Chapter Seven
Thea
Ispent most of the meal shoving the food around my plate, arranging it in a pattern that gave the illusion I’d eaten despite the fact that my stomach was far too unsteady to even consider it.
When dinner, thankfully, ended, I cleared my throat and dabbed at the corner of my mouth with a napkin. “How were the petitions today?”
Hyrax watched me for a long moment, his head tilted just enough that grey hair dangled forward onto his cheekbone.
“I had hoped that you would join me,” he admitted.
Holding onto that pleasant, unfazed smile became increasingly difficult. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t ready yet.”
His brows pinched together in a show of understanding. “Of course. But next time?”
“She’ll be there next time,” Caldrius agreed for me, fingers stroking against the back of my shoulder.
Slow enough to evade Hyrax’s notice, I leaned away from his touch, and he snickered under his breath.
“It’s important,” Hyrax continued, drinking deeply from his wineglass. “With any regime change, it’s essential for people to greet their new rulers, to actually see them on the throne. I’ve allowed you time to adjust, but I do have certain expectations of you as my heir.”
Something hard and demanding laced his voice. I bit down hard on my tongue, silencing the protestations that came to mind.
The people already knew who I was.
Not to mention, this wasn’t just a simple regime change.
And I didn’t want to rule on the throne beside him.
Hyrax wasn’t even a true ruler. Ruling required so much more than allowing Mortals to bow before you.
“It’s hard to put a timeline on grief,” I told him, feeling fire in my bones even without magic to fuel it.
Hyrax’s eyes snapped to mine.
“I’m grieving the loss of people I viewed as family, after all,” I reminded him, carefully folding my napkin into neat squares. “You should understand how difficult it is to lose someone you loved.”
For a moment, the three of us all sat eerily still. Even the clicking of the clock in the parlor seemed to pause.
“That is entirely different!” Hyrax yelled, rising to his feet in such a rush that the table shook. “Pasnia was my wife! Those were traitors!”
Hyrax’s blue eyes stared me down, the shade so familiar it made something deep inside me ache.
There was so much pain in that gaze—true, unabashed agony—the kind that made me feel the tiniest inkling of sympathy for him.
As I stared at him, eyes wide and unblinking, I realized that regardless of everything else that had ever happened or any wrong he had ever committed, Hyrax hadn’t always been a monster. Not completely, at least.
No one could love another with a fierceness like that without a tiny part of goodness in their soul.
Pasnia was gone, though, and Hyrax wasn’t the same God I had met in the Underworld when his love for her had still been alive.
Her death had left him broken.
Caldrius took hold of my hand, intertwining our fingers in clear view.
“Yes, they were traitors. It’s one reason I’ve been so insistent about giving my wife time before forcing her into the role of heir.
When my brother betrayed me, it was unbearable, both because of his actions and because I mourned the bond we once shared with each other. ”
Hyrax stood unmoving for a long while, huffing as he stared at me. I held his gaze, even as Caldrius’ grip on my hand tightened and goosebumps peppered across my flesh. Looking away was impossible. I couldn’t unsee what I was witnessing in my father’s eyes.
Eventually though, Hyrax’s gaze wandered to my hand in Caldrius’ before coming to rest on Caldrius himself.
Slowly, he nodded at him and took his seat again.
“No more talk of this,” he announced, clearing his throat gruffly. “There is an abundance of time for you to learn the requirements of ruling. We have an eternity, my dear, for you to step into the role of a Goddess among Mortals. Tonight, let us focus on family—our family, together here at last.”
“A wonderful idea, my Liege,” Caldrius agreed with a smile, beckoning towards a servant and holding out his glass expectantly.
Hyrax lost himself in conversation with Caldrius, the two of them reminiscing on some old tale from the Underworld as if that entire outburst hadn’t happened at all.
They paused only to instruct the servants to take the uneaten food to the dining hall, so that any palace staff could have it.
I sat quietly as they talked, chiming in with gentle laughter or sounds of agreement when necessary, but kept my attention fleeting, preferring to take in my surroundings rather than listen to them talk.
The suite had changed completely.
Gone were the banners of Athenia, the golden furnishings, the portraits of Zion and dragons. Gone was… everything.
The walls were bare. The windows were free of curtains. In fact, the only real decor that had been added to the space were the vases of black dahlias. Otherwise, it was as cold and empty as the Underworld had been.
When dessert was over and sunlight faded into moonlight, Hyrax leaned back in his seat and scratched at his jaw as he quietly glanced out the terrace doors to the night sky.
In the silence, Caldrius’ fingers danced over my shoulder once more.
I lifted my chin to meet his gaze, surprised to find his brow lifted, lips holding back a grin, eyes containing more than a fair bit of understanding.
Gods, when he smirked like that…
It looked eerily similar to the smirk of another Descendant of Zion, one whose touch I would beg to feel.
Pressure locked down on my chest, pangs of longing and loneliness hitting me in rapid succession. I moved to shift back in my seat, but his hand locked around my shoulder, the understanding in his gaze shifting to something darker, something more serious.
Something more like a warning.
His gaze flickered to Hyrax, and he leaned forward, whispering in my ear, “He will dismiss us when he’s ready for us to leave.”
“I’m tired,” I responded aloud, feeling the gazes of both men fall upon me as I pushed out of my seat. I no longer cared if I offended either of them. “Thank you for dinner, but I will return to my suite now.”
“Are you out of your mind?”
Caldrius’ voice was sharp as he shut the door to my suite behind us.
I turned to face him with a tired sigh, taking in the sight of his flushed cheeks, tense shoulders, and shadowed eyes with a twinge of apprehension in my gut. His chest rose and fell steadily with heavy, irritated breaths.
“You are walking a very thin line, Theadora.”
“I know exactly what I’m doing.”
His hand snapped out to capture my wrist as I shifted away from him, pulling me back and forcing me to meet the weight of his gaze.
“You think because you stood against that farce of a Dragon that you’re prepared to stand against a God? This isn’t a game, Thea. There will be very real consequences if Hyrax suspects you’re willing to stand against him.”
A chill raced down my spine at his words. Still, I put on a good show of squaring my shoulders as I lifted my chin proudly.
“I know what I’m doing,” I repeated. “And believe me, I’m certainly not playing games.”
I was ready to dance across that line, knowing exactly how thin it was, as I tried to kill Hyrax and reclaim my kingdom.
He scoffed, nearly throwing my arm away from him as he released it.
“No games, hmm?” He moved across the parlor to the bar cart, keeping his back to me as he poured amber liquid from the decanter into one of the crystal glasses. Without lifting his gaze, he held it out to me and began pouring another for himself.
“As you made clear on the day you proposed this marriage arrangement between us, I don’t have many allies in this castle.”
His jaw twitched when I referenced our marriage as little more than an arrangement, but I ignored him as I sank into the stiff couch.
Hadn’t this couch once seemed comfortable? All at once, the fabric felt too tough. The back was too stiff. Everything about it seemed wrong.
Or perhaps the room itself seemed wrong.
Or the suite did.
Or the entire fucking castle seemed wrong.
Caldrius rolled his neck, a pop echoing.
“You’re going to...” He paused, glancing around me over his shoulder. “Accept this then?”
I downed the whiskey in my glass and handed it back to him, shifting forward in my seat so that I could set about removing the many pins in my hair. My head was throbbing from the pinching tension on my scalp, and my neck already ached from the damnable weight of balancing the crown on my head.
Caldrius sat the glass back on the bar cart, lifting his brows in silent question to ask if I needed another. I shook my head. What I needed right now was a good night’s sleep, not to be sharing whiskey with him.
For a moment, he just stood and watched me, enraptured by the way my hands worked through the curls in my hair.
“I suppose I should be relieved then,” he mused, tracking the movements of my fingers in my hair.
“You can feel however you want about it.”
Tongue darting out to wet his lips, he lowered himself to a crouch before me.
Without taking his eyes from mine, he reached up, running his hand through the blonde strands of my hair until he found the last pin and gently pulled it away, letting my hair topple down freely.
He traced over those tendrils with his eyes and fingers, holding them between his forefinger and thumb until they ended and his hands came to encircle my hips.
“Well, now that you’ve started adapting, this seems like a good time to discuss something I’ve had on my mind.”
My spine was rigid, locked with tension. Gods, he was so close to me, and so infuriatingly tall. Even in this position, with me on the couch and him crouched before me, his face was slightly aligned with my own.
I swallowed. “And what is that?”
His thumb was tracing delicate circles along the bodice of my dress. I could almost feel his touch on my bare skin despite the corset.