Ferris,” Charis said firmly.
“Watch me,” Tal snarled, turning toward the door.
“Wait!” She scrambled to her feet. “What if I’m wrong?”
“Are you?” He held her gaze, fury in his eyes.
Slowly she shook her head. “No.”
“Then I’ll be back here momentarily with a bloodied and beaten Ferris. In fact, I think I’ll invite Holland and Reuben to the party, and we’ll make sure Lord Everly gets his due as well.” He grabbed the doorknob.
She threw herself between him and the door. “No.”
“Charis.” He looked at the ceiling as if searching for patience and then tipped his head down to meet her eyes. “That man hired the assassin who shot an arrow at your heart. And you were poisoned, remember? At the Everlys’ house! It must have been his voice I heard saying to put poison in your dinner in case you hadn’t already ingested enough from your drink.”
“I know.”
“That means the Everlys must have been working with Lady Channing all along.”
She sagged against the door as the true weight of the Everlys’ treachery sank in.
“And that means they’re traitors who tried to kill you. Repeatedly.” His voice shook. “I told you I never wanted to see you slip away from me again like you did on the floor of the Everlys’ dining room, and now I know who to blame. You aren’t going to stop me from giving them exactly what they deserve.”
“I have to.” The words scraped over her tongue, bitter and raw. She was so furious she wanted to tear the Everlys apart piece by piece until there was nothing left, but a chess match wasn’t won with emotion.
“Why?” He placed his hands against the door on either side of her and leaned close. “If they were working with Lady Channing, then they were working with the Rakuuna from the start. Which means Father isn’t the one who wants all four heirs here for the wedding. The Everlys do. Those rumors about you?” His breath fanned her face, and she caught a whiff of black tea and peppermint. “I’d bet every drop of blood in my body the Everlys started them. They can’t just kill you, Holland, and Nalani. They have to discredit you first so that Calerans accept Ferris as their king.”
“I know,” she whispered.
“Then why protect them?” He went still, his eyes boring into hers. “Is this about us? It is, isn’t it? You don’t trust my motives, or my will to do what’s necessary, or—”
“It’s not that.” She waited for a twinge of pain from the wound he’d given her, but somewhere along the way, it had knit itself back together, and the scar tissue held.
His eyes locked onto hers. “It isn’t?”
She shook her head, and the fragile hope that bloomed in his eyes made the small torch he’d once lit within her glow a little brighter.
“Then help me understand, because right now, all I want to do is hurt the ones who’ve hurt you, and I don’t see a single reason why I should hold back.”
“Because taking the Everlys out of the equation creates additional problems right now.” Her eyes drifted down to his lips, and she ordered herself to stop it immediately.
They were surrounded by enemies. Her life hung by a thread, and her power-hungry cousin held the blade. Everyone she loved was in danger. Now was the time for strategic thinking and careful planning, not for wishing she could have one last, wild kiss with Tal just to see if the scar tissue held and the ache inside softened into something tender.
“Please stop looking at me like that,” Tal said quietly, his voice full of the same longing that lived within her.
She dragged her gaze back up to his eyes. “I’m not looking at you like anything.”
“Liar.” He breathed the word, tipping his head and bringing his face closer to hers. “You’re distracting me from vengeance, and you’re doing an excellent job, but I’m still going to walk out of this room and do what needs to be done.”
“I’ll do what needs to be done.” Charis lifted her chin. “But it has to be public. I need to unmask the Everlys in front of both the Rakuuna and those with influence in Calera. If I do that, I can silence the rumors about me with the truth about them, and I can force Queen Bai’elsha to switch her allegiance to me or risk losing the serpanicite she needs from your father.”
He was silent for a long moment, his face still close to hers, his scent wrapping around her like a memory she’d almost forgotten. Finally, he said, “You’re right.”
“I know.”
He smiled a little, but it disappeared quickly. “There’s only one event that will bring the Rakuuna, the Everlys, and those with influence in Calera into the same room.”
She couldn’t meet his eyes. “The wedding.”
He stepped back. Silence fell between them, broken only by the patter of rain against her window and the faint crackle from the wick of the lamp lit beside her bed. Then he put a hand into his coat pocket and said, “I once thought seeing you marry my brother would be more than I could endure, but I was wrong.”
She frowned.
“I can endure the wedding ceremony, and the thought of you with him, and the years of marriage afterward. I’ll hate every second of it, but I can survive it.” He pulled something from his pocket and stepped closer. “What I can’t endure is not being the one to protect you. To stand between you and the rest of the world that always seems to want something from you but very rarely gives you anything in return.”
“Tal—”
“I can’t endure hurting you. I can’t survive losing your trust. Losing you.”
It was impossible to look away. She could see his heart written on his face, and the tender, aching warmth within her flared a little brighter.
His eyes darkened as he watched her expression, and then he said, “I brought you a present.”
She blinked as he opened his hand to reveal a teacup painted in delicate swirls of blue and silver, just like the ones in Rames’s basement. “What’s this?”
“My favorite teacup.”
“Your... what?”
“I don’t have a holster, but I could get one. I’m a prince, so it would probably be pretty easy. Just commission it or—”
She held up a hand to stop the flow of words. “What are you talking about?”
His voice softened. “Remember when we went horseback riding and discussed which odious son of King Alaric you might have to marry? We joked that fussy Prince Percival wore his favorite teacup in a holster.”
She eyed him warily. “I remember.”
“I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced.” He bowed, low and extravagant. “Prince Percival Talin Penbyrn, at your service.”
She let out a tiny, incredulous snort of laughter. “I know who you are.”
He gave her his crooked smile. “You know almost everything important there is to know about me, except this.”
“A teacup?” She stared at the delicate thing. Had Tal lost his mind? Months of captivity at the hands of the Rakuuna after being tossed to the wolves in Calera by one’s own father would be enough to break anyone.
“Remember? We were discussing your upcoming marriage, and you were worried about managing a man you’d never met.”
She nodded, watching his face closely.
He held up the cup, his eyes fixed on hers. “I told you. Every man has a favorite teacup. Once you know what that is, you have the leverage you need to break him if you want to.”
She stared at the cup for a long moment while the tender thing inside her became almost painful to the touch and then finally said, “You’ve never even seen this thing before today.”
“I drink from it all the time.”
“You stole it from the basement of Rames’s bakery.”
“I would never.”
“Liar.” Her voice was nothing but a breath.
He knelt in front of her, holding the cup out to her as if he was offering her a crown. “You’re my teacup, Charis. All you need to do to break me is to tell me to leave you. Please, please don’t tell me to leave.”
He was right. She did know all the important things about him. She knew the depth of his loyalty, and how, even as the world crumbled around them, his only thought was to sacrifice himself in return for the Rakuuna’s promise to let the Calerans live. She knew that he’d lied about his name, but not about his heart. And she knew that his weakness was that he’d wanted more time with her before his truth drove them apart forever.
He’d wounded her, but doing so had wounded him, too.
And she didn’t want to face her fate without him by her side.
With trembling hands, she reached out and wrapped her hands around the teacup, her fingers resting against his. Quietly she said, “I don’t want you to leave.”
His voice trembled as he asked, “Does that mean that you can forgive me?”
Once upon a time, she’d sworn that forgiveness was impossible. That the wound he’d dealt had been a killing blow. But now she found the pain had become a dull bruise, fading a little more every time Tal proved who he truly was in his heart. She pulled him to his feet.
“I forgive you.” She placed the teacup on the vanity with care and turned to find him standing there, longing on his face as he watched her.
“You need to know that I’m still in love with you. I don’t expect you to love me back. I just wanted—I can’t stand keeping secrets from you.”
She couldn’t look away from him.
“I want to kiss you,” he said. “Would that be all—”
She closed the distance between them and pressed her lips to his, and for a few glorious moments, nothing existed but the heat of his skin, the way her body fit against his, and the brilliant light burning in her heart.