Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
T he queen looked as though she were moments away from meeting whatever god she believed in.
Her skin had no vitality left, turning it nearly translucent.
Her pale hair was stringy and looked brittle, strewn about on her pillow with no further effort to arrange it in a style.
When I watched her chest for a moment, I could barely see it rise and fall with her breath.
Desha sat on the other side of her mother’s bed, one of her mother’s hands held in both of hers.
She stared at the queen, her eyes clear and her cheeks unmarred by tears, but I supposed she might be cried out.
This had been going on for so long, and if Kason were truly dead—something I still had difficulty believing, even though the atmosphere of the palace seemed to confirm that reality at every turn—her emotions may have all but deserted her.
I saw no sign of Telurin, but it was entirely possible he was wrapped up in the investigation.
Or perhaps he didn’t want to see his mother’s final moments.
I wouldn’t blame him for that.
Desha looked up at our entrance. “Dr. Orella.”
“We’ve come to record your mother’s vitals. If you’ll excuse us, Your Highness.”
Desha rose and placed her mother’s hand delicately on the bedcovers before stepping toward the foot of the bed.
Her gaze traveled over me, and I resisted the urge to check that the headwrap covering my hair and ears was still in place, and the high collar of the borrowed dark-green apprentice robes covered Rhianough’s marks at my neck—yes, marks, since I’d discovered the second strike from her snakes had left a mirror of the first mark on the other side of my neck.
I kept my eyes cast down, as a lower-ranking near-peasant would, and prayed my disguise held up to the princess’s scrutiny.
Under my skin, the borrowed magic buzzed like a swarm of hornets, suddenly intense and impossible to ignore.
Almost as though it recognized it was almost time for me to use it, and it wanted to be used.
Was this what Jannica had felt like all the time?
How could it not drive you mad? Without my input, my feet carried me around Dr. Orella, steps closer to the bed and the queen.
I reached for the curtains surrounding the bed, intending to give my proximity some legitimacy, and pulled them open wider.
As I did so, my left sleeve dropped slightly, exposing the edge of my marriage mark.
“You!” Desha spat.
I expected the next word out of her mouth to be Guards! —but it didn’t happen. Instead, she snarled, reached into the folds of her skirts, and pulled out a sinister-looking knife.
“Do it!” Dr. Orella shouted at me before launching herself at Desha.
I couldn’t spare another thought for the doctor or the princess.
I had to focus on what needed to be done—curing the queen.
I dove for the bed, grabbing Queen Daro’s hand with both of mine in somewhat of a mockery of how her daughter had held her other hand moments ago, and released the magic that was slowly driving me insane.
Gods, let there be nothing untoward about how this magic worked.
It had to operate the same as every other bit of magic—that is, using intention, conscious direction, and will—or this escapade was going to end very badly indeed.
I focused on what I wanted the outcome to be rather than what I wanted the magic to do, since I didn’t have enough knowledge of how temporal magic worked.
Queen Daro must be returned to health.
Queen Daro must be cured.
Queen Daro must live .
I repeated the three phrases, silently, as though they were a spell in and of themselves.
Slowly, I felt the magic take shape. Not a shape I recognized.
It wasn’t the same as any magic I’d used in the past. It felt utterly different, foreign, in a way I couldn’t explain.
Almost…unnatural? As though I were working against the proper order of things.
Which, I supposed I was. Time was meant to flow in one direction, and here I was, attempting to interrupt that flow, to turn it back, if only for a portion of reality. Queen Daro’s reality, specifically.
It seemed as though everything paused: the queen’s chest stopped rising and falling, the scuffle behind me between Dr. Orella and Desha halted mid-movement.
Then, I felt a moment of vertigo as part of the world swung in the opposite direction it was meant to.
That unnatural feeling strengthened, twisting my stomach, but I didn’t dare let the magic go, not yet.
Queen Daro must be returned to health.
Queen Daro must be cured.
Queen Daro must live .
This had to work. There was truly no other option. One shot only, one chance?—
Something slammed into me, stealing my breath and concentration.
I hadn’t noticed the world moving forward again, but suddenly everything was too real —too loud, too bright.
Pain ricocheted through me, a sharp bolt that made me gasp and lurch away from the queen’s bed, even as my left arm went completely limp.
“What have you done?” Desha screamed. She held her knife aloft, where it dripped blood—my blood, I realized, as hot stickiness flowed down my arm, dripping off my boneless fingers onto the floor.
I glanced at the foot of the bed and saw Dr. Orella’s motionless form there. Gods, I hoped she still lived.
“I saved her,” I gasped, stumbling another step back. “I swear! She’ll live!”
Another shriek, this one wordless, as Desha ripped one of the curtains from the bed in a frenzy. After a moment, the noise she was making coalesced into a repeated “No, no, no,” and I suddenly realized the truth.
At the same time, Desha lunged for her mother.
I leaped forward, reaching out with my good hand to grab her knife-wielding one.
At the same time, the door to the chamber burst open in a flurry of noise.
I yanked Desha away from the queen, but she managed to jerk her hand away.
Between one breath and the next, I was staring at the hilt of the knife sticking out of my chest. On the right side, I noted absently, so not near my heart.
That was good, I supposed.
My knees gave out as guards swarmed us. I crumpled to the floor, the world already starting to slip away, when I heard the voice I’d thought I’d never hear again.
“Mo? Mokido!”
Kason . Was he here? Truly?
I struggled to open my eyes again, to see for myself, but they wouldn’t obey.
And then, there was nothing.
Gentle fingers brushed my brow, their touch soft but sure.
I murmured my pleasure at the feel of the rough skin with enough texture to make the sensation memorable, then sighed in happiness.
I was in that liminal space between wakefulness and sleep, where the world lost its edges and reality could be anything I wanted it to be. Right now, this was perfection.
“Mo?”
I hummed in response to my name, unwilling to open my eyes.
“Mo, can you wake up, sweetheart?”
Mmm, sweetheart. I liked that.
“I know you can hear me. I saw that tiny smile.” A callused thumb traveled along my lower lip, then teased the corner. “Open your eyes, love.”
Oh, love. I liked that even more.
My eyes fluttered open to see Kason sitting beside me. Worn, tired, sporting a blackened eye and a cut on one of his cheeks, but whole. Healthy.
Reality rushed back in, and my eyes shot open fully. “You—you were?—”
He cupped my face. “No. It was a lie. They ambushed me and knocked me out, then dumped me in the sewer close to where the runoff drains into the ocean, no doubt hoping I wouldn’t wake before I drowned. But I did.”
“They accused me of murdering you. But I would never?—”
“I know. Shh, I know.” He ran a hand over my forehead. “It was Desha and her companion she had at dinner the other night. Evart.”
I barely recalled what the man had looked like, but that wasn’t the important part of this. “But why?”
“She wanted the throne.”
“Telurin?”
“I think she tried to?—”
“No, wait.” I brought a hand up to cover the one he still had on my cheek. “Tell me later. Kiss me now.”
With a groan, Kason bent forward to acquiesce.
His lips felt rough on mine, but mine probably weren’t any better—dry and chapped after lying in bed for who knew how long.
But the texture of his kiss didn’t matter, only that he was here to provide it.
It started slow, soft, sweet, but need burst through me, and I found my hands delving into his hair, holding him close.
“I’ve wanted you for so long,” I murmured against his mouth.
“Oh my gods, same,” he breathed.
Belatedly, I realized where I was lying—on his bed—and moved to shift over so he could join me on it.
“No, wait— You’re injured,” he protested.
“Am I?” Truthfully, I didn’t feel injured. Sluggish, perhaps, but I attributed that to sleeping for overlong.
“She stabbed you. Twice. Once in the left shoulder, once just below your right clavicle.” Kason removed his lounge clothes as he spoke, shedding the light, comfortable pants and shirt before climbing into the bed beside me. “You’ve been asleep for three days, and Dr. Orella?—”
“She lives?” Thank the gods.
“Yes. Desha knocked her out, nothing more. She gave you some healing potions, but even so, you lost a lot of blood and nerves were likely damaged, based on where you were struck, she said.” Kason arranged himself on his side, facing me, and I mirrored his position.
He swept a lock of errant hair away from my forehead. “You shouldn’t be this healed yet.”
I had only one explanation for that. “I am claimed by a goddess.”
You are , Rhianough confirmed in my head.
“Twice over, I see.” His hand dipped lower to trace the lines of Rhianough’s second mark on my skin. “It looks good on you.”
This close, I could see the bruising under his eye was turning green at the edges. The cut on his cheek was closed, but red and angry-looking. It traveled from his ear almost to the corner of his nose. I trailed a fingertip underneath the mark. “This will probably scar.”
“It’ll be dashing.”
“Sure.” I chuckled, then my smile fell away. “I thought I’d lost you.”
“Same.”
“I almost used the magic intended for your mother to bring you back.”
His blue eyes softened. “Mo…”
“I love you.” I’d thought the words would hurt to say, but they didn’t.
They felt good, as though I were acknowledging a truth I’d tried to deny for so long.
Like forcing myself to believe the sky was green, then admitting, finally, the truth that it was blue.
I didn’t need to fight anymore—I didn’t want to fight anymore.
I just wanted the truth to live, unveiled, between us. “I love you so much, and I?—”
He cut off my words with a forceful kiss, one that stole my words, my breath, any sense that wasn’t filled with him .
His scent surrounded me, worn, oiled leather and metal, the spark of magic that we shared.
He tasted of tea and a hint of sweetness, and suddenly, I wanted so much more from him.
I met his tongue with mine, beginning a battle neither of us, and both of us, would win.
After untold minutes, he broke away, panting, pressing kisses to my jaw, my neck.
“I love you. I love you. Oh gods, I love you.” He paused, his nose buried in my hair. “I should have told you so much sooner. Before we even came to the palace. But you— I wasn’t sure if you’d?—”
“Believe you?”
“Run.” His lips quirked. “I know you, Mo. You’re as skittish as a stray cat.”
I acknowledged that with a tilt of my head. “I might have,” I admitted. “This…it’s scary, right? We shouldn’t work.”
“But we do. At least, I think we do.” Kason looked at me, evaluating my expression. For once, I wasn’t trying to hide anything, so I hoped he saw the truth on my face.
“I think so too.” I laughed, a note of disbelief in it. “Gods know why, but we do.”
“Do you understand how difficult it was for me to reconcile wanting to catch you because I wanted to be with you and not simply to bring you to justice?” He shook his head ruefully. “Gods, the nights I lay awake, battling myself and my oaths with what I truly wanted.”
“I wanted you to catch me,” I admitted, snagging my lower lip with one of my fangs for an instant. “I wouldn’t have stayed caught, mind you, but…”
“Mm-hmm. I seem to recall you stayed caught pretty well once I had you.”
“Only because you foolishly married me without realizing it. I’m not so much a monster that I’d abandon you to your fate.”
“I know. I always knew that.” He caught my eyes for a moment more before kissing me again. Slow but with intent and intensity.
“Make love with me,” I whispered against his lips.
“Yes” was his simple answer, and then there was nothing but hands, mouths, and soft promises made with words and skin.